Theological Solidarity Language and the Ecclesiology of 1 Thessalonians
(avg. read time: 11–23 mins.)
Although it did not appear in print until almost two years after it was approved, my first article approved for publication was about ecclesiology in 1 Thessalonians. This is what I will be providing an epitome of today, as I have most of my other published articles:
“Ecclesiology Under Pressure: The Importance of Theological Solidarity Language in 1 Thessalonians.” PRSt 44 (2017): 339–52.
I had not yet put it in these terms, but this was the article where I first started working with an idea in the orbit of “making the gospel story our story.” It was one of the elements of what I called “theological solidarity language,” which served an important function in this letter. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians addressed a young assembly experiencing suffering and conflict (1:6; 2:14–15; 3:3–4). If the typical date of ~50–51 CE is accurate, the assembly in question is at most a year or two old and had a few weeks to a few months with Paul, but it has to face a variety of challenges and questions without him around. Such questions could include: (1) “Who are we?” (2) “What distinguishes us from others?” (3) “If we are to live together, how do we do so?” (4) “Why should we live together if it causes us this trouble?” (5) “Why are we suffering?” (6) “How long do we have to continue in this way?” (7) “How should we regard the ones among us who have died?”1 The pressure and friction created with the conflict they faced with other groups (noted in the aforementioned texts) combined with the internal struggles that typify a growing community could make such questions all the more burning.2
Paul himself wished to be there with the Thessalonians, but he could not be there then and would not always be able to be there (2:17–3:5). To overcome the problem of his absence, he used a number of enduring substitutes in the forms of his teachings in this letter to help the Thessalonians to face these problems with renewed thought and action. In order that Paul should help people under pressure, he crystallized teaching that he had developed for approximately a decade-and-a-half to solidify their ecclesiological identity as people who are in Christ and in God. To that end, Paul uses what I have designated as language of “theological solidarity” to bolster the strength of this church and its ties. Solidarity language is language that articulates and solidifies the foundational connections and bonds—that is, the solidarity—the group has within itself and with other associated entities (in the case of the NT churches, these entities include other assemblies, the apostles, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit). In its forms more oriented towards participation and action, solidarity language is a linguistic dimension and expression of communion, the living-in-relation in which community members enact the relationships and responsibilities they share in common.
This solidarity language in 1 Thessalonians is also theological, meaning that Paul roots it in the relationship of the assembly to and in God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, as well as in common beliefs about the God who thus unites them. The act of sending this letter was the work of Paul and his fellows guiding the people in a reaffirmation of their resocialization into a new worldview at conflict with their past frameworks. Paul’s theological expression was essential for this community to distinguish itself because, as N. T. Wright avers,
This particular worldview needed theology for its own clarity, stability and sustainability…. If the ekklēsia of God in Jesus the Messiah, in its unity and holiness, is to constitute as it were its own worldview, to be its own central symbol, it needs to think: to be ‘transformed by the renewal of the mind’, to think as age-to-come people rather than present-age people, to understand who this God is, who this Messiah Jesus is, who this strange powerful spirit is, and what it means to be, and to live as, the renewed people of God, the renewed humanity.3
Theological solidarity language, as an aspect of the language of belonging, fulfills these functions in enabling the Thessalonian believers to think of their assembly in theologically exalted terms as living in communion with one another because of their communion with God in Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, this awareness of communion and the eschatological framework in which Paul expresses it inform the Thessalonians about what it means to live as people belonging to a unique kind of community.
This analysis examines the ways in which Paul’s language particularly affirms theological solidarity and it demonstrates how Paul applies his transformed worldview to ecclesiology in order to reinforce the portrayal of the Thessalonian assembly as a theologically rooted community, with all of the many consequences thereby entailed. The combination of subtle and explicit theological solidarity language throughout the letter shows how much this language saturated Paul’s thinking so that he conveyed it extensively by intention and habit. Indeed, the basic assertion of this analysis is that one of Paul’s purposes is to solidify the assembly’s solidarity through his use of theological solidarity language, and that he provides insight into the earliest Christian instructions on ecclesiology, given here in response to an ἐκκλησία under pressure.
This analysis thus proceeds with a method of identifying and exploring the functional significance of certain terms and concepts that fit a paradigm of theological solidarity language. The investigation essentially follows the flow of the text. However, to avoid repetition, there is one treatment for terms and concepts that appear multiple times. The particular kinds of theological solidarity language that are in focus for this analysis are insider/outsider language, as well as theological and pneumatological incorporation.
Insider (and Outsider) Language
Perhaps the most pervasive form of solidarity language is the insider language—sometimes contrasting to outsider language—referring to the Thessalonians in a variety of forms (1:1, 3, 9–10; 2:12, 14–16, 19; 3:8; 4:1, 3–8, 12, 13–5:11; 5:12, 18, 26–28). Insider language—and its contrast—defines who is (and is not) part of the group (i.e., inside group boundaries) and why. It may be explicit in applying terminology of “in” or “inside” and “out” or “outside.” In the case of 1 Thessalonians, the most common kind of explicit insider language is a collection of “ἐν” phrases, often with the object of Χριστός or κύριος, and a single use of ἔξω is the case of explicit outsider language. Insider (and outsider) language may also be implicit in the articulated connections of the community and the contrasts set up with people outside of the group. In 1 Thessalonians these connections and contrasts include the identification of the community with Jesus, the common future the members share, the hope they have in contrast to outsiders, the new way of life they have distinct from their past (which outsiders still embody), the descriptions of conflict (with the implication that the insiders are the ones who suffer and eventually become victorious), and the emphases of commonality in the face of conflict.
This kind of language had a key function for a group facing problems like the Thessalonians. Conversion to a group perceived as subversive and deviant (indicated in the language of 1:9) in its exclusive allegiance to one particular God and one community defined by that God resulted in possible charges of disintegrating families, upsetting the social order, bringing shame on all, and angering the gods with impiety. The response of cities such as Thessalonica involved measures of shaming such deviants, the intended effect of which was to disintegrate the bonds of the deviant group and to reintegrate people in accordance with the dominant values of the culture. As David deSilva observes after citing several passages about early Christians’ suffering, “maligning, reproach, beatings, imprisonments and financial ruin are mentioned frequently and explicitly, but lynching or execution only rarely: their neighbors were trying to reclaim these wayward members of their society.”4 Todd Still similarly cites forms of suffering such as verbal abuse, strained social relations leading to ostracism, political sanctions, and possibly physical violence even leading to death.5
However, Paul and the other earliest Christian teachers had built-in responses to these conflicts. They had learned from Jesus and from their own experience to expect opposition from the world (Matt 10:17–39; 16:24–26; 24:9–14; Mark 8:34–39; 13:9–13; Luke 9:23–26; 12:4–12, 49–53; 21:12–19; John 15:18–25; 16:1–4, 33; Acts 4:1–31; 5:17–32; 6:8–8:3; 9:16, 23–25; 12:1–19; 13:50; 14:5, 19–20, 22; 16:16–40; 17:5–9; 18:12–17). Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy taught the Thessalonians to expect it for themselves (3:3–4)—if in fact they were faithful—and it happened, which confirmed their faithfulness and solidified the communal boundaries and bonds (cf. 2:2). Paul’s apocalyptic theology—with its themes of duality (such as the insider/outsider contrast and the implied eschatological duality in the references to the coming of Jesus (1:9–10; 2:14–16; 4:3–8, 12–13; 5:4–10), vindication of the suffering faithful (1:9–10; 2:14–16, 19–20; 3:13; 4:13–5:11; 5:23–24), righting the upside-down world (1:10; 2:19; 5:1–10), and investment of earthly events with “heavenly/cosmic” significance (2:18–20; 3:2, 5; 5:1–5)—provided a way both to understand the suffering and to reinforce solidarity through the framework of the gospel story and the eschatological hope that attends it in 1 Thessalonians.
The insider language begins from the address of the Thessalonians as the assembly ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ καὶ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ (“in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; 1:1). This language is incorporative and participative. The Thessalonians have their existence as an assembly in the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, being thus incorporated to participate in the divine life through salvific union with Christ. What becomes more evident later is that this participation is particularly about the enactment of the Christ narrative encapsulated by faithfulness in life and death followed by resurrection and exaltation. Here, though, Paul emphasizes how they embody this life through their work of faith, labor of love, and perseverance of hope τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (1:3). (The series of genitival phrases in this verse consists of three subjective genitives and an objective genitive, indicating the object of their outworking of hope.) Thusly they express their allegiance to and definition by a common Lord and Father. They are to live in solidarity as the community which Jesus delivers from the coming wrath (1:10; cf. 2:19). Implicitly, this language draws a distinction between the insiders—note how the pronoun changes to the first person in 1:10 to emphasize the new communion into which the Thessalonians have entered—who receive deliverance from wrath, and everyone else, who presumably face the force of that wrath. The notes of comfort and assured judgment frequently sounded throughout echo the hope of God’s consummation of the deliverance first embodied in the death and resurrection of Jesus (1:10; 2:19–20; 3:13; 4:13–5:11; 5:23–24).
Another implicit contrast appears when Paul identifies the Thessalonians as the recipients of God’s calling into his own kingdom and glory (2:12). People are not automatically incorporated into the kingdom; they have to respond to God’s call, a call that is a function of the gospel (4:7; 5:24; cf. Rom 8:30; 9:24; 1 Cor 1:9; 7:17–24; Gal 1:6; 5:13; Eph 4:1, 4; 2 Thess 2:14; 1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 1:9; Heb 9:15; 1 Pet 1:15; 2:9, 21; 3:9; 5:10; 2 Pet 1:3). The gospel is the foundation of the ecclesial identity—the ἐκκλησία consists of those people who have accepted the gospel and have been incorporated into its story—and of the relationship between the apostles and the Thessalonians (2:13; cf. 2:8 in which the gospel is the primary foundation of the relationship and thus the gateway to sharing life together as well).
His clearest contrast with outsiders thus far appears in 2:14–16 with a double comparison (with the assemblies in Judea and Jesus) and contrast (with the Jewish and gentile compatriots). By means of imitation, the Thessalonians have become like fellow assemblies of God in Judea—who are also ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ—in suffering for the gospel. As Jesus likewise suffered, their suffering for the sake of the gospel shows that they bear the proper identifying marks of people who live ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (cf. 1:4–7) and thus re-enact the Christ narrative, implying that the goal of this narrative will be re-enacting the resurrection (cf. 4:14–17; 5:9–10). What both groups separated by over 900 miles have in common—being bearers and embodiments of the gospel, suffering for the gospel, and being congregations in/of God and in Christ—commonly sets them apart from their own συμφυλετῶν (“compatriots”) in their different locations. The Thessalonian compatriots have afflicted the assembly because they did not share with the assembly when they, “turned to God from the idols to serve the living and true God” (1:9). As indicated earlier, perhaps part of the motivation for affliction would be a desire to uphold the honor of the gods. Likewise, Paul states that the Jews who have afflicted the Christians in Judea do so out of a misplaced sense of piety that actually amounts to opposing God and God’s will to form a chosen people composed of Jews and gentiles. The intergroup conflicts become a means for Paul to strengthen the bonds between himself, the assembly in Thessalonica, the assembly in Judea, and Jesus (to whose image their suffering conforms). Later, Paul encourages the Thessalonians to stand firm ἐν κυρίῳ, because their lives as faithful “insiders”—by which they participate in the life Christ imbues and share in each other’s life in union with Christ—enable the founders to live and not distress about the possible weaknesses of the Thessalonians’ faith (3:8).
When Paul begins the exhortation portion of the letter, he simultaneously declares the source of his authority and further reaffirms the location of the Thessalonians’ existence—that basis upon which he is able to address them in the first place—when he implores and urges them ἐν κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ (4:1). One of the primary points of 4:3–8 is to solidify the contrast between the community that is in Christ and the outsider gentiles. Though the Thessalonians are of gentile origin, the fact that Paul contrasts how they conduct themselves with the gentiles who do not know God shows that Paul sees them as part of a new community and a new family. There is a constant emphasis on holiness, language which inherently sets up an insider/outsider distinction with what is unholy. God calls the community in/to holiness, which entails being set apart from un-holiness and having wholeness by union with God (which 4:8 indicates stems from the presence of the Holy Spirit as God’s gift for sanctification). Because they are whole, they should not violate that wholeness and divine union with dehumanizing sexual immorality or with wronging other members of the community in any fashion. Paul reinforces this teaching multiple times in this passage with the reminders that—as “insiders” of the assembly of God—they are to follow God’s will (4:3, 6–8), that rejecting this teaching amounts to rejecting God’s will and the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that God will still remove sinfulness from the world through judgment if not only through sanctification.
Paul’s most explicit statement about outsiders is in 4:12, in which he instructs fellow believers to behave properly toward τοὺς ἔξω (“the ones outside”). Though the setting of conflict for this text indicates that there was an antagonistic relationship between insiders and at least some outsiders, Paul’s instruction implies that whatever conflict the believers experience should be a result of their confession, rather than any dishonorable behavior that could actively encourage undue enmity. In the larger context of the letter, Paul’s instruction regarding outsiders arguably has an evangelistic purpose since the Thessalonian assembly consists of people who were once outsiders (1:9). In the midst of conflict with people outside the group, Paul is mindful of the needs to reaffirm the foundations and practice of insider identity in distinction from outsiders as well as to remind the Thessalonians of the permeability of their group boundaries.
The primary eschatological section in 4:13–5:11 is saturated with insider/outsider language. In the Thessalonians’ mourning for the dead, they are not to be ignorant and mourn like the ones without hope (i.e., the outsiders; 4:13). The ones who have fallen asleep are still “inside” and will participate in the παρουσία because they—like their living brothers and sisters—also had faith that Jesus died and resurrected (4:14). After all, they are the dead ἐν Χριστῷ (4:16), as the living are ἐν Χριστῷ (cf. 1:1; 2:14; 4:1) and the common telos of both sub-groups is final conformation to the image of Jesus through conformation to his resurrection. As their common existence in Christ defined their unity in life, so it also defines them beyond death (since the one who unites them went through death and out the other side). Though it is more implicit here, this text (particularly in 4:14 and 5:10) provides another link of solidarity (indeed, a narrative link between the story of Jesus and the story of the ἐκκλησία) in that it links the resurrections of Jesus and believers together (cf. Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:12–23; 2 Cor 4:14; Col 1:18). Furthermore, the use of cloud imagery might connect this text with Dan 7:13 and its apocalyptic theme of the vindication of the faithful represented by the one like a son of man, which would comport with other references to Jesus as the salvific representative of the people (1:10; 4:14; 5:9–10). Together, the remaining ones who live until Jesus’s παρουσία and the dead who rise πάντοτε σὺν κυρίῳ ἐσόμεθα (“always with the Lord will be”; 4:17). The Thessalonians should encourage one another with these words because it is the hope they share with one another on the basis of being ἐν Χριστῷ (4:18; cf. 5:11).
Their awareness of time contrasts to outsiders who proclaim “peace and security” before sudden destruction (5:1–3). The Christians are not in darkness because they are children of light and the day, conducting themselves accordingly in contrast to the ones who live by night, try to cover their sins in darkness, and sleep in ignorance (5:4–7). Unlike the sleepers who are unaware of the day that is coming, the children of light and the day ready themselves with the breastplate of faith and love as well as the helmet of the hope of salvation (5:8), the virtues that characterize the people of the kingdom. Paul sets up a final contrast between the insiders and outsiders in that the latter are appointed to God’s wrath, but the former are the people appointed to obtaining salvation διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ίησοῦ Χριστοῦ, who died for them so that they should live with him (5:9–10).
The last instances of insider language appear in ethical contexts. Paul identifies the ones who work among the Thessalonians as directing them ἐν κυρίῳ; thus, they should respect these leaders and receive their admonitions as people who also live ἐν κυρίῳ (5:12). When Paul climaxes his first group of exhortations in the peroration in 5:16–18, he does so with the claim that carrying out his instructions is the will of God ἐν Χριστῷ Ίησοῦ εἰς ὑμᾶς (“in Christ for you”). The people are in Christ and Christ is in them, instructing them in the will of God and enabling them to have solidarity with God and Christ. At the end of the letter, Paul instructs them to greet everyone with a holy kiss, to adjure them in the Lord to read the letter to everyone in the assembly (who are all recipients of one message), and to wish for the grace of τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ίησοῦ Χριστοῦ to be with them (5:26–28). Paul’s command in the Lord and the identification of Jesus Christ as “our Lord” properly closes out a letter that began with insider address. With this language, Paul addresses questions of people who may be facing identity crises brought on by affliction aimed to disintegrate that identity.
Theological and Pneumatological Incorporation
From the beginning, Paul conveys the incorporation of the holy assembly into union with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Paul’s simplest use of theological solidarity language that serves as a first step to incorporation is the first-person plural genitive pronoun ἡμῶν in reference to the Lord and God (1:3; 2:2, 19; 3:9, 11, 13; 5:9, 23, 28). This pronoun is clearly a common word; what makes it specifically a kind of theological solidarity language here? Given the setting of conflict, Paul reiterates the bonds of unity to reaffirm the roots of solidarity in having a singular common Lord and God. Whether the reference is to “our Father” (1:3; 3:11, 13; cf. 1:1), “our God” (1:3; 2:2; 3:9, 11, 13), “our Lord Jesus” (2:19; 3:11, 13), or “our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3; 5:9, 23, 28) the monotheistic message remains the same. Namely, “we have one God/one Lord,” and it is this monotheistic claim that is the basis of the Thessalonians’ solidarity as one assembly along with the founders. This message sets them in contrast and opposition to the surrounding world, where there were many gods and many lords. It is this God, this Lord, who gives the Thessalonians their identity so that they can affirm with Paul and his friends that this one is also their Father, their God, their Lord Jesus Christ.
Of course, with the references to God as Father, the door opens to conceiving of the assembly as a family, and more familial language appears throughout the letter, with a density surpassing all other Pauline letters. The contexts in which Paul references God as Father appear to indicate at least three functions of significance. One, God is the common progenitor of the Christian assembly, a description that most directly relates to the salvific action by which God constituted the community.6 This function may conceptually undergird the others since it is a basic description of what God’s fatherly relationship to the assembly is. Hence, it seems to be the implication each time reference to God as Father appears. Two, God is the one who receives the prayers of all in the community. The references to God as Father may seem incidental in 1:3 and 3:11, but intentional use seems more likely given that θεός appears thirty-five times in this letter while references to God as πατήρ occur only four times. In these cases, the association of the Father with reception of prayer seems to be a natural consequence of being constituted as the people of God by the Father. Of course, acknowledging God in prayer as the one who can answer prayers (or to whom thanksgiving is properly directed), leads to the third function of declaring that God is the one supreme authority over the assembly and the world. The Father is the one who can thus direct the people and the one to whom—at the final judgment—Christ will present them with confidence (3:11, 13).
The most powerful and fundamental bond of solidarity the Thessalonians have among themselves, with the apostles, and with God is the Holy Spirit (1:5–6; 4:8; 5:19). The Spirit is the one who enables belief in and faithful response to the gospel in the first place, whose presence functions as the sine qua non of Christian identity, and who makes manifest the salvific effects of the gospel. The same Spirit that empowered the preaching of the gospel incorporated the recipients of the gospel into the ἐκκλησία of God and solidified this incorporation with personal presence in and among the believers, enabling them to receive the gospel with joy (1:5–6). The power of the gospel in the Holy Spirit brought the Thessalonians together as a congregation in Jesus Christ by overcoming the affliction associated with receiving the gospel and imbuing them with joy. The importance of remembering the initial reception of the gospel and how it enabled them to overcome affliction is that it provides assurance that the Holy Spirit’s power that connected with this incorporative story will deliver them from their present affliction once more.
The Holy Spirit is also the gift of God who signifies the union between God and the Thessalonians, the one who is the source of ethical empowerment—the Spirit of holiness who makes others holy—in order that the Thessalonians can follow the exhortations of Paul, which he identifies as the word of God to them (4:8). The one who rejects the commands about sexual misconduct or any other such exhortation essentially denies the presence of the Holy Spirit and the eschatological reality thereof (5:19). The indwelling presence of the Spirit is the primary signal of the eschatological age and the inauguration of the kingdom because of the renewal, transformation, purification, and life-giving power associated with the Spirit’s presence in both the OT (Isa 32:15–20; 44:1–5; Ezek 36:25–27; 37:1–14; Joel 2:28–32) and the NT (Luke 4:16–21; Acts 2:14–39; Rom 8; Gal 5:22–23; Titus 3:3–7). The Spirit’s presence in and among the assembly thus signifies the presence of the power of the kingdom and of the responsibility for them to live appropriately.
Conclusion
In one of the earliest canonical letters—if not the earliest—Paul shows a robust, though often subtle, ecclesiology designed to emphasize essential common themes of early Christian teaching and to address a particular situation in which Christians were suffering in the pursuit of perseverance. Many of the linguistic features of this letter—including insider language and the foundations of theological and pneumatological incorporation—point to Paul’s concern for upholding the theological solidarity of this assembly and for making sure that they rely on that solidarity in how they live in response to challenges. This ecclesiological provision was potentially effective in the face of conflict, if these disciples stayed true to the identity that Paul has outlined extensively. It is also indicative of the themes that pervaded early ecclesiology, such as emphasis on the distinctions between insiders and outsiders (even though the latter were potential insiders), the holiness of the Church through union with God, incorporation/participation in the divine life, conformation to Jesus through imitation, the suffering Church becoming the triumphant Church, and the Church being an eschatologically defined entity. What ultimately interweaves all of these themes and linguistic features is a sense that the bonds of the assembly are an extension of its bonds with God. It is the same logic that undergirds the two greatest commandments of loving God and loving neighbor as oneself, that they are alike. The assembly is what it is because of its solidarity with God. To know God and what God has done, is doing, and will do is essential to knowing a community’s own—and an individual’s own—identity and how to become what the community is in union with God. It is so when one must respond to suffering that threatens to isolate and disintegrate and when one must respond to any other issues of the ecclesial life.
(1): 1:1, 4, 9–10; 2:1, 9, 12–14, 17, 19–20; 3:7; 4:1, 5–10, 13, 16; 5:1, 4–10, 12, 14, 24–27. (2): 1:1, 5–6, 9–10; 2:2, 4, 8–9, 12–15, 19–20; 3:3–4; 4:1–5:11. (3): 4:1–12; 5:1–22. (4): 1:6–10; 2:12–16, 19–20; 3:7–13; 4:13–5:11; 5:23–24. (5): 1:6; 2:2, 14–15; 3:3–5; 5:4–11. (6): 4:13–5:11. (7): 4:13–18. Some of these questions are basic and the Thessalonians would have encountered them already in Paul’s first teaching, but learning something once is not enough, especially in a situation of pressure and conflict.
For extensive studies on this conflict, see Craig Steven de Vos, Church and Community Conflicts: The Relationships of the Thessalonian, Corinthian, and Philippian Churches with Their Wider Civic Communities, SBLDS 168 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), esp. 124–75; Todd D. Still, Conflict at Thessalonica: A Pauline Church and its Neighbours, JSNTSup 183 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999).
N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, vol. 4 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 567; emphasis original.
David A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 45.
Still, Conflict, 213–17.
Though God’s actions as Creator, Lord, and Savior are intertwined in Jewish thought, the latter two seem to be the most common points of reference for describing God as Father in many Jewish texts (Exod 4:22; Deut 32:6; Isa 63:16; 64:8; Jer 3:4, 19; 31:9, 20; Hos 11:1; Mal 1:6; 2:10; Tob 13:4; Sir 23:1, 4; 51:10; Wis 11:10; 14:3; 3 Macc 2:21; 5:7; 6:4, 8; 4 Ezra 1:28–30; 2 Bar. 13:9; Jub. 1:24–25, 28; Jos. Asen. 11:13; 12:8, 12–15; LAB 53:7).