¹⁷I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter; this is the way I write. ¹⁸The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

In our devotion to the Word of God, we sometimes overlook seemingly insignificant “tidbits” that turn out to be quite informative when we consider them further. To be sure, we need to focus on the major themes of grace, peace, hope, forgiveness, salvation, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and so much more. Another theme that comes to light has to do with what scholars call “bibliology,” the study of the Bible as an objective means of communication. Scripture, as we have it today, is composed of sixty-six books or separate writings: thirty-nine make up the OT and twenty-seven the NT. In thirteen of those NT writings, the author identifies himself as the apostle Paul.

Paul gives little snippets of information that help formulate a picture of how he put his teaching into writing. Here he reveals some personal details. First, he says, “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.” Remember he warned the Thessalonian believers about forgeries that were apparently being circulated in his name (2 Thess. 2:2). So it is vital that he identified this present letter as not being one of the fakes, but the real thing.

Often Paul used a secretary, or as scholars call it, an “amanuensis.” For example, Romans 16:22 contains this interesting editorial comment: “I, Tertius, who write this letter, greet you in the Lord.” It seems that such an amanuensis was used in Paul’s writing to the Thessalonians, but Paul put his hand to the final greeting as a validation that the entire letter was from him. He did the same with some of his other epistles (1 Cor. 16:21, Col. 4:18, Phile. 19).

While the original physical letter with Paul’s penmanship no longer exists, this greeting in Paul’s hand nonetheless proved Paul’s authorship to the Thessalonians. To the Galatian believers, he noted, “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand” (Gal. 6:11). Some suggest this may have been due to poor eyesight as a result of many beatings for Christ. Indeed, he wrote them, “For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me” (Gal. 4:15). Such a statement would make sense if he suffered an eye ailment. While conjecture is interesting, the main point is this: the Holy Spirit was careful to authenticate the writings of God’s chosen messenger, to distinguish them from the writings falsely attributed to him. Praise God for including meticulous details that help us two thousand years later to verify the authenticity of His revelation.

Lord, I commit to studying Your word that You have authenticated for us.