1 Thessalonians 3

1 Thessalonians 3:1

And every tongue - Even of his enemies. Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord - Jehovah; not now “in the form of a servant,” but enthroned in the glory of God the Father.

1 Thessalonians 3:2

Wherefore - Having proposed Christ’s example, he exhorts them to secure the salvation which Christ has purchased. As ye have always - Hitherto. Obeyed - Both God, and me his minister. Now in my absence - When ye have not me to instruct, assist, and direct you. Work out your own salvation - Herein let every man aim at his own things. With fear and trembling - With the utmost care and diligence.

1 Thessalonians 3:3

For it is God - God alone, who is with you, though I am not. That worketh in you according to his good pleasure - Not for any merit of yours. Yet his influences are not to supersede, but to encourage, our own efforts. Work out your own salvation - Here is our duty. For it is God that worketh in you - Here is our encouragement. And O, what a glorious encouragement, to have the arm of Omnipotence stretched out for our support and our succour!

1 Thessalonians 3:4

Do all things - Not only without contention, Philippians 2:3, but even without murmurings and disputings - Which are real, though smaller, hinderances of love.

1 Thessalonians 3:5

That ye may be blameless - Before men. And simple - Before God, aiming at him alone. As the sons of God - The God of love; acting up to your high character. Unrebukable in the midst of a crooked - Guileful, serpentine, and perverse generation - Such as the bulk of mankind always were. Crooked - By a corrupt nature, and yet more perverse by custom and practice.

1 Thessalonians 3:7

Here he begins to treat of the latter clause of Php 1:22. Yea, and if I be offered - Literally, If I be poured out. Upon the sacrifice of your faith - The Philippians, as the other converted heathens, were a sacrifice to God through St. Paul’s ministry, Romans 15:16. And as in sacrificing, wine was poured at the foot of the altar, so he was willing that his blood should be poured out. The expression well agrees with that kind of martyrdom by which he was afterwards offered up to God.

1 Thessalonians 3:8

Congratulate me - When I am offered up.

1 Thessalonians 3:9

When I know - Upon my return, that ye stand steadfast.

1 Thessalonians 3:10

I have none - Of those who are now with me.

1 Thessalonians 3:11

For all - But Timotheus. Seek their own - Ease, safety, pleasure, or profit. Amazing! In that golden age of the church, could St. Paul throughly approve of one only, among all the labourers that were with him? Philippians 1:14,17. And how many do we think can now approve themselves to God? Not the things of Jesus Christ - They who seek these alone, will sadly experience this. They will find few helpers likeminded with themselves, willing naked to follow a naked Master.

1 Thessalonians 3:12

As a son with his father - He uses an elegant peculiarity of phrase, speaking partly as of a son, partly as of a fellowlabourer.