text: The First Epistle to the Thessalonians is a Pauline epistle of the New Testament of the Christian Bible.  The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle, and is addressed to the church in Thessalonica, in modern-day Greece. It is likely among the first of Paul's letters, probably written by the end of AD 52, in the reign of Claudius although some scholars believe the Epistle to the Galatians may have been written by AD 48. The original language is Koine Greek.
  Background and audience
  Thessalonica is a city on the Thermaic Gulf, which at the time of Paul was within the Roman Empire. Paul visited Thessalonica and preached to the local population, winning converts who became a Christian community. There is debate as to whether or not Paul's converts were originally Jewish. The Acts of the Apostles describes Paul preaching in a Jewish synagogue and persuading people who were already Jewish that Jesus was the Messiah, but in 1 Thessalonians itself Paul says that the converts had turned from idols, suggesting that they were not Jewish before Paul arrived.
  Most New Testament scholars believe Paul wrote this letter from Corinth only months after he left Thessalonica, although information appended to this work in many early manuscripts (e.g., Codices Alexandrinus, Mosquensis, and Angelicus) state that Paul wrote it in Athens after Timothy had returned from Macedonia with news of the state of the church in Thessalonica.