Who were the people Paul was writing to when he wrote to these believers?

Les teaches that Paul writes to these believers as Gentile men and women who had been steeped in idolatry and who had been involved in the idolatrous and pagan practices rampant in the ancient world. He stresses that every Gentile convert Paul brought out of the darkness into the light of the gospel was a pagan idolater, in every place Paul went. Les then points to 1 Thessalonians, where Paul addresses such believers, and he uses this to remind his audience that we are not living in a wholly new world but in the same old sin, which idolatry and paganism promoted even more than much of what takes place in our society.