Bible Commentaries
1 Thessalonians 2

Verses 1-20

PAUL'S ENTRANCE

4 There is an overwhelming temptation to please men, in evangelistic work. The marvelous success of Paul's short ministry in Thessalonica arose from his determination to please God at any cost.

5 The apostle, in discussing his own motives and methods, gives us an ideal by which to test all such efforts. Flattery is barred out. Avarice is denounced. He himself did not even get a living for his labor, for the Philippians sent him aid even in Thessalonica (Philippians 4:16). How many are willing to work for such wages today? As an apostle he deserved the highest honors, and could have demanded them, but he preferred to get no glory from men. His personal presence was weak and his oratory despicable (so said the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 10:10), but his love was great, his tenderness was touching, his toil and labor, to avoid being a burden to them, were more eloquent than words, and his conduct above reproach.

7 What figure could more touchingly convey the apostle's genuine affection for the

Thessalonians than that of a nursing mother? How unselfish and gentle and self-sacrificing is her care! The soul is the seat of sensation. To impart his own soul to them conveys the thought that he, like the true mother, would endure any discomfort or weariness for their sakes.

11 The figure of a father is no less affectionate. His solicitude for his own is spontaneous and real. He has the welfare of his children at heart. So Paul dealt with the beloved saints at Thessalonica.

PAUL'S THANKSGIVING

13 Nothing is more important than that the Scriptures, in their pristine purity, be received as the word of God. Greece and the adjacent provinces were famed for their philosophies. Yet which of them ever produced effects to compare with the few words spoken by the apostle? He who fails to get beyond the preacher to the One Whose word he speaks has less than nothing. The one who hears the words of God receives everything.

16 What an exhibition of God's sovereign grace! The Jews, with all their advantages and their divine ritual, suffer a foretaste of God's indignation as it will be displayed in the day of the Lord. After the siege of Jerusalem under Titus, their temple was destroyed, their city razed and their whole polity brought to an end. When they go back to their land and establish their religious rites again they are meeting the more disastrous indignation of Jehovah. The Thessalonians, who had no claims on God's mercy, suffer, indeed, from their countrymen, but are promised immunity in the day of His indignation.

PAUL BEREAVED

17 Paul was torn from the Thessalonians long before he wished to go, but God had other work for him to do, especially in Corinth, where he wrote this letter. It does not seem that his desire was gratified till some years later, when he went over Macedonia on his way to Greece (Acts 20:2).