John Dominic Crossan in In Search of Paul writes “There is…one vitally important concomitant to the Pauline emphasis on the impending parousia of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians. After that thief-in-the-night image of Christ’s advent in 5:2, Paul says, “You, beloved, are not in darkness…But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for helmet the hope of salvation.”…Paul touches here, even if only in passing, on something absolutely basic to his theology….not … that Christians have been transformed or will be transformed but that they are being transformed. Transformation is a process arching from past, through present, into future consummation.”
John Dominic Crossan in In Search of Paul writes “There is…one vitally important concomitant to the Pauline emphasis on the impending parousia of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians. After that thief-in-the-night image of Christ’s advent in 5:2, Paul says, “You, beloved, are not in darkness…But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for helmet the hope of salvation.”…Paul touches here, even if only in passing, on something absolutely basic to his theology….not … that Christians have been transformed or will be transformed but that they are being transformed. Transformation is a process arching from past, through present, into future consummation.”
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