1 Thessalonians 5:26

Neither here, nor above at 1 Thessalonians 5:14, is there any reason to suppose that Paul turns to address the leaders of the local church (so e.g., Bornemann, Ellicott, Alford, Askwith, Zimmer, Lightfoot, Weiss, Findlay) as though they were, in the name of the apostle(s), to convey the holy (i.e. not of convention or human passion) kiss, which betokened mutual affection (cf. Renan's S. Paul, 262, DC [34]. i. 935, and E. Bi [35], 4254) in the early Christian worship. This greeting by proxy is not so natural as the ordinary sense of the words; the substitution of τ. ἀ. π. for the more common ἀλλήλους is intelligible in the light, e.g., cf. Philippians 4:21; and it would be harsh to postulate so sharp a transition from the general reference of 1 Thessalonians 5:25 and 1 Thessalonians 5:28. Even in 1 Thessalonians 5:27 it is not necessary to think of the local leaders. While the epistle would naturally be handed to some of them in the first instance, it was addressed to the church; the church owned it and was held responsible for its public reading at the weekly worship. πᾶσιν, like the πάντας of 1 Thessalonians 5:26, simply shows Paul's desire to prevent the church from becoming, on any pretext, a clique or coterie. But the remarkable emphasis of the injunction points to a period when such public reading of an apostolic epistle was not yet a recognised feature in the worship of the churches. Paul lays stress upon the proper use of his epistle, as being meant not for a special set, but for the entire brotherhood (i.e., at Thessalonica, not, as Flatt thinks, in Macedonia). See that every member gets a hearing of it at some meeting or other (ἀναγ., timeless aor.), and thus knows exactly what has been said. So Apoc. Bar. lxxxvi.: “when therefore ye receive this my epistle, read it in your congregations with care. And meditate thereon, above all on the days of your fasts.”

[34] CG Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (1907 1908)

[35] Encyclopædia Biblica