Address and Greeting

1:1–2  The wording resembles the first letter’s address (see comment there) except for the addition of “our” in the phrase, in God our Father. This clarifies that God is being presented, not as the Father of Jesus but as the Father of his people and, specifically, of the church of the Thessalonians. The greeting also parallels the first letter’s (again, see the comment there), but it is expanded by the addition of from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, which becomes Paul’s regular form of greeting in later letters (cf. Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:2; Phil. 1:2; Col. 1:2 and for variants, cf. 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4; Philem. 3). It makes explicit what is implicit in the simpler form: God (as author) and the Lord Jesus (as agent) ar…