Why read this article? This study of Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians offers the following benefits to the reader. First, it helps you understand the context, the reason for being, and the structure of the letter. Second, it helps you understand how to study a letter from Paul. This includes understanding techniques of literary analysis and the theory of how the Greco-Roman world wrote letters. Third, it helps answer questions such as the following: How to prepare for a series of studies on a book? How to understand the functioning of a book as a whole? How to understand the flow and sequence of the themes of the book?