1 Thessalonians 1

9. Who is one of you.** Observe how it may be made out that Onesimus was a Colossian. Turn to the Epistle to Philemon, and you will find that Onesimus was the servant or slave of Philemon. The question, therefore, will be, to what city Philemon belonged. In the Epistle addressed to him this is not declared. It appears only that he was of the same place, whatever that place was, with an eminent Christian named Archippus. “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow-laborer; and to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church in thy house.” Now turn to the Epistle to the Colossians, and you will find Archippus saluted by name among the Christians of that Church: “Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord that thou fulfill it” (4: 17). The necessary result is, that Onesimus also was of the same city, agreeably to what is said of him, “he is one of you.” And this result is the effect either of truth which produces consistency without the writer’s thought or care, or of a contexture of forgeries confirming and falling in with one another by a species of fortuity of which I know no example. Paley.

18. My bonds: my chains.** Paul here for the third time mentions his chains, not from dejection, but that the Colossians might remember what he had been suffering for the gospel now for four years, and that his firm and undaunted constancy and full persuasion of the truth of the gospel which he had preached should confirm them in their faith, render them constant in enduring persecutions for the same cause, and induce them to pay the more affectionate regard to the whole of his Epistle. Bp. Wilson.

At the close the apostle gives his own salutation in autograph. Perhaps, as he rose to do so, the clanking of his chain suggested to him to add, “Remember my bonds.” But there is no more of this—no whining over his unhappy lot. His great heart yearned over the Church in the love of Christ; and he hastens to add, the “Grace be with you!” The grace of the head be with all the members; the grace of the Lord with all the servants! A sweet note on which to rest as the music of this profound Epistle dies away. They who love the Lord, and wish to do all things in his name, have daily need of grace; and the Lord has for them all the grace they need to guide, to support, to console, to purify. D. F.

1. PAUL, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our 2 Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making 3 mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our 4 Father; knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto 5 you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye 6 know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers 7 of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy 8 Ghost: so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from 9 you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every 10 place your faith to Godward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing. For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

THE brightness of our life consists in believing, hoping, loving: in believing; that is, in feeling assured of the Father amid the manifestations of his discipline—in hoping; that is, in laying hold, amid the ruins which gather around us, of the kingdom which can not be moved—in loving; that is, in substituting for the care for our own happiness a care for the happiness of others, or, more generally, to place the center of our life without us; for, properly speaking, it is only in this that life consists. Love, which is the happiness of God himself, must also be the supreme felicity of the being whom God has made in his own image. Every other happiness is unworthy of this being, and does not satisfy him.

Selfish enjoyment requires to receive, and has never received enough; love requires to give, and has never given enough. Sacrifices exhaust the one and maintain the other, and while the first would gain nothing by gaining the world, the second grows rich upon its very losses. Faith and hope are of value only because they conduct to love, and the soul would dispense with believing and hoping, if without hoping and believing it were possible to love. A. V.

THIS is the earliest of the extant writings of Paul, and it reveals as vividly as any of them the apostle’s generous and affectionate nature. Along with Silas and Timothy, he first preached Jesus Christ in Thessalonica, and planted the Church there in the face of vehement opposition from the resident Jews. At that time the town was one of great importance in Macedonia; and, while the old cities of Ephesus and Colosse are now represented by mere heaps of ruins, Thessalonica exists at this day as the town of Saloniki, one of the chief places of European Turkey. It is said that one sixth of the modern population are Jews. (Read pages 118, 119, and 132.) The missionary visit of Paul to this Macedonian city was short, but the brethren there always retained a warm place in his heart. Persecution drove him to Berea, and thence by sea to Attica. At Athens he was soon rejoined by Timothy, who had remained in Macedonia. Paul sent him back to the Thessalonians, to “establish them and comfort them concerning the faith,” while he himself went on to Corinth. At that city he spent a year and a half, during which period Timothy returned with a good account of the Thessalonian Church. This greatly cheered the apostle, and led him to write the letter now before us, which is one, not of argument, controversy, or reproof, but of confirmation and encouragement. D. F.—It was written because the apostle wanted to fill up by exhortation and consolation the necessary defects of a teaching which had been indeed most earnest and plain as far as it had gone, but had been broken off before it was complete. The earlier portion of the letter is spent in congratulating the Thessalonians and praising them for the simplicity and readiness with which they had received his message, and for the eminence of their faith, which had become since then matter of notoriety; in reminding them also of the whole character of his own demeanor among them; his disinterested independence of them, and gentle, even mother-like affection toward them. He next recalls to mind the hostility of the Jews, not so much to himself as to them, and draws a comparison between them and the churches of Judea in this respect. Then he touches gently his own case, showing how this same hostility had, since his departure, defeated one and another scheme which he had made for seeing them. The third chapter is occupied with a narrative of the circumstances under which the report of Timothy respecting them had reached him, and with expressions of thankfulness and affection resulting thereupon; concluding with a wish for the possibility of his visiting them, and for their increase in love and holiness, that they might be blameless before God at the Lord’s coming. Then follow the practical exhortations and corrections of defects. A.

The whole aspect of the letter shows that the main body of the Thessalonian Church was not Jewish, but Gentile. The Jews are spoken of as an extraneous body, as the enemies of Christianity and of all men, not as the elements out of which the church was composed. The ancient Jewish Scriptures are not once quoted in either of these Epistles. The converts are addressed as those who had turned, not from Hebrew fables and traditions, but from the practices of heathen idolatry. H.

The Thessalonian Epistles complete Paul’s addresses to seven churches, and, though first in the date of production, may fitly be read last in the permanent order, as being specially distinguished by the eschatological element, and sustaining the conflict of faith by the preaching of “that blessed hope” and “the glorious appearing and the coming of the day of God.” T. D. B.

3. If your hope prove itself by the patience that comes from it, and your faith by the work which it produces, and your love by the labor which is its result, then you may believe that the hope and faith and love are of God, and will abide for ever. Being in Christ, it is safe to forget the past, it is possible to be sure of the future, it is possible to be diligent in the present. Then how blessed such a life! A. M.—Hope will put on patience as a vestment; it will wade through a sea of blood; it will endure all things if it be of the right kind, for the joy that is set before it. Hence patience is called “patience of hope,” because it is hope that makes the soul exercise patience and long-suffering under the cross, until the time comes to enjoy the crown. Bun.

4. “Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God,” should be “knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election.” A.

5. Our gospel came . . . in the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit makes use of the truth to flash light into the soul and to awaken love in the heart. Truth reveals to the man, and sets impressively before him everything it becomes him to know essential to his salvation. It unveils to him himself, sin, God, Christ, mercy, the way to the Father, the welcome awaiting him, the grace promised, the power of the cross, the “Advocate” on high, and so on. This—“the word of truth”—spiritually impressed and made influential by the divine agent that wields it, calls forth contrition, faith, hope, inspires joy and peace, with other soothing and animating results, of which the issue is love—love to God and man. T. B.

6. Received the word. They are the good hearers, the best hearers, who have had a daily experience of its truths, who have received it into themselves, of whose spiritual nature it has become part, in whom it works with an instinctive accuracy

and constancy, so that they do not need to consider what is right and wrong, or to argue about it, but know the right from the wrong with a certainty beyond the reach of logic. The word of God to them is full of meaning—full of meanings deeper and more subtle than others can see; for they have long since not only “understood” but “received” the word into their heart of hearts. Cox. it extends over the whole field of action, and men “do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” Finally, this character of existence is not changed by that which changes all besides. Those who have entered on it depart, but they “die in the Lord,” they “sleep in Jesus,” they are “the dead in Christ”; and “when he shall appear,” they will appear; and when he comes, “God shall bring them with him,” and they shall “reign in life by one—Jesus Christ.” T. D. B.

1,2. From the moment Paul’s feet touched the pier at the lower end of Athens the monuments of the dominant mythology began to lift themselves forbiddingly before him, to make him feel himself “alone.” From the water-side all the way up to the Acropolis the city is one vast museum of unhallowed art, of an unclean civilization, of a Christless worship. If he turns from the world of sight to the world of thought, he finds the schools of unbelieving speculation, Porch and Academy, Stoa and Gardens, strong in great names to be sure, but distracted with debate between doubt and delusion, and full of eloquent error. What was all this to the sorrowful, earnest, straitened spirit which was there in the form of a worn and sunburnt traveler from Tarsus, secretly so absorbed in the power of a holy affection for a Personage executed long ago as a disturber of the public peace in the distant province of Judea, that he could say, “It is no more I that live; I have no life of my own; Christ liveth in me”? The round of festal novelties, the decorations of Attic taste, the splendid learning, the riches and refinements of a proud prosperity, what were they all to one whose heart was in the unseen court of the King of kings? Deeper and darker his solitude grew. And yet even there he could send away from his side the single sympathizing friend that had followed him; he could banish himself into a completer exile, and be utterly “alone at Athens,” for the confirmation and comforting’s sake of the little band of Christians far off at Thessalonica. Here is the test of courage, and of all real characters. Can you live, work, suffer, stand out, move forward alone? This settles it whether you are merely a piece of movable furniture in the halls of a worldly society, a manufacture molded by the hands of fashion, or a living and independent soul, satisfied to walk with that Man of men who had not where to lay his head while He was showing the world the truth and love of God. F. D. H.

8. Here the purest zeal for the honor of his Master and the most generous love to the souls of men are happily united, and expressed in the native language of a warm and upright heart: the purest zeal and the most generous love, for no tincture of selfishness appears in either; if Christ is glorified, if men are saved, Paul obtains his utmost wish; his happiness is independent of everything else; he enjoys all that in his own estimation is worthy to be accounted life, if his spiritual children stand fast in the Lord. R. W.—So, in a later time, wrote Samuel Rutherford to his parishioners at Anwoth, “I long exceedingly to know if the oft-spoken match between you and Christ holdeth, and if ye follow on to know the Lord. My day thoughts and night thoughts are of you. While you sleep I am afraid for your souls that they be off the Rock.”

9,10. The disciples at Thessalonica were from the first exposed to persecution on account of their faith. The apostle had only stayed with them for a few weeks, and after a little time Silas and Timothy had also left them. They were a congregation of young untried Christians, and even their elders could have had little experience. Nevertheless, they had thus far stood firm in the Lord; and the tidings of their steadfastness regaled the spirit and strengthened the life of the missionary apostle. Again we are reminded of the fervent desires of Samuel Rutherford for his flock at Anwoth: “Oh, how rich a prisoner were I, if I could obtain of my Lord the salvation of you all! What a prey had I gotten to have you all caught in Christ’s net! My witness is above; your heaven would be two heavens, and the salvation of you all as two salvations to me.” D. F.

11,13. The word “Christ” is omitted in all the most ancient manuscripts. “The Lord Jesus” seems to have been at this time Paul’s constant way of naming the Saviour. And it is to be noted that he was charged at Thessalonica before the magistrates with proclaiming “another king, one Jesus.” A.

13. This faithful servant is well content to continue his labor, run his race, and endure affliction, waiting for his full reward till his Master shall come. Then will the saints of Macedonia be to him a chaplet of victory—his glory and his joy. D. F.