This blog post is adapted from Lutheran Bible Companion Volume 2: Intertestamental Era, New Testament, and Bible Dictionary.

Paul, on his way to Macedonia, has left Timothy at Ephesus with instructions to “charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3). Paul does not describe this “different doctrine” systematically, but from his attacks upon it in 1:3–7; 4:1–3, 7; 6:3–5, 20–21 and from the tenor of his instructions for the regulation of the life of the Church, it is clear that Timothy must do battle with a deeply troubling heresy.

The city of Thessalonica, named after a sister of Alexander the Great, was 
built within sight of one of the great religious landmarks of ancient Greece. 
Southward, across the Thermaikos Bay, the people could see the distant 
slopes of Mount Olympus, traditional home of the gods in their culture.

Founded in 316 BC, Thessalonica became an important harbor and leading city in the region. When the Romans built the Egnatian Way to connect Rome to its eastern interests, Thessalonica was a major stop and the first point of the road that reached the Aegean Sea. It was a natural stopping point also for the apostle Paul as he began mission work in Europe.

If you only know a few Bible passages, Matthew 28:19 is probably one of them: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations ….” It’s an easy passage for the Christian heart to embrace.

Travelers from the west coast of Asia Minor would walk up the Maeander River Valley on their journeys east. If they continued passed Laodicea, along the Lycos River, they would reach the Phrygian city of Colossae in a mountain valley about 125 miles from the coast along a major trade route to Persia.

On the edge of the Datos plain, about six miles from the Aegean Sea, Greek colonists founded the city of Philippi in 356 BC. Philip II of Macedon soon took the city and named it after himself. The Roman Empire recognized the city’s worth, making it one of the last points along the Egnatian Way, which linked Rome with the east and was strategically located in the system of Roman roads for the security of the empire.

The mountain chains of western Asia Minor reach for the Aegean Sea. Where the Ayden range points finger-like toward the island of Samos and the Cayster River flows into the Sea, Ionian Greek colonists founded the prosperous port city of Ephesus (near modern Selcuk).

The Taurus Mountains of south central Asia Minor form the southern rim of a great basin in which one finds the central Anatolian steppe. Grass, shrubs, and salty lakes fill this dry, lower ground over which enterprising Greeks passed in search of Persian riches to the east. Greek (Hellenistic) settlements grew up at Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe alongside the Taurus Mountains.

I was a kid in the late seventies and the early eighties. At the time, Sears was a popular department store. This long-standing company sold a brand of children’s pants called “Toughskins,” named so for their sturdy fabrication, especially at the knees. Like many kids who wore Toughskins, I did my best to test their durability by falling out of trees and sliding into home base. I consistently wore the knees out. So my Mom would iron patches onto the knees to get a few more months out of them. Despite all the protection Toughskins afforded, I still came home with abrasions—red, tender, and filled with dirt. When my Mom would spray on disinfectant, there was the predictable sting, which I always figured was the chemical killing the germs. She always said it was necessary to apply disinfectant to allow the abrasion to heal properly.

The surpassing value of 2 Corinthians is the opportunity it gives us to view the great care—through both Law and Gospel—that Paul and his colleagues provided to a wayward congregation. We read about the sharpness of his rebuke by which he prodded the congregation toward repentance and the soothing comfort he poured out to them as they welcomed the Lord’s Word.