Study Desk

And all wrongdoers will be repaid for the wrong things they do, because God judges everyone by the same standard.

Be persistent in prayer, and keep alert as you pray, giving thanks to God.

At the same time pray also for us, so that God will give us a good opportunity to preach his message about the secret of Christ. For that is why I am now in prison.

Joshua, also called Justus, sends greetings too. These three are the only Jewish believers who work with me for the Kingdom of God, and they have been a great help to me.

Greetings from Epaphras, another member of your group and a servant of Christ Jesus. He always prays fervently for you, asking God to make you stand firm, as mature and fully convinced Christians, in complete obedience to God's will.

From Paul, Silas, and Timothy— To the people of the church in Thessalonica, who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be yours.

We always thank God for you all and always mention you in our prayers.

For we remember before our God and Father how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard, and how your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ is firm.

Our friends, we know that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own.

For not only did the message about the Lord go out from you throughout Macedonia and Achaia, but the news about your faith in God has gone everywhere. There is nothing, then, that we need to say.

All those people speak about how you received us when we visited you, and how you turned away from idols to God, to serve the true and living God

You know how we had already been mistreated and insulted in Philippi before we came to you in Thessalonica. And even though there was much opposition, our God gave us courage to tell you the Good News that comes from him.

Instead, we always speak as God wants us to, because he has judged us worthy to be entrusted with the Good News. We do not try to please people, but to please God, who tests our motives.

You know very well that we did not come to you with flattering talk, nor did we use words to cover up greed—God is our witness!

Because of our love for you we were ready to share with you not only the Good News from God but even our own lives. You were so dear to us!

Surely you remember, our friends, how we worked and toiled! We worked day and night so that we would not be any trouble to you as we preached to you the Good News from God.

You are our witnesses, and so is God, that our conduct toward you who believe was pure, right, and without fault.

We encouraged you, we comforted you, and we kept urging you to live the kind of life that pleases God, who calls you to share in his own Kingdom and glory.

And there is another reason why we always give thanks to God. When we brought you God's message, you heard it and accepted it, not as a message from human beings but as God's message, which indeed it is. For God is at work in you who believe.

Our friends, the same things happened to you that happened to the churches of God in Judea, to the people there who belong to Christ Jesus. You suffered the same persecutions from your own people that they suffered from the Jews,