1 Thessalonians 1:7 – They Became Models Themselves

7 so that you become models to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

Paul does not write that the Thessalonians were models, but that they became models. That word recurs here strikingly. First: “Such we became among you” (verse 5), then: “you became imitators” (verse 6), and now: “you become models.” Something had happened to them. The Word they had received had not left them as they were. They were transformed into models!

The word model (typos) denotes a form or imprint by which something else can be formed. Our word type is directly derived from it. They had first become imitators themselves of Paul and his coworkers and of the Lord. Now they, in turn, were a type: in them one could see what the received Word brings about in people. Imitators had become models.

And this applied not merely to their immediate surroundings. Paul writes: “to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.” Macedonia was the northern part of Greece, where Thessalonica was located; Achaia the southern part, where Corinth was located and from where Paul wrote this letter. For all who believed in these two regions, the Thessalonians had by now become a model. Not because they had presented themselves as such. They became it. What God had brought about in them through His Word was noticed throughout the wider region.

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