What we are teaching you now is the Lord’s teaching raises the same question that “for this other reason” raised in 2.13. The verse literally begins “for this to you we say.” Does the word “this” (Good News Translation what) refer backward or forward? Is the Lord’s teaching contained in verse 14 or in 15b ff.? The answer to this question is not immediately clear, since verses 15-17 repeat in more specific terms the content of verse 14. However, it is practically certain that “this” refers forward to the sentence which follows. Paul has announced his theme briefly in verse 14; now, as he prepares to expand it, he makes a solemn appeal to the authority of Christ. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch here, as in 2.13, makes this clear by reversing the two parts of verse 15: “You need have no fear: those who have already died will not be at any disadvantage compared with us, who are still alive when the Lord comes. For this, I can appeal to a word of the Lord.” Bible en français courant solves the problem by beginning “here is…,” an expression which in French is regularly forward-looking. Good News Translation‘s colon after the Lord’s teaching has the same function, but when the passage is read aloud, the punctuation needs a sensitive reader to interpret it with the appropriate intonation. Translator’s New Testament expands the text and divides the sentence: “We are now telling you something which the Lord himself said. It is that those of us who are alive….”
To make clear that the Lord’s teaching refers to what follows, one may use Good News Translation‘s wording of a similar one, for example, “what we are going to tell you is just what the Lord taught.” Otherwise, the transposition of this first clause to the end of verse 15 may be the most satisfactory solution, for example, “we who are still alive when the Lord comes, will not go ahead of those who have already died. This is just what the Lord himself taught.”
The identification of participants in this verse raises linguistic problems which have important theological implications. The first we (in we are teaching you) is defined by the word you; it means Paul and his fellow evangelists. There is no need, as we have seen in many other passages, to limit the reference to Paul alone, as Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch does. The second we (before who are alive on the day the Lord comes) is most naturally understood as including both Paul and his companions on the one hand and his readers on the other. Here (as is not always the case) the grammatical structure of the Greek sentence corresponds to the semantic relations between its parts. Paul’s principal concern, expressed in the main verb, is that those who are still living when the Lord comes will have no priority over those who have already died. Paul is not concerned to make any dogmatic statement, either about which of his readers will still be alive at that time, or about whether he will himself still be alive. The we is quite general (and Phillips is not justified in omitting it completely, translating “those who are still living…”). Paul may have assumed, as the Thessalonian Christian did (see 2 Thess. 2.1-3), that Jesus would come soon, and that he, Paul, would be alive at that time. But the question of Paul’s own survival is not for the moment in focus.
The Lord’s teaching is literally “a word of the Lord.” “Word” clearly means here a whole “message” rather than a single word; and “of the Lord” means “from the Lord” rather than “about the Lord.” Paul is not quoting any recorded saying of Jesus. Nor does he seem to be quoting any particular saying which has since been lost. It would certainly be difficult to decide where to insert quotation marks to identify an assumed quotation. Paul may be giving the general content of Jesus’ teaching about the end of the age, such as was later recorded in such passages as Mark 13. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch‘s literal translation “a word of the Lord” (cf. La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée Zürcher Bibel Le Nouveau Testament. Version Synodale Luther 1984 Bijbel in Gewone Taal) is therefore probably too specific; teaching (cf. Bible en français courant Biblia Dios Habla Hoy Traduction œcuménique de la Bible) or “message” (Barclay Phillips) is to be preferred. Moffatt‘s “we tell you, as the Lord has told us” is an attractive restructuring which brings out the similarity in the Greek of “we say” and “word,” as Good News Translation‘s we are teaching and teaching also do.
The Greek connecting word “for” (translated by King James Version Revised Standard Version Moffatt) is rightly omitted in modern English and some other languages.
Verse 15b, and probably verses 16-17 also, contain the teaching referred to in 15a. The connection is shown in Greek by a “that” (cf. King James Version Revised Standard Version) which has the same function as the colon in Good News Translation. The verse continues, in literal translation, “we, the living, the left-behind to the appearing of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.” “We” is emphatic, in contrast to “those who have fallen asleep.” “Not” is also emphatic, showing that Paul’s main concern is to show that Christians who have died will benefit from the coming of Jesus, just as much as those who are still alive. Several translations combine “living” and “left-behind” in some such phrase as “we who are left alive” (New English Bible); Good News Translation omits the second element. Exactly the same expression is used in verse 17. Good News Translation‘s the day is not expressed in this verse in the Greek.
On the word for “appearing,” see the notes on 2.19. On sleep as a metaphor for death, see the notes on verse 13.
Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch restructures the sentence so as to make the dead, rather than the living, its subject: “Those who have already died will … be at no disadvantage….” The meaning is the same, but this translation brings out more clearly the fact that Paul’s main concern, and that of his readers, is for the Christians who have died. Note that in doing this, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch removes the metaphor which Good News Translation translates go ahead of. Alternatively, Good News Bible‘s spatial metaphor may be replaced by a temporal metaphor without distorting the meaning, for example, “we who are alive when the Lord comes will not be with him any sooner than those who have died.”
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .