1 Thessalonians 3 · a question people ask
"we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone, and sent Timothy" (3:1-2), and "For this cause I also, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, sent" (3:5). Who stayed at Athens, and who sent?
The letter doesn't say. It opens with three senders, "Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy" (1:1), and goes on as we; once its I names itself, "indeed, I, Paul, once and again" (2:18). Here it says, "Therefore when we couldn’t stand it any longer, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone, and sent Timothy" (3:1-2), and then, "For this cause I also, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, sent that I might know your faith" (3:5). It doesn't say who the we left at Athens were, or how many, whether its I was one of them, or whether 3:5 tells of the sending in 3:2 or of another, and these notes don't either.
The verses
“Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the assembly of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“because we wanted to come to you—indeed, I, Paul, once and again—but Satan hindered us.”
“Therefore when we couldn’t stand it any longer, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone, and sent Timothy, our brother and God’s servant in the Good News of Christ, to establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith,”
“For this cause I also, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, sent that I might know your faith, for fear that by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor would have been in vain.”