Verse 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 Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul — In this epistle St. Paul neither uses the title of an apostle, nor any other, as writing to pious and simple-hearted men, with the utmost familiarity. There is a peculiar sweetness in this epistle, unmixed with any sharpness or reproof: those evils which the apostles afterward reproved having not yet crept into the church.

Verse 3

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 Father;

Remembering in the sight of God — That is, praising him for it.

Your work of faith — Your active, ever-working faith.

And labour of love — Love continually labouring for the bodies or souls of men. They who do not thus labour, do not love. Faith works, love labours, hope patiently suffers all things.

Verse 4

Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.

Knowing your election — Which is through faith, by these plain proofs.

Verse 5

For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.

With power — Piercing the very heart with a sense of sin and deeply convincing you of your want of a Saviour from guilt, misery, and eternal ruin.

With the Holy Ghost — Bearing an outward testimony, by miracles, to the truth of what we preached, and you felt: also by his descent through laying on of hands.

With much assurance — Literally, with full assurance, and much of it: the Spirit bearing witness by shedding the love of God abroad in your hearts, which is the highest testimony that can be given. And these signs, if not the miraculous gifts, always attend the preaching of the gospel, unless it be in vain: neither are the extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost ever wholly withheld, where the gospel is preached with power, and men are alive to God.

For your sake — Seeking your advantage, not our own.

Verse 6

And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost:

Though in much affliction, yet with much joy.

Verse 8

For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.

For from you the word sounded forth — (Thessalonica being a city of great commerce.) Being echoed, as it were, from you. And your conversion was divulged far beyond Macedonia and Achaia. So that we need not speak anything - Concerning it.

Verse 9

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;

For they themselves — The people wherever we come.

Verse 10

And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

Whom he hath raised from the dead — In proof of his future coming to judgment.

Who delivereth us — He redeemed us once; he delivers us continually; and will deliver all that believe from the wrath, the eternal vengeance, which will then come upon the ungodly.