Fee Commentary (1-2 Thess.) Just Arrived in the Mail

First, you will notice in the title of this blogpost I said ‘mail’ and not ‘post’ – this is part of my re-integration into the American language.

Ok, so, I was indeed delighted to get a thicker book-package in the mail.  And, as I was expecting, it was Gordon Fee’s new First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians in the Eerdmans NICNT series (edited by Fee!).

The book is well over 300 pages, but it still appears slim for a NICNT volume.  A flip through will reveal that Fee is not trying to be exhaustive in his interaction with secondary literature (e.g., he does not appear to have done a lot of work with monographs and articles on 1-2 Thessalonians).  Nor does he appear to be trying to divulge the ancient world of the text by heavy comparison with Greco-Roman and Jewish parallel or background texts.  What we have here, I assume, is good, old-fashioned, ‘exegesis’ – the kind of know and love from Gordon.  His aim is to reach and enlighten (and enliven!) the ‘busy pastor’, as the dust jacket says.

Well, I have a few passages I will take a peak at and get back to you as to whether this volume ranks with his magisterial Philippians and 1 Corinthians volumes.  My guess is that it will not quite reach that status, because it just can’t compete with Wanamaker and Malherbe, but I am sure it will offer a expository element that is incisive and teeming with life.  We might also get some good text-critical insights as well!