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The ongoing debate about the structure of the earliest Christian communities-an issue of Christian origins-continues to divide Pauline interpreters. While some (e.g. E. Schüssler Fiorenza) are of the view that Paul's communities were "egalitarian" at the outset only to become more rigid and organized with the passing of time, others ( J.H. Elliott) argue that Paul's churches were more structured from their earliest inception. Still others have had a change of mind on this issue. In all of this, Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians has not been given due consideration. Against the social context of the period, Paul's relationships-predominantly described in familial terms-with this community is explored. Paul's parental (nursing-mother, 2:7; father, 2:11) relations towards his convert-children (2:7, 11) show his preference of situating himself above them. Moreover, the Thessalonians' relations to one another as siblings, often understood as imbued with egalitarianism, also demonstrate a similar degree of differentiation (1 Thess 5:12-15) within the community-some siblings are given to lead, to be respected and to admonish the rest. It is concluded that rather than viewing the community at Thessalonica as egalitarian in composition there is evidence here, in what is regarded by many to be Paul's earliest extant letter that some degree of structure was in place at the very beginning.

The apostle Paul’s ambivalence towards the Law (Rom. 7) is investigated against the many pneumatological statements in Rom. 8 and the suggestion is made that the eschatological Spirit–often ignored or overlooked–could be one solution to the subject of Paul and the Law. Not only does the OT and Jewish literature of the period look forward to a time when the Spirit would replace the Torah as a way of life but adoption too is depicted as an eschatological blessing and Paul, aware of such promises, brings the two gifts together in the phrase pneuma huiothesias. For Paul the era of the pneuma is also the era of adoption and-now that the last days have arrived–the apostle wants his readers to be in no doubt as to the moral responsibilities upon them as God’s children. Thus, the expression ‘to be led by the Spirit' (v. 14) is best understood against the immediately preceding phrase 'put to death the misdeeds of the body' (v. 13b). The dual testimony of the Spirit with the adopted son’s spirit not only assures the believer of their new position of sonship but may also point to contemporary practice (not excluding the OT) as a more likely milieu from which Paul got his adoption term.

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