1 Thessalonians 2
Butler8. The world has more need of a great number of Christian people doing little things like Christians than it has need of one apostle preaching like an apostle, or one martyr dying like a martyr. As a means of spreading the gospel, faithfulness in doing little things is a mightier engine than all the power of the pulpit or all the eloquence of a preacher. “From you,” said an apostle once,
“from you the word of the Lord hath sounded out so that we need not speak anything.” A. M.
9. What wilt thou have me to do? is the question of the Christ-called man. The Thessalonians turned from idols to serve the living God. We are emancipated from the fetters of sin and the world, we are transplanted into the kingdom of God to work in the love and energy of our renewed heart. A. S.—God has so constituted our nature that a man can not be happy unless he is, or thinks he is, a means of good. Give a man what you please, surround him with all the means of gratification, and yet let the conviction come home to him clear and irresistible that there is not a being in God’s universe a whit the better or happier for his existence, and he can not but be unhappy. E. M.
1. For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain: but 2 even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at 3 Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much conten- 4 tion. For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: but as we 5 were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing 6 men, but God, which trieth our hearts. For neither at any time used we flattering words, 7 as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness: nor of men sought we glory, 8 neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of 9 Christ. But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cheriseth her children: so being 10 affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel 11 of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For ye remember, 12 brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be 13 chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. 14 Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved our- 15 selves among you that believe: as ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged 16 every one of you, as a father doth his children, that ye would walk worthy of God, who 17 hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. For this cause also thank we God without 18 ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it 19 not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh 20 also in you that believe. For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which 21 in Judæa are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, 22 even as they have of the Jews: who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and 23 have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to 24 speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is 25 come upon them to the uttermost. But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short 26 time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great 27 desire. Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan 28 hindered us. For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the 29 presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy.
SLIGHT views of Christ’s atonement, and of the future glory which it purchases, may give a man cold and doubtful expectations; but let him be persuaded that these things are as real as his own existence, and straightway he rejoices in hope of the glory of God. Here is faith engendering hope. Faint apprehensions of the love of God in Christ may leave the heart void of corresponding affections, but let the full excellency of the benignant dying Redeemer overpower the soul, and it is dissolved in tender attachment. Here is faith working by love. The same is true of all these ever busy emotions, which, like a ceaseless sea, for ever fluctuate in the soul of man. Faith rises over these waves of feeling and commands them. The cordial belief of unseen things makes the heart’s pulses play with new animation. And then these moving powers give animation to the whole Christian life. The mainspring of all, however, still is “the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” J. W. A.
2. The history (Acts 16) relates that, after Paul and Silas had been beaten with many stripes at Philippi, shut up in the inner prison, and their feet made fast in the stocks, as soon as they were discharged from their confinement they departed from thence, and, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, came to Thessalonica, where Paul opened and alleged that Jesus was the Christ. The Epistle written in the name of Paul and Sylvanus (Silas), and of Timotheus, who appears to have been with them at Philippi, here accords with the history. Paley.
4. In trust with the gospel. That theme of earth and heaven, of sinner repenting and saint rejoicing, of eternity past and eternity to come, the tenor, substance, sum of revelation; that theme—“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—is the gospel. This gospel of which we are put in trust is a message concerning the grace of God, but it is not the grace. And, consequently, as our trust covers only the gospel, it extends simply to the declaration of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. We can not touch the grace itself either to give or withhold. God, the Holy Spirit, mercifully holds the bestowal of grace within his own power. We announce God’s merciful purpose. We are not trustees of grace, but only of the gospel of grace. We, sinners saved by grace, are made trustees of the gospel for saving other sinners. We are exercising this trust for the kindest and gentlest and most gracious of masters. Our considerate Saviour, who has called us to the work, understands whereof we are made. He expects of us no more than we can do. He asks of us no more than he will give strength to execute. He knows that the vessel is earthen; that it can not bear all trials nor endure all shocks. He is watching. He is with us. With a simple, trusting patience we labor on, committing humbly and confidently to him to fix the place of our ministry, to surround it with such circumstances as will best forward its purpose, to sustain us in its faithful discharge, and to secure its success. Bedell.
It was a supreme desire to please God, who trieth the heart, without regard either to the praise or censure of men, which rendered the first Christians superior to adversity in all its frightful forms; and it is the same divine principle, which, if once it got the entire possession of our hearts, would be a constant spring of holy obedience, and enable us, by the blessing of God, to follow the cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, through the most rugged paths of virtue, untainted with that inconstancy of behavior which is the reproach of so many professing Christians in our days. R. W.
7-13. By a rare privilege of nature, or of grace, Paul, combining opposite qualities in himself, and tempering force by gentleness, possessed one of the tenderest hearts that ever beat beneath the sky. Not merely a warm heart, but a feeling heart, with tender attachments; so far was his greatness from having any element of pride, or his energy any element of harshness. What can be more affectionate than the language of the apostle to his brethren of Thessalonica—his children in the faith? All whom he had begotten to eternal life are so many friends whom he bears on his heart before God. The churches without number founded by him contain no member who does not have his place in those prayers, the frequency of which is almost as astonishing as their fervor. One is tempted to ask where the apostle found time (to speak only of time) to pray so constantly for so many persons; and the inexhaustible tenderness of his soul assuredly enters largely into the solution of this touching problem. Monod.—With what a graceful mixture of majesty and meekness does he appeal to the Thessalonians! And what can attract our love, what can merit our esteem, what can excite our admiration, if such a temper doth not? A temper which, to all the magnanimity of the hero, unites all the piety and benevolence of the saint. R. W.
13. There is a revelation of God to his children which he gives them immediately by his Spirit, that is, its own witness. The man who has it is sure that he has it, and that it is of God. Not that our feelings alone are the test of truth in this matter; but, wherever there is this genuine illumination by God’s Spirit, it will be found exactly to accord with the outward revelation given by the same Spirit in the written word. It is maintained and grows continually by meditation upon that word, in faith and prayer, and in the use of those human ministrations by which God has appointed that his children shall be nourished. In these God himself meets them, and teaches them by his Spirit. Hence the gospel is called, “the ministration of the Spirit”; and in this light all true believers receive it, “not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the word of God.” Goode.—Our progress is real when there is advance in faith corresponding to the advance in
knowledge. And this may be going on during all our Christian course. Every perusal of the Scriptures, every hearing of the preached Word, should make us stronger and happier Christians by the energy of faith within.