What happens to new believers who come from a non-Christian culture?
New believers from a non-Christian culture come under pressure and intense persecution. They do not have an easy role living among idolatrous friends and relatives, having turned from idols to the living God. This is what Paul keeps uppermost in his mind when writing to such converts.
Les explains that whenever people are saved and become believers and they come out of a culture totally different from Christianity, they come under pressure and intense persecution. New converts did not have an easy role living in the midst of their idolatrous friends and relatives. They turned from idols to the living God, which took something. Paul kept this uppermost in his mind as he wrote to them. This held true wherever Paul gained converts, such as in Thessalonica in northern Greece.