1 Thessalonians 3:1

In these words the apostle gives an account of his sending Timothy to the Thessalonians. Though he was hindered from going to them himself, yet his love was such that he could not forbear sending Timothy to them. Though Timothy was very useful to him, and he could not well spare him, yet Paul was content, for their good, to be left alone at Athens. Note, Those ministers do not duly value the establishment and welfare of their people who cannot deny themselves in many things for that end. Observe,

I. The character he gives of Timothy (Th1 3:2): We sent Timotheus, our brother. Elsewhere he calls him his son; here he calls him brother. Timothy was Paul's junior in age, his inferior in gifts and graces, and of a lower rank in the ministry: for Paul was an apostle, and Timothy but an evangelist; yet Paul calls him brother. This was an instance of the apostle's humility, and showed his desire to put honour upon Timothy and to recommend him to the esteem of the churches. He calls him also a minister of God. Note, Ministers of the gospel of Christ are ministers of God, to promote the kingdom of God among men. He calls him also his fellow-labourer in the gospel of Christ. Note, Ministers of the gospel must look upon themselves as labourers in the Lord's vineyard; they have an honourable office and hard work, yet a good work. This is a true saying, If any man desire the office of a bishop, he desires a good work, Ti1 3:1. And ministers should look upon one another, and strengthen one another's hands, not strive and contend one with another (which will hinder their work), but strive together to carry on the great work they are engaged in, namely, to preach and publish the gospel of Christ, and to persuade people to embrace and entertain it and live suitably thereto.

II. The end and design why Paul sent Timothy: To establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith, Th1 3:2. Paul had converted them to the Christian faith, and now he was desirous that they might be confirmed and comforted, that they might confirmed in the choice they had made of the Christian religion, and comforted in the profession and practice of it. Note, The more we are comforted, the more we shall be confirmed, because, when we find pleasure in the ways of God, we shall thereby be engaged to continue and persevere therein. The apostle's design was to establish and comfort the Thessalonians concerning their faith, - concerning the object of their faith, namely, the truths of the gospel, and particularly that Jesus Christ was the Saviour of the world, and so wise and good, so powerful and faithful, that they might rely upon him, - concerning the recompence of faith, which was more than sufficient to balance all their losses and reward all their labours.

III. The motive inducing Paul to send Timothy for this end, namely, a godly fear or jealousy, lest they should be moved from the faith of Christ, Th1 3:3. He was desirous that no man, no one among them, should be moved or shaken in mind, that they should not apostatize or waver in the faith. And yet,

1. He apprehended there was danger, and feared the consequence.

(1.) There was danger, [1.] By reason of affliction and persecution for the sake of the gospel, Th1 3:3. These Thessalonians could not but perceive what afflictions the apostles and preachers of the gospel met with, and this might possibly stumble them; and also those who made profession of the gospel were persecuted, and without doubt these Thessalonians themselves were afflicted. [2.] By reason of the tempter's subtlety and malice. The apostle was afraid lest by any means the tempter had tempted them, Th1 3:5. The devil is a subtle and unwearied tempter, who seeks an opportunity to beguile and destroy us, and takes all advantages against us, both in a time of prosperity and adversity; and he has often been successful in his attacks upon persons under afflictions. He has often prejudiced the minds of men against religion on account of the sufferings its professors are exposed to. We have reason therefore to be jealous over ourselves and others, lest we be ensnared by him.

(2.) The consequence the apostle feared was lest his labour should be in vain. And thus it would have been, if the tempter had tempted them, and prevailed against them, to move them from the faith. They would have lost what they had wrought, and the apostle would have lost what he laboured for. Note, It is the devil's design to hinder the good fruit and effect of the preaching of the gospel. If he cannot hinder ministers from labouring in the word and doctrine, he will, if he be able, hinder them of the success of their labours. Note also, Faithful ministers are much concerned about the success of their labours. No one would willingly labour in vain; and ministers are loth to spend their strength, and pains, and time, for nought.

2. To prevent this danger, with its bad consequence, the apostle tells them what care he took in sending Timothy, (1.) To put them in mind of what he had told them before concerning suffering tribulation (Th1 3:4), he says (Th1 3:3), We are appointed thereunto, that is, unto afflictions. So is the will and purpose of God that through many afflictions we must enter into his kingdom. Their troubles and persecutions did not come by chance, not merely from the wrath and malice of the enemies of religion, but by the appointment of God. The event only came to pass according as God had determined, and they knew he had told them before it would be; so that they should not think it strange, and, being fore-warned, they should be fore-armed. Note, The apostles were so far from flattering people with an expectation of worldly prosperity in religion that, on the contrary, they told them plainly they must count upon trouble in the flesh. And herein they followed the example of their great Master, the author or our faith. Besides, it might prove a confirmation of their faith, when they perceived that it only happened to them as was predicted before. (2.) To know their faith, that so he might inform the apostles whether they remained stedfast under all their sufferings, whether their faith failed or not, because, if their faith did not fail, they would be able to stand their ground against the tempter and all his temptations: their faith would be a shield, to defend them against all the fiery darts of the wicked, Eph 6:16.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Wherefore - See 1Th 2:18. This particle (διὸ dio) is designed here to refer to another proof of his affection for them. One evidence had been referred to in his strong desire to visit them, which he had been unable to accomplish 1Th 2:18, and he here refers to another - to wit, the fact that he had sent Timothy to them.

We could no longer forbear - That is, when I could not 1Th 3:5, for there is every evidence that Paul refers to himself only though he uses the plural form of the word. There was no one with him at Athens after he had sent Timothy away Act 17:15; Act 18:5, and this shows that when, in 1Th 2:6, he uses the term apostles in the plural number, he refers to himself only, and does not mean to give the name to Timothy and Silas. If this be so, Timothy and Silas are nowhere called “apostles” in the New Testament. The word rendered here “could forbear” (στέγοντες stegontes), means, properly, “to cover, to conceal;” and then to hide or conceal anger, impatience, weariness, etc.; that is, to hold out as to anything, to bear with, to endure. It is rendered suffer in 1Co 9:12; beareth, 1Co 13:7; and forbear, 1Th 3:1, 1Th 3:5. It is not elsewhere used in the New Testament. It means that he could no longer bear up under, hide, or suppress his impatience in regard to them - his painful emotions - his wish to know of their state; and he therefore sent Timothy to them.

We thought it good - I was willing to suffer the inconvenience of parting with him in order to show my concern for you.

To be left at Athens alone - Paul had been conducted to Athens from Berea, where he remained until Silas and Timothy could come to him; Act 17:15. It appears from the statement here that Timothy had joined him there, but such was his solicitude for the church at Thessalonica, that he very soon after sent him there, and chose to remain himself alone at Athens. Why he did not himself return to Thessalonica, is not stated. It is evidently implied here that it was a great personal inconvenience for him thus to part with Timothy, and to remain alone at Athens, and that he evinced the strong love which he had for the church at Thessalonica by being willing to submit to it. What that inconvenience consisted in, he has not stated, but it is not difficult to understand,

(1) He was among total strangers, and, when Timothy was gone, without an acquaintance or friend.

(2) The aid of Timothy was needed in order to prosecute the work which he contemplated. He had requested that Timothy should join him as soon as possible when he left Berea Act 17:15, and he evidently felt it desirable that in preaching the gospel in that city he should have all the assistance he could obtain. Yet he was willing to forego those comforts and advantages in order to promote the edification of the church at Thessalonica.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1Th_3:1-2

Wherefore, when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left in Athens alone--There is a subtle play of feeling in the whole texture of these words.

On the one hand sadness--to be left alone in Athens; on the other, a bright and tender pleasure beyond resignation, a consent that was not extorted--we were well pleased. The former expression has about it a tinge of desertion and forlornness, as of leaving father and mother (Mat_12:5; Mar_10:7; Eph_5:13; from Gen_2:24, LXX); the sheep in the wilderness (Luk_15:4); the preaching of the Word (Act_6:2). In the Old Testament, of one leaving wife or children by death (Deu_28:54; Pro_20:7, in LXX; cf. Mar_12:19; Luk_20:31). The word is suffused, with a sadness which abides after a farewell. The word alone stands forcibly last. Upon the departure of Timothy, Paul and Silvanus felt themselves to be indeed alone. Alone in London has become a proverb. But there was something more to one like Paul in a place like Athens--the city which was so beautiful, but so far from God. (Bp. Alexander.)

A difficult and important mission

Paul had been compelled to leave Thessalonica in consequence of the malignant opposition of the Jews. But Timothy might venture where it would be perilous for the apostle to appear. Fearing that his absence might be misconstrued, and anxious to strengthen the faith of the infant Church in the midst of trial, the apostle determines to send a trusted messenger. It is a significant testimony to the sound judgment and prudence of Timothy, that he is selected for this difficult and important mission.

I. This misson was the suggestion of an uncontrollable anxiety. Wherefore, when we could no longer forbear. This anxiety sprang from the intensity of the apostles love. It is a striking feature of genuine Christian love, that while it bears external suffering with uncomplaining patience, it is impatient of delay in doing good. The mother can endure anything but restraint in her desire to promote the best welfare of her child. David was indifferent to exposure and danger, but his soul panted after God.

II. This mission involved great personal inconvenience. At Athens alone. True love, in its unselfishness, ever prefers anothers good to its own. Timothy had travelled so constantly with Paul, and had been so great a comfort, that his absence was a loss keenly felt. Specially was his sympathy and cooperation needed at Athens. What a sublime historical picture is pourtrayed in the words at Athens alone. Christianity embodied in a single, lonely man, standing in the midst of the populous metropolis of pagan culture and idolatry. Yet the power enshrined in that solitary man broke up and scattered the huge fabric of heathenism.

III. This mission was entrusted to a thoroughly qualified messenger. The high character of Timothy and his relations with Paul are brought out in the epithets--

1. Brother. Elsewhere Paul calls him his own son in the faith, his dearly beloved son; but in speaking of him to the Churches, he recognizes him on the equal footing of a brother.

2. Minister of God. Solemnly set apart by the voice of prophecy and by the hands of the presbytery, and of Paul himself.

3. Fellow labourer in the gospel of Christ, not only as all Gods ministers are--i.e., working the work of the same Lord--but also on the ground of that special intimacy of personal intercourse and cooperation to which he was from the first admitted by the apostle. Thus Timothy was thoroughly qualified--

(1) To carry out the apostles wish concerning the Thessalonians: and

(2) to sympathize with the Churchs peculiar difficulties and trials. He was more than a mere courier. He was faithful to Pauls instructions, and valuable to the Church in himself.

IV. This mission was charged with a work of high importance and necessity.

1. To establish, to confirm, or set fast their faith, by a fresh authoritative manifestation of the gospel truth and its Divine evidences; and this would be done by private conversation and public ministration.

2. To comfort. The word means also--and especially here--to exhort, though, doubtless, comfort would be mingled with the exhortation. The Thessalonians were exposed to the storm of persecution that was everywhere raging against the gospel and its adherents, and they were exhorted to steadfastness, that no man should be moved by these afflictions. Paul and Barnabas had a similar mission to the Churches in Lesser Asia (Act_14:22). There are none so strong in faith but need confirmation; none so courageous but need comfort. Lessons--

1. The establishment of believers is ever a subject of anxiety to the true minister.

2. The desire to promote the highest welfare of the Church should ever be paramount. (G. Barlow.)

Paul and Timothy

I. The character Paul giveth of Timothy. Elsewhere he calls him my son; here he calls him our brother. Timothy was Pauls junior in age, his inferior in gifts and graces, and of a lower rank in the ministry; for Paul was an apostle, and Timothy but an evangelist; yet Paul calls him brother. This was an instance of the apostles humility, and showed his desire to put honour upon Timothy, and to recommend him to the esteem of the Churches. He calls him also a minister of God. Ministers of the gospel of Christ are ministers of God, to promote the kingdom of God among men. He calls him also our fellow labourer. Ministers of the gospel must look upon themselves as labourers in the Lords vineyard; they have an honourable office and hard work, yet a good work (1Ti_3:1). And ministers should look upon one another as fellow labourers, and should therefore love one another, and strengthen one anothers hands; not strive and contend one with another, which will hinder their work; but strive together to carry on the great work they are engaged in--namely, to preach and publish the gospel of Christ, and to persuade people to embrace and entertain it, and live suitably thereto.

II. The design Paul had in sending Timothy. This was to establish the Thessalonians, and comfort them concerning their faith. Paul had converted them to the Christian faith, and now he was desirous they might be confirmed and comforted--that they might be confirmed in the choice they had made of the Christian religion, and comforted in the profession and practice of it. The more we are comforted, the more we shall be confirmed; because, when we find pleasure in the ways of God, we shall thereby be engaged to continue and persevere therein. The apostles design, therefore, was a preeminently worthy one concerning his Thessalonian converts--their faith and the object of their faith, the truths of the gospel, and particularly that Jesus Christ was the Saviour of the world, and so wise and good, so powerful and faithful, that they might surely rely upon Him. He would also have them remember the recompense of faith, which was more than sufficient to balance all their losses and reward all their labours.

III. The motive inducing Paul thus to act. He cherished a godly fear or jealousy lest the Thessalonians should be moved from the faith of Christ. He was exceedingly desirous that not one among them should waver or apostatize; and yet he apprehended danger, and trembled for the consequence. They could not but perceive what afflictions the apostles met with; and also those who made profession of the gospel were persecuted, as without doubt these Thessalonians themselves were, and these evils might possibly stumble them. But the danger did not end here; there was the tempters subtlety and malice. He had often prejudiced the minds of men against religion on account of the sufferings its professors are exposed to, and he would do his utmost to damage the faith of these converts. Naturally, therefore, the apostle feared lest his labour should be in vain. To prevent the consequence of the danger, he sent Timothy to them to put them in mind that, as concerning affliction, they were appointed there unto. Troubles and persecutions do not come by chance, nor merely from the wrath and malice of the enemies of religion, but by the appointment or permission of God. (R. Fergusson.)

Alone in Athens

1. St. Paul puts upon himself the sacrifice of solitude in a strange city simply because it comes in the line of his duty. To his tastes ether appointments would be more agreeable. Some familiar place would suit better his longing for sympathy. He is a scholar, and would prefer retirement. He is the worn hero of many battles, and would like to rest in some peaceful household of faith. That he cannot do and be faithful; and this with any honest soul settles the question. At Athens, busy as he is, he remembers the affectionate little band left behind at Thessalonica.

2. In his person, on landing at the Piraeus, the morning light of the new age rose on a second continent. Yet everything was bleak, every face unfriendly. Any courage less valiant than his must have quailed before the overpowering splendour and despotism of old heathenism in its stronghold. Paul had come to it as fearless of its sophistries and arrogance as he had been of the swords and dungeons of Syria.

3. Without some common interests, cities are wildernesses and society the saddest of solitudes.

(1) From the moment that Pauls feet touched the pier, the monuments of the dominant mythology began to lift themselves forbiddingly before him, to make him feel himself alone. His own heart burning with love to Christ, the first objects that greet him are the statue of Neptune, a sensual temple of the God of Wine, images of Mercury, Minerva, Apollo, and Jupiter. Reaching the market place, his sense of separation deepens at every step. The buildings are memorials of a foreign history. Their walls are covered with paintings of barbarous exploits and alien manners. Processions of disgusting ceremonies meet him.

(2) If he turns from the world of sight to the world of thought, he finds the schools of unbelieving speculation strong in great names, but distracted with debate between doubt and delusion, and full of eloquent error. What was all this to the man who could say, It is no more I that live; Christ liveth in me. Deeper and darker the solitude grew; and yet he could banish himself into a completer exile for the sake of the little band of Christians at Thessalonica.

I. In Gods appointments there are two kinds of loneliness.

1. Outward and physical.

(1) The providential conditions are so settled for many that they have much less than the average share of social communication.

(a) Sometimes, by a shrinking turn of the constitution, or by natural reserve, or by lack of magnetic quality, or by a fatal propensity to say the wrong thing, or by necessities of occupation or residence, they are cut off from society.

(b) There is the solitude of temperament, the earnest heart all the while yearning for companionship, and yet strangely held back.

(c) There is a solitude of pride where social advantages are bitterly given up to escape making an appearance inferior to that of ones class.

(d) There is the solitude of obligation, created by the necessities of toil or devotion, by poverty or pity, imprisoning body and mind alike.

(e) There is the solitude of bodily infirmity.

(2) Among the perils of such a situation we must set down--

(a) A tendency to a belittling self-consideration. Finding nothing beyond self to fasten upon, affection stagnates or sours. Religion will have hard work to save such a life from contempt. It has been the snare of all monks.

(b) In other cases we see censoriousness. Rigid standards are applied to others. Allowances are not made for unavoidable differences, and so the first commandment of love is broken.

(c) Along with these bigoted ways of thinking, comes envy and cynicism. You have never had your fair chance. You are distanced by your contemporaries. Outside your sick chamber are the gay children of health and wealth. It needs a steady faith in Gods impartiality to keep down your discontent. So Martha felt her solitude--Carest thou not that my sister hath left me; and Peter--What shall this man do?--contrasting Johns brighter lot with his own martyrdom.

(d) Add to these a certain unwholesome fastidiousness, which is apt to arise from constant preoccupation with private tastes. The hand is withheld from many a useful office, and the tongue from many a cordial utterance. Opportunities for Christian benefaction are despairingly thrown away, and life miserably bereft of its true glory.

2. Involuntary and moral loneliness. While this, too, has its dangers, it may be made the occasion, as it was with Paul, of great spiritual gains.

(1) It is indispensable that at some period souls who follow Christ should stand morally apart, without honour or sympathy. This is one of the crosses which brave men have to take up, a school where strong principles are planted, convictions nourished, and energies trained. Rules of action taken up out of deference to prevailing notions fluctuate; these, wrought into the conscience in solitude, are more apt to come at first hand from God. Here is the test for all real characters. Can you live, work, suffer, stand out, move forward alone? This settles it whether you are a mere piece of movable furniture, moulded by the hands of fashion, or a living independent soul, satisfied to walk with Him who had not where to lay His head while He was showing the world the truth and love of God, satisfied to live with the apostle who thought it good to be left in Athens alone.

(2) In all the biographies of human greatness we find this proved by examples. I try in vain to think of one memorable saint who has not had the discipline of the desert or the mountain. It is there that great leaders have gathered gifts from on high, broken the bondage of ambition and vanity, and came so close to Christ that His sacrificial power has entered them. Out of the Bible, no less than in it, master men have been lonely men.

(3) Hence the defect you are sure to find in people who have never accepted or made intervals of seclusion. They may be stirring characters, but thin; loud, but shallow, wanting in reverence and steady power, over-anxious about results and appearances, over-deferential to the popular cry; at home only in the multitude, but afraid of the mount. It is the earnest, hearty worker with God who knows how to be refreshed with fellowship at Thessalonica, and to be left at Athens alone.

(4) In our fast and outward living generation, and our noisy and showy age the Church needs most religious retirement and private prayer. The greater the tendency to secular arrogance and surface morality the more Christians ought to guard the sacred retreats. This nation would hardly have been what it is or done what it has if our ancestors had brought up their sons and daughters in the glaring parlours of a vast hotel. Strong character is a separate thing, and requires a separate, individual nurture. Promiscuous intermixtures never produce it. It might well be defined as the power of standing alone. How we see the want of it wherever men and woman meet together; wherever majorities brow beat an unpopular faith; whenever you are likely to be a loser in money, or to be laughed at. Righteousness never counts her companions. This is the heroic loneliness of all Gods great ones from the beginning; of Jacob left alone through the long night wrestling with the Angel; of Moses receiving commission to emancipate a nation, alone in the mountains; of Elijah when he cried I only am left; of Daniel watched by an idolatrous monarch kneeling three times a day; of Peter answering the rulers Whether it is right in the sight of God, etc., and higher yet, of Him who trod the winepress alone, and yet not alone, for the Father was with Him.

II. The God of our lives puts into all of them some solitude for a purpose of His own.

1. He arranges it for us that we cannot be always in anybodys company. Friend after friend departs. Misunderstandings arise. There is a night between every two days. Sickness is sent. Is it not plain that this is because the deepest and holiest exercises of the spirit are where no human presence is by?

2. Look back. If repentance ever took hold of you and bade you look up for mercy; if the great choice between God and self was ever made, was it not when you were alone with your Saviour.

3. Before the Spirit has done His deepest and best work in you, He will have you all to Himself. The question of everlasting love is a private question--Wilt thou be Mine forever? Each succeeding struggle, when we make the tremendous sacrifice which carries us clear of some entangling alliance, is solitary work. Great griefs are solitary--the heart breaks alone.

4. Our communion with Christ only obeys the law of all lofty delicate friendships. Intervention is interruption; and even the best society on earth is not good enough to divide your intercourse with your Master.

III. Loneliness sometimes becomes lonesomeness. The excessively secluded life is imbittered by a craving for sympathy. This would have been Pauls feelings at Athens, and he would not have thought it good to be left there, but for the one Divine Friend who stayed with him. It is in His felt presence that those hearts are to find their consolation which are separated from their kind. However thronged the streets or brilliant the season, these uncheered souls are all around us. By far the greater number of us have hours when we long for nothing so much as to hear some fellow soul say I know how you suffer; one heart at least answers to yours. There are constitutions finely tempered which need continual protection, but have it only under coarse, sordid hands, lacerating wherever they touch. There are self distrustful, timid creatures, tortured with a despairing sense of failure who never get an encouraging look. What is the comfort? Only one. For all these the Man of sorrows is the only companion, and His hidden love the only consolation. What would Athens have been to Paul without his Saviour?

IV. Christs blessing rests as graciously on our more secluded and least noticed services for Him as upon the most conspicuous of His workmen. Paul the despised missionary at Athens is as sure of his Saviours presence and benediction as when the populace of Lystra are hailing him as a god. We are slow to learn that the spirit of the gospel is no more in the assembly of ten thousand than where one tired labourer watches by the sick orphan, or one daughter of fortune and culture cheerfully crucifies every taste to teach a group of unclean vagabonds how to pray. We hurry into publicity as if that were heaven, and are impatient to count converts and see results, as if that were salvation. The most glorious chronicles and monuments of Athens are not in her letters, temples, arms, but in that little record of the friendless traveller who thought it good to be left there alone. (Bp. Huntington.)

The solitude of a great city

(cf. Act_17:16-17)

:--

I. Affords a painful opportunity to reflect on its moral condition: He saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

II. Awakens profound concern in a great soul: His spirit was stirred in him.

III. Rouses to immediate action in promoting the welfare of the citizens: Therefore disputed he in the synagogue and in the market daily. (G. Barlow.)

Solitary saints

Think of God working in the solitary things, for the grass does not merely grow around our populous cities, but up there on the side of the bleak Alps, where no traveller has ever passed. Where only the eye of the wild bird has beheld their lovely verdure, the moss and the grass come to perfection, and display all their beauty, for Gods works are fair to other eyes than those of mortals. And you solitary child of God, dwelling far away from any friend, unknown and obscure, in remote hamlet; or you in the midst of London, hiding away in your little garret, unknown to fame and forsaken by friendship, you are not forgotten by the love of heaven. He maketh the grass to grow all alone, and shall He not make you flourish in loneliness? He can bring forth your graces, and educate you for the skies, in solitude and neglect. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Loneliness with some is unfavourable to virtue

A monk who could fast seven days in the monastery tried to do the same thing alone in the desert. The effort was too much for him. He gave out the first day. How came you to fail? was the question put to him when he returned. Ah, said the monk, when I fast in the monastery I have the prior and the brethren to look on and encourage me.

Solitude

I. There are two classes of solitude. The first consisting of insulation in space, the other of isolation of the spirit.

1. The first is simply separation by distance. When we are seen, touched, and heard by none, we are said to be alone. And all hearts respond to the truth of that saying. This is not solitude, for sympathy can people our solitude with a crowd. The fisherman on the ocean alone at night is not alone when he remembers the earnest longings which are arising up to heaven for his safety. The traveller is not alone when the faces which will greet him on his arrival seem to beam upon him as he trudges on. The solitary student is not alone when he feels that human hearts will respond to the truths which he is preparing to address to them.

2. The other is loneliness of soul. There are times when hands touch ours, but only send an icy chill of indifference to the heart; when eyes gaze into ours, but with a glazed look that cannot read into the bottom of our souls; when words pass from our lips but only come back as an echo reverberated without reply through a dreary solitude; when the multitudes throng and press us, and we cannot say as Christ did, Somebody hath touched Me; for the contact has been not between soul and soul, but between form and form.

II. There are two classes of men who feel this last solitude in different ways.

1. The first are the men of self-reliance--self-dependent; who ask no counsel and crave no sympathy, who act and resolve alone, who can go sternly through duty, and scarcely shrink let what will be crushed in them. Such men command respect: for whoever respects himself constrains the reverence of others. They are invaluable in all those professions of life in which sensitive feeling would be a superfluity: they make iron commanders, surgeons who do not shrink, and statesmen who do not flinch from their purpose for dread of unpopularity. But mere self-dependence is weakness; and the conflict is terrible when a human sense of weakness is felt by such men. Jacob was alone when he slept in his way to Padan Aram, the first night that he was away from his fathers roof, with the world before him, and all old associations broke up; and Elijah was alone in the wilderness when the court had deserted him, and he said, I only am left. But the loneliness of the tender Jacob was very different from that of the stern Elijah. To Jacob the sympathy he yearned for was realized in the form of a simple dream. A ladder raised from earth to heaven figured the possibility of communion between the spirit of man and the Spirit of God. In Elijahs case the storm and the earthquake and the fire did their convulsing work in the soul before a still, small voice told him that he was not alone. In such a spirit the sense of weakness comes with a burst of agony, and the dreadful conviction of being alone manifests itself with a rending of the heart of rock. It is only so that such souls can be touched that the Father is with them and that they are not alone.

2. There is another class of men who live in sympathy. These are affectionate minds which tremble at the thought of being alone; not from want of courage or weakness of intellect comes their dependence upon others, but from the intensity of their affections. It is the trembling spirit of humanity in them. They want not aid, nor even countenance, but only sympathy. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

The risks of solitude

The self-diabolizing spirit of man always reveals itself to the lonely contemplatist, either in moments of vacancy, or under the stress of spiritual crises. Eve was tempted when she was alone; the suicide succumbs when he is pushed into the last degree of loneliness; the darkest thoughts of the conspirator becloud the mind when he has most deeply cut the social bond: when man is alone, he loses the check of comparison with others; he miscalculates his force, and deems too little of the antagonisms which that force may excite. All these are among the risks of solitude. The solitary man either degenerates into a misanthrope and the tool of the diabolizing spirit, or he enriches and strengthens his life by reverent and subduing contemplation. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th 3:1. When we could no longer forbear — Or bear, rather, namely, our anxiety on your account. The word στεγοντες, here used, literally signifies bearing or carrying, but never forbearing. Some such word as anxiety is necessary to be supplied, because it appears from the following verse, that the apostle was at this time under great concern lest the Thessalonians should have been moved from the faith of the gospel, either by the false arguments of the unbelievers, or by the persecutions which they suffered. We thought it good to be left at Athens alone — Although there we had peculiar need of the support and comfort of having with us an approved companion and friend. Some infer, from this manner of speaking, that Silas was absent from Paul while he was at Athens. And Macknight supposes, that though Timothy and Silas were both ordered to follow him from Berea to Athens, (Act 17:15,) only Timothy came to him there. See Act 18:1; Act 18:5. If this opinion be correct, when Timothy left Athens, the apostle remained in that city alone, which was a very trying circumstance, as he expected great opposition from the Athenian philosophers. Some, however, infer, from the apostle’s speaking in the plural number, We thought, &c., that Silas must have been with him. And sent Timotheus, our fellow-labourer in the gospel — As Timothy is said (Act 17:14) to have remained with Silas in Berea, after Paul’s departure, it is probable he had been with the apostle at Thessalonica, and had assisted him in his work of preaching the gospel there; to establish you — In the new faith you have embraced; and to comfort you — Under your suffering. That no man — That none of you, who have believed; should be moved — Or shaken, as σαινεσθαι means; should be discouraged, and made to fall off from his adherence to the Christian profession and hope, by these afflictions — Which either you or we are exposed to. For you know that we are appointed thereto — Our Lord expressly forewarned his apostles that they were to be persecuted, and that even to death; and that whoever killed them would think he did God service. Moreover, when he called Paul to the apostleship, he showed him how great things he must suffer for his name’s sake, Act 9:16. All the apostles, therefore, and Paul more especially, expected to be persecuted. But here it is signified, that not only the apostles, evangelists, and other ministers of the word, were exposed to persecution, but that all who embraced the Christian faith were to expect to meet with the same treatment from the unbelievers, whether heathen or Jews; yea, that, as the original expression, εις τουτο κειμεθα, implies, that they were appointed to it, or rather laid, in every respect, in a fit posture for it, and that by the very design and contrivance of God himself, for the trial and increase of their faith and other graces. For, one principal part of the scheme of God, in establishing the Christian Church, was to raise a society of men who should glorify his name, and illustrate the force of true religion by enduring the greatest extremities in its defence with fortitude and cheerfulness. He gives great riches to the world, but stores up his treasures of wholesome afflictions for his children. For when we were with you — We did not flatter you with any vain hopes of an easy and pleasurable life, but plainly and candidly told you, before you embraced the gospel which we preach, and united yourselves to the Christian community, by submitting to the ordinance of baptism, that we should suffer tribulation — And indeed what else could be expected by any that consider the nature of the religion to which we are endeavouring to make converts, compared with the tempers, prejudices, and interests of mankind. Because the apostle knew that the enemies of the gospel would infer, from his not delivering himself from persecution by miracles, that he did not possess the miraculous powers to which he pretended, he took care to let his disciples know, in every place, that he was ordered by his Master to suffer for the gospel, and that his suffering for it was as necessary a part of the proof of its divine original as his working miracles.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. St. Paul’s sending Timothy (from Athens?) to visit and confirm his Thessalonians, 1Th_3:1-5.

1. Forbear—The old Greek word for this signified first to cover, afterward to contain, and finally to contain or restrain one’s self.

Thought it good—Note on the noun of this verb, Eph_1:5. Alford remarks here that the word does not carry with it any signification of pleasure except so far as we say “it was our pleasure,” referring merely to the resolution of the will. But “pleasure,” in the ordinary English sense of the word, signifying merely emotional agreeableness, never belongs to the words. The Greek term is compounded of ευ, well, or right, and δοκεω, to seem or appear, or to think. Hence, when used in public decrees, it means, such is the right-seeming unto us, the authorities. That right-seeming claims to be the just ground of the decree. It is an absolutely just right-seeming when the authority is an absolutely just one. When such an authority in English uses the phrase, it is our pleasure, as equivalent to the Greek phrase, the word pleasure has not its sense of mere gratification, but of right-seeming; and of decree accordant with that right-seeming. Paul’s right-seeming was the right-seeming of a right-minded thinker.

Left at Athens alone—By Timothy. When Paul embarked for Athens from Berea, he sent back command for Silas and Timothy to follow him to Athens. Act_17:15. This Timothy may have obeyed, and thus St. Paul and Timothy may have been briefly together in Athens. But in time, as here narrated, Paul’s anxiety for his Thessalonians became so great that he concluded to send Timothy back again to them. though he would be thereby left at Athens alone. It does not appear that Silas came to Athens. But both joined St. Paul at Corinth. Act_18:5.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

1Th_3:1. When we could no longer forbear.—This latter word occurs in 1Co_13:7 to describe the endurance of love.

1Th_3:2. Fellow-labourer is omitted from the R.V. text, which reads, “our brother and God’s minister in the gospel of Christ.” To establish you.—To fix firmly; as Christ said to Peter, “Stablish thy brethren.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Th_3:1-2

A Difficult and Important Mission.

Paul had been compelled to leave Thessalonica in consequence of the malignant opposition of the Jews. They thirsted for his life, and it would still be dangerous for him to visit the city. But Timothy might venture where it would be perilous for the apostle to appear. While the wrath of the Jews raged against the gospel as a whole, it culminated in its fury around the head of Paul, the ringleader and champion of the movement. Fearing that his absence might be misconstrued, and anxious to strengthen the faith of the infant Church in the midst of trial, the apostle determines to send a trusted messenger. It is a significant testimony to the sound judgment and prudence of Timothy, that he is selected for this difficult and important mission.

I. This mission was the suggestion of an uncontrollable anxiety.—“Wherefore, when we could no longer forbear” (1Th_3:1). This anxiety sprang from the intensity of the apostle’s love. It is a striking feature of genuine, Christian love that, while it bears with uncomplaining patience any amount of external suffering, it is restless with a holy impatience of delay in doing good to those it embraces. The devoted mother can endure anything but restraint in her desire to promote the best welfare of her child. David was indifferent to the exposure and dangers of his wilderness-life; but his soul panted after God with all the raging thirst of the hart in autumn for the cooling water-brook.

II. This mission involved great personal inconvenience.—“We thought it good to be left at Athens alone” (1Th_3:1). The unselfishness of true love ever prefers another’s good to its own. Timothy had travelled so constantly with Paul, and had been so great a comfort to him in his captivities and trials, that his absence was a keenly felt loss. Specially was his sympathy and co-operation needed when the great Gentile missionary entered the region

“Where on the Ægean shore a city stood,

Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil,

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts

And eloquence.”—Milton.

“At Athens alone.” What a sublime historical picture is portrayed in these words! Christianity embodied in a single, lonely man, standing in the midst of the populous metropolis of pagan culture and idolatry! Yet the power sustained in that solitary man broke up and scattered the huge fabric of heathenism. “Solitude is one of the highest enjoyments of which our nature is susceptible. Solitude is also, when too long continued, capable of being made the most severe, indescribable, unendurable, source of anguish” (Deloraine).

III. This mission was entrusted to a thoroughly qualified messenger.—The high character of Timothy and the relations existing between the two preachers are brought out in the epithets applied to him. “Timothy our brother” (1Th_3:2). In other places Paul calls him his “own son in the faith,” his “dearly beloved son”; but in speaking of him to the Churches he recognises him on the equal footing of a brother. He was also a minister of God, solemnly set apart to this service by the voice of prophecy, and by the consecrating hands of the presbytery, and of Paul himself. And finally he was Paul’s fellow-labourer in the gospel of Christ, not only as all God’s ministers are fellow-labourers, working the work of the same Lord, but also on the ground of that special intimacy of personal intercourse and co-operation, to which he was from the first admitted by the apostle (Lillie). Thus Timothy was thoroughly qualified—

(1) to carry out the apostle’s wish concerning the Thessalonians, and

(2) to sympathise with the Church’s peculiar difficulties and trials. He was more than a mere courier. He was faithful to Paul’s instructions, and valuable to the Church in himself.

IV. This mission was charged with a work of high importance and necessity.—“To establish you, and to comfort you, concerning your faith” (1Th_3:2).

1. To establish—to comfort, or set fast their faith by a fresh, authoritative manifestation of the gospel truth and its divine evidences; and this would be done by private conversation and public ministration.

2. To comfort.—The word means also, and especially here, to exhort, though doubtless comfort would be mingled with the exhortation. The Thessalonians were exposed to the storm of persecution that was everywhere raging against the gospel and its adherents, and they were exhorted to steadfastness, “that no man should be moved by these afflictions.” Paul and Barnabas had a similar mission to the Churches in Lesser Asia (Act_14:22). There are none so strong in faith but need confirmation, none so courageous but need comfort.

Lessons.—

1. The establishment of believers is ever a subject of anxiety to the true minister.

2. The desire to promote the highest welfare of the Church should ever be paramount.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSE

1Th_3:1. “At Athens alone” (cf. Act_17:16-17). The Solitude of a Great City—

I. Affords a painful opportunity to reflect on its moral condition.—“He saw the city wholly given to idolatry.”

II. Awakens profound concern in a great soul.—“His spirit was stirred in him.”

III. Rouses to immediate action in promoting the welfare of the citizens.—“Therefore disputed he in the synagogue and in the market daily.”

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th_3:1-5

2. Being unable to come himself, Paul sent Timothy

1Wherefore, when we could no longer forbear [endure, στέγοντες], we thought it good [thought good, εὐδοκήσαμεν; sin., as B.: ηὐδοκήσαμεν] to be left at [left behind 2in, καταλειφθῆςαι ἐν] Athens alone, and sent Timothy our brother, and minister of God, and our fellow-labourer [our brother and fellow-labourer with God]1 in 3the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you [exhort]2 concerning [in behalf of]3 your faith, that4 no man [no one, μηδένα] should be moved by [in, ἐν] these afflictions; for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto 4[unto this we are appointed, εἰς τοῦτο κείμεθα]. For verily [For even, καὶ γάρ] when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation [are to be afflicted, μέλλομεν θλίβεσθαι]; even as [as also, καθὼς καί] it came to pass, and ye know. 5For this cause, when I [I also, κἀγώ] could no longer forbear [endure, στέγων], I sent to know your faith, lest by some means [lest haply, μήπως] the tempter have [had] tempted you, and our labour [toil, κόπος] be [should prove, γένηται] in vain.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. (1Th_3:1.) Wherefore (because ye are thus our joy, 1Th_2:20; my crown of glory, which I hope to bring before the Lord, 1Th_2:19),5 when we, &c.; more exactly:6 as those who could not longer endure it. Στέγω, in old Greek, to cover, then (of a vessel), to contain, and then (Philo and Paul), to endure; so 1Co_9:12; 1Co_13:7. This suits our place; but not, to conceal. No longer endure, namely, to be separated from you, and hindered from coming to you (1Th_2:18).7 There is tenderness in the fact, that his anxiety is scarcely hinted at, is at most intimated in the expression στέγοντες, and is not more distinctly announced till 1Th_3:5.

2. We thought good, were pleased (1Th_2:8; the imperfect, continuously); here the aorist (on one occasion); Calvin: promtam animi inclinationem designat.8 The plural, according to the restriction already introduced by the explanation in 1Th_2:18, of Paul alone; for 1Th_3:1 sqq. is closely connected with what precedes; equivalent, therefore, to the singular in 1Th_3:5. Otherwise Grotius, Bengel, Roos, Hofmann, who, because the singular first comes at 1Th_3:5, think that the plural here does not denote Paul alone (and so Roos and Hofmann at 1Th_3:6 also). But all three (1Th_1:1) cannot be meant; Timothy, being sent forth, is not one of those left alone. We should thus have to understand by the plural two out of the three; but that is more arbitrary than to explain it (after 1Th_2:18) of Paul alone, [as is done by Schott, De Wette, Lünemann, Alford.—J. L.] Generally, indeed, it is he who decides. With this too Act_18:5 is at least more readily reconciled.

3. (1Th_3:2.) In Athens, &c., and sent, &c.; therefore from Athens. According to Act_17:15 Paul sends a message from Athens to Berœa, that Silas and Timothy should come to him with all speed; according to Act_18:5 they both came to him at Corinth from Macedonia. With this agrees 1Th_3:6 : Timothy comes from Thessalonica (Macedonia) to Paul, with whom Silvanus also is present during the writing of the letter. The narrative in the Acts has in the interval a gap, that can only be filled up conjecturally. Either (1 a.) both had come to Athens, and from that place had again been sent to the north, Timothy to Thessalonica, Silas perhaps to Philippi (also in Macedonia). (If ἐπέμψαμεν included also Silvanus, this would be a necessary supposition.) Or (1 b.) only Timothy had come to Athens, and been sent to Thessalonica,9 Silas being still detained in Berœa (likewise in Macedonia). Or lastly (2) both did not come to Paul, so long as he lingered in Athens, but the latter (moved, it may be, by accounts of persecutions in Thessalonica) sent after the first order (for them to come) a second in like manner from Athens to Berœa; that Timothy, instead of coming to him directly, should rather go in his stead to Thessalonica, and only after that follow in his route (so Hug; Wieseler, Chronol. des apostolischen Zeitalters, 249). He would thus have countermanded Timothy’s expected arrival in Athens. This would accord well with ἐπέμψ. (without ἐκεῖθεν); less naturally with καταλειφθ., which, strictly taken, signifies not merely left alone, but left behind alone. Difficulty there is none, only a gap, which cannot be filled up incontestably in only one way.

4. Our brother, &c.—The Cod. B. gives, our brother and fellow-laborer; A. and Sin., our brother and God’s servant; others, and God’s servant and fellow-laborer; the Recepta (not altogether after late authorities only), our brother and God’s servant and our fellow-laborer, where the arrangement is wanting in solidity; we should have to justify it perhaps thus: as God’s servant he is our fellow-laborer. But the reading which first lies at the basis of all the variations is that followed above (D. Ambrosiaster); διάκονος θεοῦ is common, sometimes in a comprehensive (2Co_6:4), sometimes in a narrower sense (Acts 6; 1Ti_3:8). My fellow-laborer, says Paul, Rom_16:21; God’s fellow-laborers, 1Co_3:9. In the glad tidings of Christ; in the act, that is, of preaching the same.—It can scarcely be said that Paul gives Timothy these several titles of honor involuntarily, and on account merely of the latter being his faithful helper (Lünemann); he probably means also to show the Thessalonians what a helper he has deprived himself of for their sake (Chrysostom); quo melius ostenderet quam bene illis consultum voluerit (Calvin); and at the same time to certify his own perfect agreement with Timothy, and confirm whatever he has done (Von Gerlach). Somewhat too refined perhaps is Hofmann’s conjecture, that they were not, because Paul had not come himself, to think too highly of the coming of Timothy, and that he desires to guard aginst this.

5. To establish you (in the persecutions; that Timothy was to do) and to exhort, literally, to call to, which is to be understood, according to the context, either of exhortation or of comfort (Act_15:32; 2Th_2:17). But Paul expresses no distrust of their standing as believers. That the oldest authorities omit ὑμᾶς after παρακ. makes no difference in the sense; nor yet that they read ὑπέρ instead of περί. For the former likewise means on account of, in consideration of, as in Rom_15:9; 2Co_1:8; 2Th_2:1; at least, it is not necessary, with Lünemann [Jowett, Alford, Ellicott], to press the signification in favor of, for the benefit of (in order to support your faith).

6. (1Th_3:3.) That no one should be moved, &c.—Σαίνω (from σέω, σείω), in the New Testament only here, means to move to and fro; of dogs, to wag the tail; hence to flatter, deceive through flattery (so in many places in Wetstein). Thus Bengel that no one be deceived (by enemies, relations, his own heart); similarly Rückert: blanditiis corrump [a sense suggested also by Wordsworth, after Theophylact; likewise Jowett: “not simply moved, but rather moved to softness.”—J. L.] On the other hand, the Greek interpreters (familiar with the language), and so the moderns generally, including Lünemann, understand by it, to be moved, shaken, like σαλευθῆναι of 2Th_2:2. Hofmann disputes this explanation, reduces even Lünemann’s examples from the classics to the sense of deluding, and understands thus: in (in the midst of, not by means of) the persecutions seeming well-wishers might delude you with suggestions.—Τῷ could not mean because that (as in 2Co_2:12 [13]), but must be equivalent to εἰς τό, for the end that, like the Hebrew לְ. But this were without example, and, besides, the accusative τό is attested by almost all the uncials. The latter Lünemann [Alford] understands as in apposition to εἰς τὸ στηρ. &c.: that is to say that; which is as much as to say that;—not good. Others [Schott, Koch]: in reference to, as in Php_4:10 (where, however, another view is possible); best (Ewald, Hofmann [Winer, De Wette, Ellicott, Webster and Wilkinson]): it marks the purport of the charge, of the παρακαλέσαι; comp. 1Th_4:1; 1Th_4:6.

7. In these afflictions; which after Paul’s departure befell the Thessalonians as well as him (1Th_2:14). From 1Th_3:4 it is inferred that they immediately subsided. That they might return any day, and did actually break forth again, is shown by 2Th_1:4. Chrysostom and others err in supposing that he speaks of his own afflictions, by which the Thessalonians were rendered anxious, as soldiers are by the wounding of the general.

8. For yourselves know, without any repeated admonition of ours; know then also, that I am right in requiring, μηδένα σαίνεσθαι.—That unto this we (Christians generally) are appointed; κείμεθα like τιθέμεθα (Luk_2:34; Php_1:16). Improperly Koch: are prostrate (in misfortune and suffering); Philippians 1 might perhaps be so understood, but not Luke 2. Rather: by God ordained, thereunto appointed; εἰς τοῦτο, to afflictions, as the way into the kingdom of God (Mat_5:10-12; Mat_10:21-22; Mat_10:34 sqq.; Joh_15:18 sqq.; Joh_16:2; Act_14:22; 2Ti_3:12).

9. (1Th_3:4.) Καὶ γάρ, for even, for indeed.—You should therefore know it, from our telling you before.—That we are to be afflicted, μέλλομεν θλίβ. (again, Christians generally), that there awaits us; not simply equivalent to the future, but: according to God’s purpose; because darkness is opposed to light, the flesh strives against the spirit. Notwithstanding such undisguised forewarning, the gospel wins believers. An example of how far the Apostle’s word was from flattering speech (1Th_2:5).—As also it came to pass (with you, as with us), and ye know; not: that it must come to pass, that were tautological with 1Th_3:3; but: that according to our forewarning it has come to pass. By this remembrance there accrued from an outward event an inward experience. As the subject of κείμεθα (1Th_3:3) and μέλλομεν (1Th_3:4), therefore, we understand Christians generally. Hofmann, on the contrary: the same as in the case of ἦμεν and προελέγομεν, and so only the Apostles. No doubt, in the clause, “when we were with you,” the we can only mean the Apostles. But in the case of κείμεθα there is nothing before to suggest this limitation; and opposed to it is the fact, that thereby the most natural connection with what precedes is disturbed. To comfort the Thessalonians in their afflictions, he reminds them of the rule that affects all Christians. But, if we understood him to say “that we Apostles are appointed thereunto,” it is only in an ingenious, roundabout way that we could get at the point of the confirmation and exhortation: Admit no such insinuation, as that we misled you into misery, while we secured ourselves.

10. (1Th_3:5.) For this cause (on account of these afflictions; unnaturally Hofmann: because we εἰς τοῦτο κείμεθα), when I also, &c. Olshausen interpolates: as you in your care for me;—Lünemann: as the others, Timothy and the Christians in Athens;10 but there is nothing said of their having no longer endured;—Hofmann even: as we two, Silvanus and I, sent Timothy, so now also I alone (the singular) sent some one unnamed! On the other hand, De Wette would refer the καί in κἀγώ to the whole sentence; without proof. Just as here after διὰ τοῦτο, so it stands at Eph_1:15; comp. Col_1:9 [both texts cited by De Wette.—J. L.]. And, just as there, it opposes to what was said of the Thessalonians (ye have had experience of suffering)11 what he too now had done.—Sent, &c. is a resumption of 1Th_3:2. He says nothing any more about whom he sent; he merely adds, for what purpose. Nor is it any longer here, as at 1Th_3:2, what Timothy was to do, but what he thereby sought for himself. At no time mere tautological repetition. For Pelt and Olshausen erroneously refer γνῶναι to Timothy, though indeed not named, as the subject; it belongs rather to the subject of the principal verb (Lünemann).

11. Your faith, whether [lest],12 &c.—Everything concentrates in this, whether they stand in the faith. Without our supplying φοβούμενος, μήπως expresses solicitude, and first indeed, with the indicative preterite, in reference to what was past: whether perhaps it has already occurred; there exists oppression from without; now he is anxious to know, whether haply this had wrought inwardly so as to become a temptation for the Thessalonians, that is, to the disturbance of faith;—then, moreover, with the subjunctive, in reference to what was impending, which in this case might possibly occur; for, even though the πειρασμός should have already occurred, this would still be by no means decided; the temptation might, indeed, still be resisted, and the entire frustration of the work still be warded off. Similarly Gal_2:2; comp. Winer, 6 ed., 56, 2.† The tempter is Satan (1Th_2:18); the substantival participle marks his settled characteristic (Mat_4:3); that is what he is always after. That the subject and the predicate are from the same stem gives emphasis to the expression. For εἰς κενόν, to come to nothing, to be frustrated, comp. Gal_2:2; Php_2:16; Hebr. לְאַכְזָב ,לַשָּׁיְא ,לָרִיק, Isa_65:23; Jer_6:29; Mic_1:14.—Our toil; you surely do not mean to make me so poor? he thus speaks to their heart. It would be to their own hurt, if they fell away. But he in his love for them would reckon it a sensible loss for himself (Rieger). Now at last and in such an affectionate manner, after he has already strengthened them, does he mention the danger by name.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. (1Th_3:1.) It was a sacrifice, to remain in so difficult a position without the outward and inward support of faithful helpers; rather to dispense with something himself, than allow the Thessalonians to want for anything. Love gives others the precedence (comp. Php_2:19 sqq.). Calvin: Desiderii illius sui fidem facit, se majorem illorum quam sui rationem habuisse ostendit. It is at the same time an instance of that so frequent change in his plans, which was misinterpreted to his disadvantage at Corinth (2Co_1:17). What was said of another servant of God is to its full extent true of him: “The singleness of his eye kept him steadfast to his purpose under all the varied and trying circumstances of his life. He changed his plans according as he observed a change in the intimations of Providence, but his purpose remained fundamentally the same—the furtherance of the gospel by all means.” Berlenburger Bibel: A servant of the Church must accommodate himself to the circumstances of the Church, and yet in such a manner that, while doing one thing, he do not neglect another.

2. (1Th_3:2.) The mission to Thessalonica was no small task for the youthful Timothy (1Co_16:10-11; according to 1Ti_4:12 he needed encouragement in the presence of older men). In the Acts the presence of Timothy at the founding of the church there is not once mentioned; plainly because he was less conspicuous, and for the same reason the persecution did not affect him. Paul, however, would not have entrusted a stranger to the church with such an important commission. The Apostle understood the wisdom of selecting a gentle manager, who yet was no skulk, but in a spirit of self-sacrifice sought, as few others, the things that were Christ’s (Php_2:20-22). The difference of gifts is of service for different tasks. It is not every one that can root out stumps and stones, nor is this always in order. There is a time also for easy going—careful watering, and ministers with gifts adapted to that work. Even in war different enterprises are promoted by different sorts of weapons.

3. (1Th_3:2.) Timothy, the brother. Care is to be taken that the name of brother do not become trite, nor yet be so claimed for a particular circle, as if it belonged to that especially, and to every member of it officially and as a matter of course. Rather it is due to all living Christians, to whom Christ addresses it (Mat_12:49-50). Only on this basis is official brotherhood a truth. Elsewhere Paul calls Timothy his beloved, faithful, genuine child (1Co_4:17; 1Ti_1:2 [and 18]). The child, dependent on his father, grows up to be an independent brother. In the spiritual life it is possible for the degrees of kindred to become variable without damage, since through hallowed, tender love they coexist, yet without confusion. Even the common human relations show images of this. A son when grown up may find his friend in his father.

4. That we are called God’s fellow-laborers, is for us a high dignity. God will not drive everything through alone (Rieger), but will act also by means of our agency, weak as it may be, yet strengthened and continually sustained by Him alone. For He it is, indeed, that worketh in us to will and to do, and then gives the increase (Php_2:13; 1Co_3:6; 1Co_3:10); nevertheless he requires of us faithfulness (1Co_4:2)—that we lay hold of what He proffers.

5. (1Th_3:3.) Confirmation and exhortation are needed even by believers, to arm them against threatening and temptation. A comfortable support is communion in prayer. Calvin: The communion of saints includes this, that the faith of one member should be a comfort to others. But to fasten on to men as men would be unsound and unprofitable, unless we allowed ourselves to be aroused to the recollection of what lies in our own consciousness of faith (ye yourselves know)—unless, animated by the example, we made use for ourselves of the open way of access to the Lord.

6. Chrysostom: Who has ears to hear, let him hear: The Christian is appointed to suffer affliction. It is, therefore, just when we are appointed to a time of refreshing, that a strange thing happens to us (1Pe_4:12). According to the world’s sentiment (and that of our natural sense), it is to our discredit when things go troublesome and hard with us; we almost suspect that everything is wrong with us. According to the word of God, that is rather a badge of Christians, a badge of honor; hac lege sumus Christians, Calvin. The Lord, indeed, must even again show Himself as the Breaker13 (2Co_6:8-10; Rom_8:37). Besides, affliction that befalls us as Christians on account of our faith is still something different from such natural trouble or temptation of one’s own flesh, as all men must meet with. But Christians, after all, are really nothing but men on whom the Divine training takes effect; and all suffering sent by God, not merely persecution proper, can and should be turned into a cross, and as a cross be taken up and borne—as a crossing of our self-will. To be sure, our scriptural knowledge, and, on the other hand, our lively recognition of facts and ready acceptance of whatever is plainly laid on us, very often do not keep pace with each other. Hatred for Christ’s name’s sake is not to be provoked by us (Php_4:5);14 provided only we do not escape the trouble by reason of our excessive worldliness, our compliances, denials, and quenching of the pursuit of holiness. But the question always concerns only what God lays upon us, not a studied self-torture. When external persecutions fail, there may come upon us inward assaults from flesh and blood, refined and enhanced by the spirits that rule in the air—daily piercings of a needle, more irksome than the blows of a club.

7. (1Th_3:4.) The forewarning obviates much vexation (Joh_13:19; Joh_14:29; Joh_16:1). Hardship, instead of frightening, is then an actual confirmation of the prediction; hostility itself must redound to the glory of the Lord. Chrysostom compares to the physician, who foresees the course of the disease, and thereby quiets his patient. God, however, beholds beforehand not merely what will happen, as if it happened without Him, but what, even of that which is wicked and hurtful, He will work as Judge, according to the relation between the seed and the harvest (Gal_6:7-8); and so the Divinely opened vision discerns this working of God even in the wickedness of men.

8. What must the gospel be as a divine power, that, with prospects so little flattering to the flesh, it yet wins believers! It is true that to a certain degree even an equivocal cause may gain by persecution. To make martyrs of men is to call forth and strengthen the spirit of contradiction. That is a noble impulse (of an independent character) caricatured (resistance to essential truth). But only in the element of truth is there a steadfast and lasting perseverance. Berlenburger Bibel: But is it wise management, to talk of the cross to young Christians? True wisdom conducts into a school, where we learn to be blessed. The lost blessedness is to be regained in no other way than the strait and narrow one. Tribulation, however, is laid on us, not as a legal burden, but as an evangelical condition. And this very distress must serve to purify us.

9. (1Th_3:5.) Affliction from without becomes temptation within, insinuates itself as a trial of faith, urges to the experiment, whether we might not have less of the cross. The same word πειρασμός Luther translates sometimes by Versuchung [temptation], sometimes by Anfechtung [trial].15 This corresponds to the two sides of the idea. The design of Satan, who against his will must serve the purpose of God, is the wicked one of overthrowing by temptation; thus it is said: God tempts no man; and even Satan finds scope for his temptations only in man’s own lust (Jam_1:13 sqq.); and yet we are not to think it strange, we should rather count it joy, when we fall into divers temptations [Luther: Anfechtungen] (1Pe_4:12; Jam_1:2 sqq.), as Abraham was tempted (Genesis 22), or Israel (Gen. 15:25; Gen_16:4). This is temptation with the Divine purpose of trial and proof, and to this end, therefore, should the prayer: “Lead us not into temptation,” be directed; not: Avert from us all trial, but: Restrain it within such bounds, and give to it such an issue (1Co_10:13), that it become not to us an overpowering temptation. Thus Satan himself must serve the Lord in the salvation of men. From this wonderful complication of motives, Divine, devilish, human, is explained, even alongside of the word: “We are appointed to the suffering of affliction;” that other word again: “I endured it no longer.” This is neither impatience nor a faint-hearted anxiety, but the faithfulness of love in doing its own part and neglecting nothing. He has no thought of setting aside or deprecating all Divine πειρασμός; but he would assist those under trial, so that no Satanic πειρασμός should overpower, alarm, or deceive them; for both fierce foes and seeming well wishers (Mat_16:23) can work to his mind. Paul is withal a wise instructor even in this, that he just as tenderly avoids agitating them beforehand with images of terror, as he again openly announces the danger.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

1Th_3:1. What diligence in watering is shown by Paul! In the case of young plants this is especially necessary. But the tender and encouraging treatment has no other aim, than to lead them on to a Christian self-dependence. Thus Paul not merely passed through among them as a proclaimer of the word, but he was their father, and continued to be their pastor.—A true Apostle is intimately knit to the souls of his children, and can never forsake them. Such a spirit of love and truth forms the true apostolic succession.

1Th_3:2. Starke: He incites others to do what he cannot (Eph_6:22).—The same: A few faithful laborers can accomplish more than many unfaithful ones (1Co_15:10).16—Towards laborers worthy of the name, therefore, must the prayer of Mat_9:38 be directed, and also the attention of church-rulers. It is well for an assistant, whom an approved principal can commend, as Paul did Timothy.—Starke: No man can be a true servant of God and helper in the gospel, unless he be a child of God, and on this account also a brother in Christ.

[1Th_3:1-2. Matthew Henry: Those ministers do not duly value the establishment and welfare of their people, who cannot deny themselves in many things for that end.—J. L.]

1Th_3:3. Heubner: The Christian’s honorable calling; Christianity’s first welcome; The position of a Christian, a position, under the cross.—Stähelin: The best ground of comfort, to save us from fainting in tribulation, is to consider well and firmly believe, that God in His goodness and wisdom has appointed to every one what in his station, and according to the measure of the powers granted to him, he is to suffer. Comfort and tribulation are by turns our heavenly companions; God be praised for both!—Heubner: We must have a hard heart toward the temptations of sin, but a soft one toward the sufferings of our brethren.—Rieger: It is better to be appointed to suffering in time than to wrath (1Th_5:9); to you it is given to suffer—as great a gift as: to you it is given to believe (Php_1:29).—Diedrich: We must have tribulation, for we contend with the whole world, and a mighty prince.—[ Burkitt: Seeing then that afflictions are appointed to us, and we appointed to them; seeing there is a decree of God concerning them, a decree as to the matter of them, as to the manner of them, as to the measure of them, as to the time of them, when they shall commence, how far they shall advance, how long they shall continue, seeing everything in affliction is under an appointment, how meek and humble, how patient and submissive, ought the Christian’s spirit to be under them, and with what steadiness of expectation may and ought he to look up to heaven for a sanctified use and improvement of them!—J. L.]

Starke: The word of the Apostle is confirmed by all the history of the Church. Here open enemies, there false brethren. But contending Christians have the surest hope of victory over their enemies, because they contend under One as their Leader, who has overcome the world and the prince of the world.—The same: Before a man rightly understands the mystery of the cross, he is offended thereby, and supposes that, if a person acts properly, outward things must also at the same time go well with him; and therefore beginners in the Christian profession should be guarded betimes by good instruction against this offence.—To others applies the word of Chrysostom: Of you also it holds true, that ye have not yet resisted sin unto blood; and well is it, if only that is true, and not rather this: Ye have not yet even despised riches, &c. So much has Christ suffered for us enemies; and we for Him? nothing for Him, but only from Him innumerable benefits.

1Th_3:4. To find one’s bearings by the word of prophecy—this was a great consolation for the Lord Jesus in His career of suffering (Luk_18:31; Joh_17:12; Mat_26:54); to say nothing, then, of ourselves. For us, when in tribulation, it is indispensable that we know, that so it must be—it was told us before.

1Th_3:5. Heubner: The Apostles, like Jesus, did not deceive by empty promises.—Partnership helps to carry the burden. Am I to be my brother’s keeper? Not in the sense of a faint-hearted carefulness, as if we could guard him, as if he were not in a far better Hand; but, just because we believe this, ought we to be intent in faithful love, as God’s fellow-laborers, not to neglect our ministry; to look diligently after our brethren, not to pore in curious speculation; to encourage them by examples and intercession; to hold forth to them the prophetic word; to arouse the remembrance of their own experience of the truth of God; to point them to the gospel of Christ, who, stronger than the strong one [Luk_11:21 sq.], knows well how to keep faith firm.—Heubner: These were church-visitations, where the inquiry was as to the state of the heart.—Even the loving consideration, that, to please their spiritual fathers, they should contend stoutly, may be made available for the strengthening of zeal; there is a sense of honor in the spiritual family.

[Observe the apostolic style of address to individuals and churches, as liable to fall away from their Christian standing and profession.—Faith, the Christian’s defence against Satan’s devices; comp. Eph_6:16; 1Jn_5:4.—Burkitt: Though the labor of faithful ministers shall not be in vain with respect to themselves—their reward is with the Lord (the careful nurse shall be paid, though the child dies at the breast)—yet with respect to their people they may be in vain, yea worse, for a testimony against them; Mar_6:11.—Matthew Henry: Faithful ministers are much concerned about the success of their labors.—J. L.]

Footnotes:

[1]1Th_3:2.—Among the many variations is that one which first lies at the basis of the different readings, and presents a suitable advance: τὸν ἀδελφὸν ἡμῶν καὶ συνεργὸν τοῦ θεοῦ (1Co_3:9). [This reading is followed by Griesbach and nearly all the later editors, as well as by our text. Cod. Sin. thus: τὸν ἀδ. ἡμῶν καὶ διάκονον θεοῦ.—J. L.]

[2]1Th_3:2.—[παρακαλέσαι, as in 1Th_4:1; 1Th_5:14; 2Th_3:12; &c.; here closely connected with its object in 1Th_3:3.—The Second ὑμᾶς is rejected by Schott, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth (after Sin A. B. D.1 F. G &c.), and by our text.—J. L.]

[3]1Th_3:2.—[eures Glaubens halber. This represents the reading, adopted by Griesbach and later editors generally, of ὑπέρ (Sin. A. B. D. &c.), instead of περί.—J. L.]

[4]1Th_3:3.—The Recepta τῷ is supported only by minuscules; the best manuscripts [including Sin.] give τό (see Winer; 6th edit. § 44, 5. 3).

[5][So Lünemann; but better, with Alford and Ellicott after Theodoret and Calvin: Because of our affection, and unavailing desire to see you.—J. L.]

[6][As better representing the subjective μηκέτι with the participle.—J. L.]

[7][This is not expressed by our Common Version, which Ellicott follows, though his paraphrase also is: “no longer able to control my longing, &c.”—J. L.]

[8][Rather, a conclusion, determination of the judgment and will, as Alford, Ellicott, &c.—J. L.]

[9][So Macknight, Paley (see his Horæ Paulinæ. 1Th 9, No. 4, with Jowett’s unsatisfactory criticism), Ellicott and others. Comp. Conybeare and Howson’s Life and Epistles of St. Paul, London ed., vol. I. p. 409, and the Note at the end of 1Th 11—J. L.]

[10][Alford: “A delicate hint that Timotheus also was anxious respecting them; or it may have the same reference as καὶ ἡμε͂ις, 1Th_2:13—viz. to the other Christians who had heard of their tribulation.”—Revision: “I no more than my companions.”—Webster and Wilkinson: “I in my sympathy with you.”—J. L.]

[11][Better at least than Ellicott: “As they had felt for the Apostle (more fully so in 1Th_3:6), so he &c.”—J. L.]

[12][Riggenbach translates μήπως, ob nicht; and in this he follows very many of the best interpreters, whose names are given in my Revision of the verse, Note 3. But, as is there remarked, “I do not find that either the simple μή, which occurs so often, or μήπως, which occurs other 11 times (and, excepting Act_27:29, always in Paul’s Epistles), is ever thus used”—that is, as an indirect interrogative—“in the New Testament.”—J. L.]

[13][Durchbrecher—Luther’s word at Mic_2:13.—J. L.]

[14][τό ἐπιεικὲς ὑμῶν, your “forbearance.”—J. L.]

[15][A similar variation marks the Common English rendering of πειρασμός and its cognate verb. Generally, indeed, our Translators use the word temptation, but sometimes with the other shade of meaning predominant.—J. L.]

[16][This reference is scarcely to the point, since Paul there compares what Divine grace enabled him to do with what was done by the other Apostles.—J. L.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

III. AFFLICTIONS AND COMFORT

CHAPTER 3

1. Timotheus, Paul’s messenger 1Th 3:1-5)

2. His return with good tidings and the apostle’s comfort and joy 1Th 3:6-10)

3. This earnest desire 1Th 3:11-13)

1Th 3:1-5

His longing for the beloved Thessalonians and his solicitude for them became so great that he could no longer forbear and he decided to be left alone in Athens and send Timotheus to Thessalonica. He knew they had great afflictions and that there was danger that they might not endure and then his labors among them would have been in vain. He therefore sent Timotheus whom he calls “our brother, minister of God and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ.” The purpose of his mission was to establish the believers still more and to bring them comfort concerning their faith. This would result, under the blessing of God, in their steadfastness. “That no man should be moved by these afflictions, for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto”--it is the lot of all true believers. In fact he had forewarned them of all this when he was in their midst. “For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation, even as it came to pass, and ye knew. This was part of the apostolic message, as we learn from Act 14:22. “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God .”

Tribulations had now come upon the Thessalonians and they were severely tested. He knew they were in the Lord’s hands, that His watchful eye was upon them and that His power was sufficient to keep them. Yet he had deep concern and anxiety for them, for he also knew Satan’s power. “For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labor be in vain.” The day of Christ, when the servant receives the reward and the saints are “the crown of glorying” is in his thoughts. If the tempter succeeded he would not have that crown of glorying in the presence of the Lord. (See 1Jn 2:28. “And now little children, abide in Him: that when He shall appear, we [the laborers) may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”) While Timotheus was away Paul left Athens from where he had sent him to visit Thessalonica. Paul went to Corinth ; it was there he received the good tidings from Thessalonica, and, as we state in the introduction, after Timotheus’ return he wrote this Epistle (Act 18:5).

1Th 3:6-10

“But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought good tidings of your faith and love, and that ye have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you.” It was good tidings Timotheus brought to Paul. They were standing fast in faith; they continued in love, nor had they forgotten Paul. Their hearts longed for him as his own soul desired to see them. In the midst of tribulations which had come upon them they were blessedly sustained.

And how all this cheered the apostle. He is comforted. “Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith; for now we live if ye stand fast in the Lord.” He had also his sorrows, his afflictions and much distress. But the good tidings from the Thessalonians refreshed his spirit and filled him with new energy. As a servant of God he is so fully identified with those for whom he labored and whom he loved that he could say, “for now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.” He feels as if he could not render sufficient thanks to God for them and for all the joy wherewith he now rejoiced, on their account before God. He also prayed night and day exceedingly that he might see their face and help them still more, so that which was lacking in their faith might be perfected. Then, knowing himself dependent upon God and the Lord Jesus Christ, He looks to direct his way to them.

“What a bond is the bond of the Spirit! How selfishness is forgotten, and disappears in the joy of such affections! The apostle, animated by this affection, which increased instead of growing weary by its exercise, and by the satisfaction it received in the happiness of others, desires so much the more, from the Thessalonians being thus sustained, to see them again; not now for the purpose of strengthening them, but to build upon that which was already so established, and to complete their spiritual instruction by imparting that which was yet lacking to their faith. But he is a laborer and not a master (God makes us feel this), and he depends entirely on God for his work, and for the edification of others. In fact years passed away before he saw the Thessalonians again. He remained a long time at Corinth, where the Lord had much people; he revisited Jerusalem, then all Asia Minor where he had labored earlier; thence he went to Ephesus, where he abode nearly three years; and after that he saw the Thessalonians again, when he left that city to go to Corinth, taking his journey by the way of Macedonia” (J.N. Darby).

1Th 3:11-13

We must not overlook the testimony to the deity of our Lord of the eleventh verse. “Now God and our Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you!” The verb “direct” in the Greek is in the singular. God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are in the thought of the apostle one, though, personally, clearly distinguished. It is a striking proof of the unity of the Father and Son.

He prayed “the Lord make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another and toward all, even as we also towards you.” Love is the bond of perfectness and as such the true means of holiness “in order to establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” This is the third time the coming of our Lord is mentioned by Paul in this Epistle. First he spoke of waiting for His Son from heaven as the characteristic of a true believer (1Th 1:9-10); then we read of the gatherings of the saints in the presence of the Lord, the time of glory and joy, when the faithful servant will receive the reward (1Th 2:19-20), and now another phase is added. The Lord is coming with all His saints; it is now not the coming for His saints, but with them, in the day of His manifestation as well as the manifestation of all the saints with Him. It is the same of which we read in Col 3:4, “When Christ is manifested who is our life then shall ye also be manifested with Him in glory.” He also speaks of this in his second Epistle: “When He shall come to be glorified in His saints and wondered at in all that have believed (for our testimony unto you has been believed) in that day” (2Th 1:10). In view of this coming manifestation in glory the Holy Spirit urges a walk in practical holiness, so as to be unblamable in holiness before our God and Father. It is an incentive to holy living.

“In reading this passage one cannot but observe the immediate and living way in which the Lord’s coming is linked with daily practical life, so that the perfect light of that day is thrown upon the hourly path of the present time. By the exercise of love they were to be established in holiness before God at the coming of Christ. From one day to another, that day was looked for as the consummation and the only term they contemplated to the ordinary life of each day here below. How this brought the soul into the presence of God! Moreover, they lived in a known relationship with God which gave room for this confidence. He was their Father; He is ours. The relationship of the saints to Jesus was equally known. The saints were “His saints.” They were all to come with Him. They were associated with His glory. There is nothing equivocal in the expression. Jesus, the Lord, coming with all His saints, allows us to think of no other event than His return in glory. Then also will He be glorified in His saints, who will already have rejoined Him to be for ever with Him. It will be the day of their manifestation as of His.”

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th 3:1-5

I. The purpose of Timothy’s mission to the Thessalonians was to establish,—to make them steadfast in the midst of persecution, to make them rooted and grounded in love, to make their very trials serve that all-important end, that they, as a church, might cast forth roots like Lebanon. The work of establishing them is, strictly speaking, God’s work. But it is here none the less ascribed to Timothy, spoken of as his work, because he is a fellow-labourer with God.

II. The reason for the "steadfast endurance" is given in the words which follow: "For yourselves, know that we are appointed thereunto." This knowledge they had, both from apostolic teaching and their own personal experience, the knowledge that tribulation is the common lot of Christ’s people. The world’s scorn and enmity cannot fail to be excited by the Christian’s character and conduct. Hence, holiness entails suffering as well as sin does, for sin will, in some way or other, persecute it.

III. In every case of resistance to the Tempter there is new accession of spiritual strength to the believer himself. In fighting the good fight of faith, in overcoming the Evil One, we gain new power. As the South Sea islanders imagine that the prowess and valour of the enemies they slay in battle pass over into themselves, so in truth is it with the soldiers of the Cross. The very force and strength of the temptations which he overthrows become his own. Therefore the exhortation of Ignatius, in his epistle to Polycarp, has a meaning for all time: "Stand firm as the anvil under its repeated blows; for a great combatant must not only be buffeted, but must also prevail."

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 105.

References: 1Th 3:2.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 321. 1Th 3:5. —Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 55. 1Th 3:6.—J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 197.

1Th 3:6-10

I. The Apostle now tells us that, on Timothy’s return from his mission, bearing good tidings of the Thessalonian Church, he had been comforted. The new-born joy, the tender love of his heart, lies like a gleam of light upon the very words he employs. He was comforted to learn that, amid all the darkness of their tribulation, their faith, like the night-blooming Ceres-flower, lived and spread abroad its fragrance. The good tidings which cheered his heart were also about the attitude of his friends to himself, their teacher. This he puts last; as, however precious in his own personal estimation, it is of slight importance compared to their remaining steadfast in faith and love. II. What is implied in the steadfastness of a Christian Church? (1) That individually and collectively the members of it are in the Lord—abiding in Him, both in faith and in practice. (2) That while "in the Lord" they are exposed to the danger of wavering. The language seems military. It suggests the idea of conflict. Christ’s Church, every section of it, is exposed to assault. The army of the living God is subject to having its ranks broken into. This is the aim of the Tempter, of whom the Apostle has just been speaking.

III. The Apostle’s joy rose from the contemplation of the state of others. In the highest sense, therefore, it was disinterested. It was a joy, further, which arose from the contemplation of the spiritual state of others. It was a pure joy, free from aught of earthly alloy.

IV. Believers, whatever may be their eminence in the Christian graces, have still "lacking measures of their faith." They need to be perfected in knowledge and in practice, if they would rightly be owned as the Gospel net for the bringing in of others. They need ceaselessly to be repaired, built up, if, as the Church of Christ, the ark of all safety, they would withstand all the rude billows of the world. Thus, filling up or perfecting that which is lacking in faith on earth, Christ’s Church will at last pass into heaven, where there will be nothing that is lacking in glory.

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 105.

Reference: 1Th 3:8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1758.

1Th 3:11-13

I. We have to notice very carefully to whom this ejaculatory prayer is addressed: Now God Himself, even our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. It is quite evident that our Lord and Saviour, the Man Christ Jesus, the ascended and glorified Redeemer, is in the Apostle’s thought viewed as standing in the same relation to human prayer as God the Father. The prayer of Paul’s heart is addressed to both. While our Lord is distinguished from the Father in personality, He is one with Him in godhead, and therefore is He rightly addressed in the language of prayer. Prayer is the voice of human weakness addressed to infinite power.

II. The circle of Christian love, the sphere of its influence, is wide as humanity itself. There is to be no limit to its diffusion. Christianity has broken down all barriers of race or of creed. The question "Who is my neighbour?" ought never to be uttered by Christian lips. Increasing and abounding in love may be regarded as the end of all Christian striving, for after all it is the possession of this grace which brings men on earth nearest to the gates of heaven. But it is represented in the present connection rather as an end than as a means. "To the end He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness." He would teach them that Christian love, going out towards others in blessing, comes back again laden with new blessings to the soul. The hearts of Christ’s people become in this way established. The heart in this way becomes united. Such a loving heart diffuses the fragrance of its own sweet life, the life of holiness, and is thus rewarded by being declared blameless, and that too in the sight of God.

III. Even amid the imperfections and limitations of earth and time, something of this experience is the believer’s possession. But none the less the more advanced he is in the Divine life, the more is he conscious of doubts and waverings of heart; the more does he feel himself blameworthy, the more does he mourn over his unholiness in the sight of God his Father. Hence the Apostle in the closing clause carries our thoughts forward to that

"one far-off Divine event,

To which the whole creation moves."

Then truly and fully are Christ’s people before God, even their Father, beholding the King’s face.

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians, p. 127.

References: 1Th 3:11-13.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 257. 1Th 3:12, 1Th 3:13.—Ibid., vol. ii., p. 420. 3—E. H. Higgins, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 221. 1Th 4:1.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 89; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. iv., p. 9. 1Th 4:9, 1Th 4:10.—E. W. Benson, Three Sermons, p. 26.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 Thessalonians Chapter 3

Now this forced removal of the apostle as the chief labourer, without weakening the bond between him and the disciples, formed other links which would consolidate and strengthen the assembly, knitting it together by that which every joint supplied. This is connected (all things are but the instruments of the power and wisdom of God) with the circumstances of which the Acts of the Apostles give us the principal details.

After the persecutions excited by the Jews the apostle made a short stay at Thessalonica, and was then obliged to leave that city and go to Berea. Even there the Jews of Thessalonica followed him, and influenced those of Berea, so that the Berean brethren had to provide for his safety. The person to whom they committed him brought him to Athens; Silas and Timotheus remained at Berea for the moment, but soon at his command rejoined him at Athens. Meantime a violent persecution raged against the Christians at Thessalonica, a city of importance, in which, as it appears, the Jews had already exercised a considerable measure of influence over the heathen population-an influence that was undermined by the progress of Christianity, which the Jews in their blindness rejected.

The apostle, learning this state of things from Silas and Timotheus, was concerned at the danger his new converts ran in being shaken in faith by the difficulties that beset their path while they were still young in the faith. His affection would not allow him to rest without putting himself in communication with them, and already from Athens he had sent Timotheus to in quire into their condition, and to establish their hearts by reminding them that while yet with them he had told them these things would happen. During his absence Paul left Athens and went to Corinth, where Timotheus again comforted him by the good tidings he brought from Thessalonica, and the apostle resumed his labors at Corinth with renewed energy and courage. (See Act 18:5)

On the arrival of Timotheus Paul wrote this letter. Timotheus had informed him of the good state of the Thessalonian Christians-that they held fast the faith, that they greatly desired to see the apostle, and that they walked together in love. In the midst of his sorrows, and of the opposition of men-in a word, of the afflictions of the gospel-the apostle’s spirit is refreshed by these tidings. He is himself strengthened, for if the faith of the labourer is the means of blessing to souls, and in general the measure of the outward character of the work, the faith of the Christians who are the fruit of his labors, and who correspond to it is in return a source of strength and encouragement to the labourer; even as their prayers are a great means of blessing to him.

Love finds in their spiritual welfare both its food and its joy; faith, that which sustains and strengthens it. The word of God is felt in it. “I live,” says the apostle, “if ye stand fast in the Lord. “What thanks,” he adds, “can we render to God for you, for all the joy wherewith we rejoice for your sakes before God?” Beautiful and affecting picture of the effect of the operation of the Spirit of God, delivering souls from the corruption of the world, and producing the purest affections, the greatest self-renunciation for the sake of others, the greatest joy in their happiness-divine joy, realised before God Himself, and the value of which was appreciated in His presence by the spiritual heart that abode in it, the heart which, on the part of that God of love, had been the means of its existence.

What a bond is the bond of the Spirit! How selfishness is forgotten, and disappears in the joy of such affections! The apostle, animated by this affection, which increased instead of growing weary by its exercise, and by the satisfaction it received in the happiness of others, desires so much the more, from the Thessalonians being thus sustained, to see them again; not now for the purpose of strengthening them, but to build upon that which was already so established, and to complete their spiritual instruction by imparting that which was yet lacking to their faith. But he is, and he ought to be, a labourer and not a master (God makes us feel this), and he depends entirely on God for his work, and for the edification of others. In fact years passed away before he saw the Thessalonians again. He remained a long time at Corinth, where the Lord had much people; he re-visited Jerusalem, then all Asia Minor where he had laboured earlier; thence he went to Ephesus, where he abode nearly three years; and after that he saw the Thessalonians again, when he left that city to go to Corinth, taking his journey by the way of Macedonia, in order not to visit Corinth before the restoration of the Christians there to order.

“God himself “-it is thus that the apostle’s desire and his submission to the will of God expresses itself -”God himself direct our way unto you.” His desire is not vague. He refers to God as to his Father, the source of all these holy affections, Him who holds the place of Father to us, and orders all things with a view to the good of His children, according to that perfect wisdom which embraces all things and all His children at once. “Our God and Father himself,” the apostle says. But there is another consideration-not, assuredly, in opposition to this, for God is one, but which has another and less individual character: and he adds-”And our Lord Jesus Christ.” Christ is Son over God’s house, and besides joy and blessing and individual affection, there was the progress, the welfare, and the development of the whole assembly to be considered. These two parts of Christianity act assuredly upon each other.

Where the operation of the Spirit is full and unhindered, the well-being of the assembly and the individual affections are in harmony. If anything is lacking in the one, God uses the failure itself to act powerfully on the other. If the assembly as a whole is weak, individual faith is exercised in a special manner, and more immediately upon God Himself. There are no Elijahs and Elishas in the reign of Solomon. On the other hand the watchful care of the assembly by those divinely engaged in it is the true energy of its spiritual organization, strengthens the life, and re-awakens the spiritual affections of its slumbering members. But the two things are different. Therefore the apostle adds to “our God and Father,” “and our Lord Jesus Christ,” who, as we have said according to Heb 3:1-19, is a Son over His house. It is a blessing that our path depends on the love of a Father, who is God Himself, acting-according to the tender affections expressed by that name; and, as to the well-being of the assembly, that it depends on the government of a Lord like Jesus, who loves it with a perfect love: and who, although He took such a place, is the God who created all things, the Man who has all power in heaven and on earth, to whom Christians are the objects of incessant and faithful care-care which He expends in order to bring the assembly finally unto Himself in glory according to the counsels of God. [4] Such then was the apostle’s first wish, and such were they with regard to whom he formed it, Meanwhile he must leave his beloved Thessalonians to the immediate care of the Lord on whom he depended (compare Act 20:32” Act 20:32) To that his heart turns May God “direct my way to come to you. And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all.” And his heart could present its affection for them, as the pattern of that which they ought to feel for others. This power of love maintains the heart in the presence of God and makes it find its joy in the light of His presence and earnestly desire that all saints may be in His presence, their hearts fitted for it and there. For God is love, and the exercise of love in the Christian’s heart (fruit of the presence and the operation of the Spirit) is in fact the effect of the presence of God; and at the same time it makes us feel His presence, so that it keeps us before Him and maintains sensible communion in the heart. Love may suffer and thereby prove its strength, but we are speaking of the spontaneous exercise of love towards the objects which God presents to it.

Now, being thus the development of the divine nature in us, and the sustainment of our hearts in communion with God Himself, love is the bond of perfectness, the true means of holiness, when it is real. The heart is kept, far away from the flesh and its thoughts, in the pure light of the presence of God which the soul thus enjoys. For this reason the apostle prays, while waiting to give them more light, that the Lord would increase love in them in order to establish their hearts unblamable in holiness before God even our Father in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. Here we find again the two great principles of which I spoke at the end of chapter 1: God in the perfection of His nature; and the Lord Jesus in the intimacy of His connection with us-God however as Father, and Jesus as Lord. We are before God, and Jesus comes with His saints. He has brought them to perfection: they are with Him and thus before God known in the relationship of Father.

Observe also that everything refers to this hope: it was an actual and present expectation. If they were converted it was to serve God and to wait for His Son from heaven. Everything related to that wondrous moment when He should come. That which holiness was would be demonstrated when they should be before God, and the saints would be with their Head; moreover manifested with Him in glory, even as then they should also fully enjoy the fruit of their labour, and the reward of love in the joy of all those whom they had loved.[5] The scene which would be the consummation of the work is presented here in all its moral bearing. We are before God, in His presence, where holiness is demonstrated in its true character; we are there for perfect communion with God in the light, where the connection of holiness with His nature and with the manifestation of Himself is apparent; even as this manifestation is in connection with the development of a nature in us, which by grace sets us in relationship with Him.

“Unblamable,” he says, “in holiness,” and in holiness “before God.” He is light. What immense joy, what power, through grace, in this thought, for the time present, to keep ourselves manifested before Him! But only love, known in Him, can do this.

But also we add “Our Father.” It is a known and real relationship, which has its own peculiar character, a relationship of love. It is not a thing to be acquired, and holiness is not the means of acquiring it. Holiness is the character of our relationship with God, inasmuch as we have received His nature as His children, and it is the revelation of the perfection of that nature in Him in love. Love itself has given us that nature, and has placed us in that relationship; practical holiness is its exercise in communion with God, having fellowship with Him in His presence according to the love which we thus know, that is, God Himself as He has revealed Himself towards us.

But the heart is not alone: there is companionship in this joy and in this perfection; and above all it is with Jesus Himself. He will come, He will be present, and not only He who is the Head, but all the saints with Him will be there also. It will be the accomplishment of the ways of God respecting those whom He had given to Jesus. We shall see Him in His glory, the glory which He has taken in connection with His coming for us. We shall see all the saints in whom He will be admired, and see them in the perfection which our hearts desire for them now.

Observe also that love makes us rise above the difficulties, the persecutions, the fears, which the enemy seeks to produce. Occupied with God, happy in Him, this weight of affliction is not felt. The strength of God is in the heart; the walk is sensibly connected with the eternal happiness possessed with Him, and the affliction is felt to be but light and for a moment. Nor this only; we suffer for Christ’s sake: it is joy with Him, it is intimacy of communion, if we know how to appreciate it, and all is invested with the glory and salvation that are found at the end-”at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.”

In reading this passage one cannot but observe the immediate and living way in which the Lord’s coming is linked with daily practical life, so that the perfect light of that day is thrown upon the hourly path of the present time. By the exercise of love they were to be established in holiness before God at the coming of Christ. From one day to another, that day was looked for as the consummation and the only term they contemplated to the ordinary life of each day here below. How this brought the soul into the presence of God! Moreover, as I havealready in part observed, they lived in a known relationship with God which gave room for this confidence. He was their Father; He is ours. The relationship of the saints to Jesus was equally known. The saints were “his saints.” They were all to come with Him. They were associated with His glory. There is nothing equivocal in the expression. Jesus, the Lord, coming with all His saints, allows us to think of no other event than His return in glory. Then also will He be glorified in His saints, who will already have rejoined Him to be for ever with Him. It will be the day of their manifestation as of His.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:1-5 After preaching in Berea, Paul had departed from Macedonia and sailed to Athens, instructing Silas and Timothy to join him soon (Acts 17:13-15). Timothy returned to Thessalonica (1 Thes 3:2), as Paul’s anxiety for the Thessalonian church had intensified (3:1, 5).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Th 3:1. Διὸ μηκέτι στέγοντες, wherefore no longer being able to forbear) This is resumed at 1Th 3:5, as if after a parenthesis.—μόνοι, alone) Observe how highly Timothy was esteemed, since at Timothy’s departure Paul and Silas seemed to themselves to be alone, inasmuch as in a city altogether estranged from God. Comp. Ord. temp., p. 278 [Ed. 2, p. 239].

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th_3:1 ff. are most closely connected with the preceding;[42] it is therefore to be regretted that a new chapter should commence here. On 1Th_3:1-3, comp. the treatise of Rückert alluded to in comment on 1Th_1:8.

[42] Strikingly, Calvin: Hac narratione, quae sequitur, desiderii illius sui fidem facit.

1Th_3:1. Διό] Therefore, i.e. διὰ τὸ εἶναι ὑμᾶς τὴν δόξαν ἡμῶν καὶ τὴν χαράν (1Th_2:20).

μηκέτι στέγοντες] no longer bearing it, i.e. incapable of mastering our longing for you any longer (comp. 1Co_9:12; 1Co_13:7; Philo, in Flacc. p. 974, Opp. Lut. Par. 1640, fol.: μηκέτι στέγειν δυνάμενοι τὰς ἐνδείας). So Erasmus, Vorstius, Cornelius a Lapide, Wolf, Pelt, de Wette, only the latter conjoins with the idea of longing, that of anxiety for the Thessalonians, which, indeed, is in accordance with fact, but anticipates the representation, as the idea of anxiety on the part of the apostle is first added in what follows.

μηκέτι] is not here instead of οὐκέτι, as Rückert thinks, appealing to an abusus of the later Greek, which abusus we should be cautious in recognising (see Winer, p. 431 [E. T. 609]), but as spoken from a subjective standpoint: as those who, etc. Moreover, to take the participle στέγοντες in the sense of occultantes, to which Wolf and Baumgarten are inclined: no longer concealing my longing, i.e. no longer observing a silence concerning it, would be flat, and contrary to the context.

εὐδοκήσαμεν] as well as ἐπέμψαμεν, 1Th_3:2, and ἔπεμψα 1Th_3:5, is a simple historical statement of a fact belonging to the past. Grotius and Pelt erroneously take the aorists in the sense of the pluperfect. εὐδοκήσαμεν does not denote a mere promptam animi inclinationem (Calvin, Pelt); also not acting gladly (Grotius: Triste hoc, sed tamen hoc libenter feceramus), but the freely formed resolution of the will: accordingly we resolved. Nicolas Lyrencis, Hunnius, Grotius, Calovius, Turretin, Whitby, Bengel, Michaelis, Wurm,[43] Hofmann, consider Paul and Silas as the subjects of εὐδοκήσαμεν; that κἀγώ (1Th_3:5), I also, is a proof of this, for it contains in itself the reference to a wider subject, so that from a plurality of the subject in 1Th_3:1, a single individual was, in 1Th_3:5, brought forward. However, this view cannot be the correct one. By the insertion of ἐγὼ μὲν Παῦλος, 1Th_2:18, the subject of 1Th_2:17-20 is expressly restricted to Paul himself; and, as chap. 3 is most closely connected with 1Th_2:17-19, the subject here must be the same as there, εὐδοκήσαμεν must therefore, with Calvin, Hemming, Estius, Fromond., Koppe, Pelt, Schott, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Alford, Riggenbach (in J. P. Langes Bibelwerk, Part X., Bielef. 1864), and others, be referred to Paul only, to which κἀγώ, 1Th_3:5, is no objection (see below).

καταλειφθῆναι ἐν Ἀθήναις μόνοι] Zachariae, Koppe, Hug, Hemsen, also Wieseler (Chronologie des apost. Zeitalters, p. 249) and Alford (Proleg. p. 45), understand this of Pauls being left alone at Athens, Timotheus not having been previously there with the apostle. They assume that Timotheus, left behind at Berea (Act_17:14), either at the time of his being left behind, or at some later period, received the direction from the apostle, countermanding the charge given in Act_17:15, that before proceeding to Athens, he should return from Berea to Thessalonica to strengthen the church there. This view is brought forward from a desire of reconciling our passage with the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles. Act_17:16 informs us only of a waiting for Timotheus at Athens, but not of his arrival there; on the contrary, it is stated that Silas and Timotheus did not return from Macedonia until the residence of the apostle at Corinth (Act_18:5). But this view does not correspond with the natural wording of our passage, as καταλειφθῆναι, to be left behind, to remain behind, evidently presupposes the previous presence of Timotheus. We must therefore, with Zanchius, Piscator, Cornelius a Lapide, Beza, Wolf, Benson, Macknight, Eichhorn, Schott, Olshausen, de Wette, Koch, Hofmann, and others, suppose that Timotheus actually came from Berea to Athens, and was sent from it by the apostle to Thessalonica. To this interpretation we appear constrained by ἐπέμψαμεν, 1Th_3:2, and ἔπεμψα, 1Th_3:5, as hardly anything else can be denoted with these words than a commission given directly by Paul to one present.

[43] In the strange interpretation: We resolved that one of us should go to Thessalonica, accordingly we two remained behind at Athens, and sent Timotheus. As an analogy to this, the form should be οἱ περὶ τὸν Παῦλον. Comp. Tüb. Zeitschr. 1833, 1, p. 76.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Th 3:1 . μηκ ., instead of οὐκ ., to bring out the personal motive. στέγοντες “able to bear” ( cf. Philo, Flacc. , § 9, μηκέτι στέγειν δυνάμενοι τὰς ἐνδείας ), sc. the anxiety of 1Th 2:11 f. ἐν Ἀ . μόνοι . Paul shrank from loneliness, especially where there was little or no Christian fellowship; but he would not gratify himself at the expense of the Thessalonians. Their need of Timothy must take precedence of his.

1Th 2:17 to 1Th 3:13 . Paul’s apologia pro absentia suâ .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 5. 1Th 2:17 to 1Th 3:5. The Separation of the Apostles from their Converts

After the pause for thanksgiving to God, which in its turn led up to the stern denunciation of Jewish persecutors in 1Th 2:15 f., the Letter resumes the strain of 1Th 2:13. The happy intercourse between the Apostles and their newly-won converts (1Th 2:10-12) had been broken off by the assault just alluded to; the missionaries had left Thessalonica prematurely and in grief, planning a speedy return (1Th 2:17). St Paul in particular had twice resolved on this, but in vain (1Th 2:18). For the Thessalonian Church gave its ministers the greatest joy and hope (1Th 2:19 f.). Failing to return themselves, the other two had sent Timothy, to cheer the Thessalonians and sustain their faith in the present trials, of which indeed they had been forewarned (1Th 3:1-4); especially on St Paul’s motion had Timothy gone, to enquire how the Church fared under this prolonged and anxious trial (1Th 2:5).

1. For διο Β has the impossible διοτι, probably through transcriptional assimilation to μηκετι.

ηυδοκησαμεν, in אBP. Cf. ηυδοκουμεν, the reading of B in 1Th 2:8; also Rom 15:26-27, 1Co 10:5, where WH adopt ηυδ- from אB*, אA, and AB*C respectively; and 1Co 1:21, where these editors retain ευδ, C alone of the uncials having ηυδ.; in Gal 1:15, A alone has ηυδ. Outside of Paul, the augment in this verb is ill-attested.

1. Διὸ μηκέτι στέγοντες. Wherefore no longer bearing (it)—viz. the pain of bereavement, the hindering of their return (1Th 2:17 f.), and the concern the Apostles felt for their converts left under a storm of persecution (1Th 3:3) and with a still imperfect faith (1Th 3:2; 1Th 3:10). Διό has a like comprehensive reference in 1Th 3:11. On μή with participles, see Lightfoot ad loc.; the clause does not state a bare fact, as οὐκέτι στέγοντες would have done, but the fact which motived the action taken; cf. Winer-Moulton, pp. 606 ff. On στέγω, repeated in 1Th 3:5, see Lightfoot again. Kindred to Latin tego, to cover, the verb means both to hold in one’s feelings (Plato Gorgias 493 c), and to hold out against the pressure of circumstances: either sense is appropriate here; the latter accords with 1Co 9:12; 1Co 13:7—the other N.T. exx.—and with later Greek usage, exemplified by Philo in Flaccum 974 c (§ 9), μηκέτι στέγειν δυνάμενοι τὰς ἐνδείας.

ηὐδοκήσαμεν καταλειφθῆναι ἐν Ἀθήναις μόνοι, we thought good (or determined) to be left behind in Athens alone: censuimus ut (Calvin), or optimum duximus ut (Estius) Athenis soli relinqueremur. For the force of the plural we, and for the movements of the missionary party at this time, see Introd., pp. xx. f. Εὐδοκέω implies not the bare determination (ἔδοξεν ἡμῖν), but a conclusion come to heartily and with goodwill (cf. 1Th 2:8; 2Co 5:8, &c.)—often used of God’s “good pleasure” in His saving acts and choices (Luk 12:32, &c.). Κατα- adds intensity to λείπω; the simple verb however only occurs intransitively in the N.T. Μόνοι indicates that Timothy was missed; Paul and Silas were “lonely” without him: cf. Php 2:20; 1Ti 1:2; 2Ti 1:2 ff; 2Ti 4:9 ff., indicating the value set upon Timothy’s company. To give up Timothy, their ὑπηρέτης (cf. Act 13:5), was a sacrifice; both the older men, probably, found a comfort in his presence which they could not in the same way give to each other. Timothy, as well as Silas, must previously have rejoined St Paul at Athens, according to the instructions of Act 17:15.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:1.] διό, because of our affection for you just expressed; ‘hac narratione quæ sequitur, desiderii illius sui fidem facit,’ Calvin.

μηκ. στέγοντες] no longer being able to (μηκέτι gives the subjective feeling as distinguished from οὐκέτι, which would describe the mere objective matter of fact) bear (reff.) (our continued absence from you), we (I Paul, from above, ch. 2:18) determined (εὐδοκήσαμεν does not carry with it any expression of pleasure (‘promptam animi inclinationem designat,’ Calv.), except in so far as we say ‘it was our pleasure,’—referring merely to the resolution of the will) to be left behind (see Act 17:15, Act 17:16) in Athens alone,

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(5) The Sending of Timothy (3:1-5)

Although Satan had frustrated the immediate realisation of their desire to return, he was unable either to quench that desire (3:11) or to prevent the sending at least of Timothy. It is probable, as Calvin has observed, that vv. 1-5 are apologetic, but precisely what the situation is to which Paul speaks is uncertain. We may suppose that the Jews had alleged not only that the missionaries, and Paul in particular (2:18, 3:5), had purposely left the converts in the lurch with no intention of returning, but also that the fact of Gentile persecution was evidence of the false character of the gospel preached (see on v. 14). Reports of these slanders may have reached Paul and stimulated his eagerness to return. Unable himself to go back at once, he, with Silvanus, determines to send Timothy, a trusted friend, in his stead, and that too at no small cost, for he himself needed Timothy. The purpose of the sending is to strengthen and encourage the converts in the matter of their faith and thus prevent their being beguiled in the midst of their persecutions. As Paul had been singled out by the Jews as the object of attack, he is at pains to add that he too as well as Silvanus had sent to get a knowledge of their faith, for he is apprehensive that the Tempter had tempted them and that his work among them would turn out to be in vain. To the insinuation that their sufferings proved that the gospel which they had welcomed was a delusion, he tacitly replies, with an appeal to their knowledge in confirmation of his words (οἴδατ vv. 3-4, as in 2:1-12), by saying that Christianity involves suffering, a principle to which he had already alluded when he predicted affliction for himself and his converts,—a prediction which, as they know, was fulfilled.

1Wherefore, since we intended no longer to endure the separation, we resolved to be left behind in Athens alone, 2and sent Timothy, our brother and God’s co-worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen you and encourage you about your faith, 3to prevent any one of you from being beguiled in the midst of these your afflictions. For you yourselves know that we Christians are destined to this; 4for when we were with you we were wont to tell you beforehand: “We Christians are certain to experience affliction,” as indeed it has turned out and as you know.

5Wherefore, I too, since I intended no longer to endure the separation, sent him to get a knowledge of your faith, fearing that the Tempter had tempted you and that our labour might prove to be in vain.

1. διὸ μηκέτι κτλ. Since, after the shortest interval, we were anxious to see you because of our love for you, and since the immediate accomplishment of our desire was frustrated by Satan, “so then (διο summing up the main points of vv. 17-20), since we intended no longer to endure τὸ ἀπορφανίζεσθαι ἀφʼ ὑμῶ, we resolved (ηὐδοκήσαμε being the climax of ἐσπουδάσαμε (v. 17) and ἠθελήσαμε (v. 18)) to be left behind in Athens alone.” The words καταλειφθῆνα … μόνο are emphatic, as Calvin observes. It was at some cost to Paul and Silvanus that they determined to be left behind, and that too alone, parting with so trusted and necessary a companion as Timothy. Such a sacrifice was an unmistakable testimony to their affection for the converts. “It is a sign of rare affection and anxious desire that he is not unwilling to deprive himself of all comfort for the relief of the Thessalonians” (Calvin).

διο (5:11), like διά τοῦτ (v. 5 which resumes διο here) and ὣστ (4:18), retains its consecutive force, even if it has lost its full subordinating force. B reads διότ, the only case in the N. T. epistles where διο is exchanged for διότ (Zim); the reading of B may be due to μηκέτ (Weiss) or to διότ in 2:18 (Zim).—On μηκέτ, cf. v. 5, Rom 6:6, 2Co 5:15, etc. If the classic force of μη with participles is here retained, then a subjective turn is to be given to μηκέτ: “as those who”; if not, μηκέτ = οὐκέτ For the usage of μη and ου in later Gk., see BMT 485, Bl 75:1, and Moult I, 231 f.—στέγει, a Pauline word used with the accus. expressed (πάντ 1Co 9:12, 1Co 13:7) or unexpressed (here and v. 5) occurs elsewhere in the Gk. Bib. only Sir. 8:17: οὐ δυνήσεται λόγον στέξα The classic sense “cover” and derivatively “shelter,” “protect,” “conceal” is found also in Polybius (e. g. IV, 82, VIII, 145); the meaning βαστάζειν, ὑπομένει (Hesychius), likewise in Polyb. (e. g. III, 532, XVIII, 184) fits all the N. T. instances better than “ward off” (which Wohl. here suggests); see especially Lft. ad loc. From Kypke (II, 213) down, Philo (in Flac. 526, ed. Mangey) is usually cited: μηκέτι στέγειν δυνάμενοι τάς ἐνδεία This passage has led many comm. to take στέγοντε here as = δυνάμενοι στέγει; but the pres. part. probably represents an imperfect of intention (cf. GMT 38), and is equivalent to μέλλοντες στέγει For ηὐδοκήσαμε (אBP; εὐδο ADGF) in the sense of “resolve,” see above on 2:8. While it is not certain, it is probable that the resolve was made when Paul and his two companions were in Athens. In this case, the independent account of Acts must be supplemented by the inference that Silas and Timothy did come as quickly as possible to Athens (Act 17:14 f.).—Except in quotations, Paul does not elsewhere use καταλείπει The similar ὑπολείπει occurs but once in Paul (Rom 11:3 cit.). The phrases καταλείπεσθα or ὑπολείπεσθαι μόνο are quite common in Lxx, being employed either in contrast with others who have departed (Gen 32:24, Judith 13:2 with ὑπο; cf. [Jn.] 8:9 with κατα). or who have perished (Gen 7:23, Gen 42:38, Isa 3:26, 49:21, Isa 3:1 Mac. 13:4 with κατα; Gen 44:20 with ὑπο).

The “we” in vv. 1-5 is difficult (see on 1:1). Were it true that θλίψεσι (v. 3) refers solely to the persecutions that Paul experienced (Dob.), and that consequently the “we” of v. 4 refers to Paul alone, then it would be natural to take the “we” of v. 1 as also referring simply to Paul, and to urge the consideration that a μόνο which includes Silvanus weakens the argument. But it is by no means certain that θλίψεσι (v. 3) has in mind only Paul; furthermore, κείμεθ (v. 3) and μέλλομε (v. 4) may refer to Christians in general, while ἦμε and προελέγομε (v. 4) include not only Paul but Silvanus and Timothy. Above all, ἐγω (v. 5) is naturally explained (cf. 2:18) as purposely emphasising the fact that he as well as Silvanus had made the resolve to send Timothy, for the Jews obviously had directed their criticisms mainly against Paul. Hence the subject of ηὐδοκήσαμε and ἐπέμψαμε is Paul and Silvanus (cf. Mill.).—Failure to see the significance of the contrast between ἐγω (v. 5) and the subject of ἐπέμψαμε (v. 2) has led Hofmann and Spitta (Zur Geschichte und Litteratur des Urchristentums, 1893, I, 121 ff.), who rightly take the subject of ηὐδοκήσαμε (v. 1) to be Paul and Silvanus, to infer that Paul (v. 5) sent another person, unnamed, in addition to Timothy. But v. 6 speaks only of the return of Timothy, and the obvious object of ἔπεμψ here as of ἐπέμψαμε (v. 2) is Τιμόθεο

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER III.

St Paul informs them how, being hindered himself from visiting

them, he had sent Timothy to comfort them, of whom he gives a

high character, 1, 2.

Shows that trials and difficulties are unavoidable in the present

state, 3, 4.

Mentions the joy he had on hearing by Timothy of their

steadiness in the faith, for which he returns thanks to God;

and prays earnestly for their increase, 5-10.

Prays also that God may afford him an opportunity of seeing

them, 11.

And that they may abound in love to God and one another, and

be unblamable in holiness at the coming of Christ, 12, 13.

NOTES ON CHAP. III.

Verse 1. Wherefore, when we could no longer, c.] The apostle was anxious to hear of their state, and as he could obtain no information without sending a messenger express, he therefore sent Timothy from Athens choosing rather to be left alone, than to continue any longer in uncertainty relative to their state.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1 Wherefore, when we could no longer endure. By the detail which follows, he assures them of the desire of which he had spoken. For if, on being detained elsewhere, he had sent no other to Thessalonica in his place, it might have seemed as though he were not so much concerned in regard to them; but when he substitutes Timothy in his place, he removes that suspicion, more especially when he prefers them before himself. Now that he esteemed them above himself, he shews from this, that he chose rather to be left alone than that they should be deserted: for these words, we judged it good to be left alone, are emphatic. Timothy was a most faithful companion to him: he had at that time no others with him; hence it was inconvenient and distressing for him to be without him. It is therefore a token of rare affection and anxious desire that he does not refuse to deprive himself of all comfort, with the view of relieving the Thessalonians. To the same effect is the word εὐδοκήσαμεν, which expresses a prompt inclination of the mind.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

III.

(1) We could no longer forbear.—The Greek word contains the metaphor of a vessel over-full and bursting with its contents. “We” must be understood here by the limitation of 1Th_2:18, and by the direct singular of 1Th_3:5, to mean St. Paul alone, not him and Silas.

To be left at Athens alone.—The difficulty of interpreting this passage so as to agree with Act_17:15-16; Act_18:5, is not a light one. From those passages it would appear that immediately upon reaching Athens, St. Paul sent word back to Macedonia, by the friends who had escorted him, that St. Silas and St. Timothy should join him at once; but that some delay took place, and that St. Paul had arrived at Corinth before his companions reached him; that they consequently never were with him at Athens. In that case, “to be left alone” must mean, “We resolved not to keep with us the brethren who escorted us;” and the “sent” of 1Th_3:2 will mean that he gave them a message to Timothy that he should go back to Thessalonica (presumably from Berœa), before joining St. Paul at Athens; for the tense of the Greek verb “to be left” absolutely necessitates an act of parting with some one: it cannot mean, “We were willing to endure loneliness a little longer.” But such an interpretation suits ill with Act_17:15; it is hard to identify an urgent message to “come with all speed” with a command to make such a détour. It seems, therefore, most reasonable to suppose that Silas and Timothy joined St. Paul forthwith at Athens, and were almost as soon sent back into Macedonia,—Silas to Berœa or Philippi, and Timothy to Thessalonica. This would explain St. Paul’s being left alone, an expression which would hardly have been used had Silas remained with him at Athens, as some (misled by the word “we”) have supposed; and also it explains how in Act_18:5 both Timothy and Silas come from Macedonia to Corinth. The despatching of Silas from Athens is not mentioned here, simply because it had no particular interest for the Thessalonians. If the two men did not reach St. Paul at all during the time he was at Athens, after receiving so imperative a message, they must have been very slow, for a week would have allowed ample time for their journey from Berœa, and Act_17:17; Act_18:1 certainly imply a much longer period of residence there. “To be left alone” was a great trial to St. Paul’s affectionate nature: such a sacrifice may well impress the Thessalonians with the strength of his love for them.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. Wherefore when we could no longer forbear] Wherefore (i.e. because of our longing to see you) no longer bearing it (the frustration of our attempts to return to Thessalonica). “Bear” is the same word as in 1Co_13:7 : “Love beareth all things”—bears up under, holds out against. “This protracted separation and repeated disappointment was more than we could endure.”

to be left at Athens alone] left behind … alone (R. V.).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore when we could no longer forbear,.... Or "bear", as the word properly signifies; or "bear that", as the Ethiopic version reads; that is, "that desire", as the Arabic version renders it; that ardent and longing desire of seeing them again, expressed in the latter part of the preceding chapter; which was as fire in their bones, and was retained with great pain and uneasiness; but now they could hold it no longer, and like Jeremiah, Jer 20:9 were weary with forbearing, and could not stay; or it was like a burden, which they stood up under as long as they could, even Paul, Silas, and Timothy, but now it became insupportable:

we thought it good to be left at Athens alone: that is, Paul and Silas, or Paul only, speaking of himself in the plural number; for he seems to have been alone at Athens, at least at last; he considering everything, thought it most fit and advisable when at Athens, where he waited for Silas and Timothy, having ordered them to come thither to him from Berea, Act 17:14 either to send orders to Berea for Timothy to go from thence to Thessalonica, to know the state of affairs there, and Silas elsewhere; or if they came to him to Athens, of which Luke gives no account, he immediately dispatched Timothy to Thessalonica, and Silas to some other part of Macedonia, for from thence they came to him at Corinth, Act 18:5 such was his desire of knowing how things were at Thessalonica, that he chose rather to be left alone at Athens, disputing with the unbelieving Jews, and Heathen philosophers of the Epicurean and Stoic sects, sustaining all their scoffs and jeers alone; and was content to be without his useful companions, Silas and Timothy, who might have been assisting to him at Athens, in hope of hearing of his dear friends at Thessalonica.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1 Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone;

Ver. 1. No longer forbear] στεγοντες, or, stand under our burden of vehement desire after you. See a like expression, Isa 42:14. As a travailing woman bites in her pain as long as she is able, and at length cries aloud; so God is patient till he can hold no longer, &c.

We thought it good] Publica privatis anteferenda bonis, A public spirit is a precious spirit. And that is a golden saying of divine Plato, η δε δικαιοσυνη αλλοτριον μεν αγαθον, οικεια δε ζημια. (De Rep. lib. 3.) Goodness is all for the good of others, though to its own disadvantage; like as nature will venture its own particular good for the general. As heavy things will ascend to keep out vacuity, and to preserve the universe.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Forbearing no longer. That is, not being able to be at rest, for not seeing you, nor hearing concerning you. (Witham) --- Not bearing to be any longer uncertain and uninformed of your constancy, amidst the tribulations you had to endure, I sent Timothy to strengthen you, that you might not be moved in the difficulties to which we are destined, and which it is appointed for us to undergo. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle proceeds upon the same argument to confirm his love to them, and care of them, that they might not doubt of it because of his long absence from them. Therefore he tells them, that though he could not come himself, yet he sent Timothy to them from Athens; which we find not mentioned in the Acts by Luke: and his love herein is commended the more:

1. Because he sent him out of a strong impulse of affection, he could not forbear any longer, or bear, it was a heavy burden to him till he had done it, as the word imports.

2. He was content to be left at Athens alone by parting with Timothy, though his company was so desirable and useful to him at that time. And he was well pleased so to do for their sakes; ευδοκησαμεν, he had a complacence of mind in so doing, so much he preferred their good before his own contentment.

(To see numbers 3 and 4: See Poole on "1Th 3:2".)

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Apostle's Anxiety about his Converts

1. Forbear] better, 'endure the suspense.'

2. Our fellow-labourer] better, 'God's fellow-worker' or 'minister,' RV.

3. Should be moved] better, 'led astray.' Afflictions] at the hands of Jews and Gentiles: see Act_17:5.

6. Now when] better, 'as soon as.' Charity] RV 'love.'

8. We live] it puts new life in us. If ye stand fast] better, 'if only ye stand fast.' The Gk. expresses some doubt and anxiety.

10. 'I pray unceasingly and urgently to the end that I may see you again and correct your shortcomings.' The prayer was answered after some years (Act_20:1-2).

11-13. A prayer to Christ as co-equal with the Father, with which the first section of the Epistle ends: cp. 2Th_2:16.

11. The verb is in the singular, emphasising the reference to Christ, who is also called 'the Lord' in 1Th_3:12. The keynote of these Epistles is again struck at the concluding words of the prayer, 'at the coming' (lit. 'presence') 'of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints' (cp. 1Th_2:19).

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CONTENTS. The apostle, no longer able to repress his longing and anxiety for the Thessalonians, resolved to be left alone at Athens, and sent Timothy for the purpose of exhorting them to endurance amid their persecutions, and to bring him information concerning their condition. Timothy had just rejoined him at Corinth, and the apostle expresses the extreme satisfaction which he felt at the welcome tidings which his messenger had brought of their faith and love; it put new life into him, and comforted him in all his affliction and distress. He prays God that he may be permitted to revisit the Thessalonians, and to supply what was still defective in their faith; and he makes it the object of his earnest supplication that the Lord Jesus would make them so to increase in love and establish them in holiness that they may be blameless at his appearance with all his holy ones.

This verse is closely connected with the concluding verses of the last chapter, from which it should not be separated. Wherefore; on account of my affection toward you and my repeated vain attempts to see you. When we . Some refer the plural to Paul, Silas, and Timothy; (1Th_1:1) others to Paul and Silas, as Timothy had been sent to Thessalonica; but it is to be restricted to Paul, as is evident from 1Th_2:3-8 and 1Th_3:5, and inasmuch as Paul was left alone at Athens; the plural being here used for the singular. Could no longer forbear; could no longer restrain our longing and anxiety to know your condition. We thought it good; a happy translation of the original, expressing both "we were pleased and resolved." To be left at Athens alone; an expression of solitude. Alone in Athens, in the very metropolis of idolatry. Compare with this the common saying, "Alone in London." In the Acts of the Apostles we are informed that Paul came to Athens alone, and that there he waited for Silas and Timothy (5), (Act_17:14) and that these fellow-workers rejoined him at Corinth. (Act_18:5) Many expositors, however, from this and the next verse, infer that Timothy at least joined Paul at Athens, but was sent back by him to Thessalonica, to inquire into the condition of his converts in that city. Such is the opinion of Olshausen, Neander, De Wette, Lunemann, Hofmann, Koch, and Schott; and, among English expositors, of Macknight, Paley, Eadie, Jowett, Ellicott, and Wordsworth. There is no contradiction between this view and the narrative of the Acts. Luke merely omits to mention Timothy"s short visit to Athens and departure from it, and relates only the final reunion of these three fellow-workers at Corinth. Indeed, Paley gives this coming of Timothy to Athens as one of the undesigned coincidences between this Epistle and the Acts of the Apostles. Still, however, we are not necessitated to suppose that Timothy joined the apostle at Athens. The words admit of the opinion that he was sent by Paul direct from Beraea, and not from Athens; and that he and Silas did not join Paul until they came from Macedonia to Corinth. Such is the opinion of Hug, Wieseler, Koppe, Alford, and Vaughan.

HOMILIES BY T. CROSKERY. Vers. 1-5.

The design of Timothy"s mission to Thessalonica.

When the apostle could no longer control his longing to see his converts, he sent them Timothy by way of relieving his solicitude in their behalf. His love for them was manifest in all the circumstances of this mission.

I HE SACRIFICES HIS OWN IMMEDIATE COMFORT TO THEIR BENEFIT. "We thought it good to be left at Athens alone.

1. Though Timothy was most necessary to him in the ministry, he parted with him for their good.

2. Athens, as a seat of boundless idolatry, exercised such a depressing influence upon him that he needed the stimulus of Timothys society. Yet he denied himself this comfort that he might serve them.

II HE DESPATCHES TO THEM THE MOST HIGHLY ESTEEMED OF HIS FELLOW-LABORERS. "Our brother, and minister of God, and fellow-laborer in the gospel of Christ." He selects one best fitted to serve them by his gifts, his experience, and his knowledge of the apostle"s views and wishes. The various titles here given to Timothy help to honor him before the Churches, and to challenge the abiding confidence of the Thessalonians.

III THE DESIGN OF TIMOTHY"S MISSION. It was twofold: "To establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith," and to know your faith.

1. The necessity for his mission. The afflictions which they were enduring for the gospel.

(1) These afflictions had a most disturbing tendency. "That no one be disquieted by these afflictions." The converts had newly emerged from heathenism, and therefore the apostle was more concerned on their behalf. Yet, as we know from the Second Epistle, they remained firm. "We ourselves glory in you in the Churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure". (2Th_1:4)

(2) These afflictions were of Divine appointment. "For yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto." They were, therefore, "no strange thing." They come by the will of God, who has determined their nature, severity, and duration. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." The afflictions were not accidental.

(3) They were clearly foreseen by the apostle. "When we were with you we told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction.

(a) It is the duty of ministers to forewarn their converts of coming affliction, lest they should be offended thereby.

(b) Converts, when forewarned, ought to be forearmed, so that they may not sink under them, much less forsake the gospel on account of them. "For the light afflictions are but for a moment, and work out an exceeding weight of glory.

(4) Satan is the main source, of danger in these afflictions. "Lest by any means the tempter had tempted you. The apostle was not ignorant of his devices," and was apprehensive lest Satan should get an advantage of his converts by moving them from the hope of the gospel, and causing them to relinquish their profession of it.

(5) The only security against Satan"s temptations faith; for this "is the victory that overcometh the world this is the shield "wherewith they could quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

2. The manner in which Timothys mission was to be discharged. "To establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith.

(1) In relation to the Thessalonians. Timothy would

(a) establish them by giving them a fresh exhibition of the truth with its manifold evidences. The strongest faith needs confirmation. The apostles were in the habit of confirming the souls of the disciples. (Act_14:22)

(b) He would comfort them concerning their faith by exhibiting the example of Christ, the glory that must accrue to God from their steadfastness, and the hope of the coming kingdom.

(2) In relation to the apostle himself. "To know your faith." One object of his sending Timothy was to put an end to his own anxieties and doubts on their behalf, for he might fear that "his labor would be in vain." He might hope the best but fear the worst, for he was most deeply concerned in their welfare. T.C.

HOMILIES BY B.C. CAFFIN

Vers. 1-5.

Proof of the apostle"s love for the Thessalonians.

I THE MISSION OF TIMOTHY.

1. He could no longer forbear. Mark the intensity of his affection. He repeats the words twice, ver. 1 and ver. 5, first in the plural, then in the singular number, implying, perhaps, that while all the missionaries longed to know how it fared with the Thessalonians, his longing was the most overmastering. He must hear of his converts, cost him what it might. The suspense was agonizing; he could endure it no longer; so deep, so burning, was his interest in their spiritual state. What an example to Christian pastors now!

2. He would submit to any sacrifice; he would be left alone at Athens. "Alone in London" has almost passed into a proverb. Loneliness is nowhere felt so much as in a great city

Crowded wilderness, Where ever-moving myriads seem to say, "Go! thou art naught to us, nor we to thee away!

St. Paul felt like this at Athens. To the student of history, to the lover of classical antiquities, Athens is one of the most attractive of cities. To St. Paul it was almost a desert. He does not seem to have found delight in natural beauty or in historic associations; the one object of his life was to extend the Redeemer"s kingdom, to win souls to Christ. The Athenians of his day had much curiosity, much versatility, but no depth of character, no real longing after truth. They did not persecute; they had not earnestness enough for that. But mockery and indifference were more painful to St, Paul than danger and suffering. He could not feet at home in Athens. And he was one of those men to whom sympathy is almost a necessity; his one earthly comfort was the society of Christian friends. This Epistle shows the intensity of his affections; he can scarcely find words strong enough to express his love for the Thessalonians, his yearning desire to see them again. Yet he had spent only three weeks, or perhaps a short time longer, at Thessalonica. How, then, must he have prized the society of Timotheus, the dearest of all his friends! He was his brother, his fellow-laborer; he could ill spare him, especially while laboring in vain, as it seemed, in that most uncongenial place. But he would send him; he would endure that isolation which was so oppressive to him. Even for himself it was better than the cruel uncertainty which he could bear no longer; and the visit of Timotheus would be very useful to the infant Church at Thessalonica. So he thought it good; it pleased him, there was a pleasure mingled with the pain, to be left at Athens alone. There is a pleasure in self-sacrifice, severe but real; there is a peace in the conscious submission of the human will to the blessed will of God a peace not granted to all, for not all take up the cross, but very precious, very high and holy.

3. So he sent his closest friend and companion. His words show how he felt the separation. He describes him as his brother; elsewhere he calls him his son in the faith, his dearly beloved son. His presence, his loving care, his affectionate sympathy, were very dear to St. Paul. His help, too, was very needful; he was the minister of God, St. Paul"s fellow-laborer in the gospel (the readings are somewhat confused, but the meaning is plain); he could assist him in his difficult and almost heartless labor at Athens. Like St. Paul, he delighted to serve God, to do God"s work, to preach the glad tidings of the atonement, the resurrection of Christ, the life and immortality brought to light by the Lord Jesus. There was work, hard work, enough and more than enough, for both of them at Athens; but St. Paul, in his intense anxiety for the Thessalonians, sent to them his dearest companion and his best helper. Old work must not be neglected for new; it is a common temptation. The care of all the Churches pressed upon St. Paul. The minister of God must care for all the souls entrusted to his charge.

II THE PURPOSE OF TIMOTHY"S MISSION.

1. To stablish them. They were but neophytes Christians of a few months. The first work of drawing men to take an interest in religion is often easier than the work which follows of stablishing and building them up in the faith. It is hard to persevere; we know it from our own experience. It may be that by God"s grace we have drawn nigh to the crucified One; we have felt something of the sweetness of his precious love; our hearts have burned within us as we listened to his voice, "Come unto me." In such moments we have felt, perhaps, that our work was well-nigh done, and our souls saved for ever; we thought that we could never fall from him whom we had learned to love so dearly. But a little while, and we found ourselves miserably disappointed. The time of temptation came; or perhaps, without any definite temptation, the freshness of those glowing feelings passed away; we lost our first love, and sunk back into that cold indifference which we hoped we had shaken off forever. We lost all that

2. we seemed to have gained; we had to begin our work again. Alas! many are thus always beginning; their spiritual history is a series of oscillations between permitted carelessness and feeble repentance. They make no real progress towards that holiness without which we cannot see God. They need a Timotheus to stablish them. It is one of the most important, one of the most difficult, duties of the ministers of God to persevere themselves, to lead others to persevere.

3. To comfort them, or rather, perhaps, to exhort them. They needed both, comfort and exhortation. The cross was coming. They were but babes in Christ; they shrunk from its sharpness. But "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." The grace of perseverance is best acquired in the bracing air of affliction. "The trying of our faith worketh patience." Self-denial, the mortification of the flesh, are, alas! to many of us but empty sounds. They must become realities in our daily lives if we are to be Christians indeed. The sentimental religion of mere poetry and feeling is a weak and sickly exotic; it will never bear the cold blasts of temptation, it will not stand in the evil day. Timotheus was to comfort the Thessalonians in their troubles, to exhort them to patient endurance, that their faith might not fail them, that it might rather grow and increase.

1. To prepare them for tribulation.

(1) Afflictions must come. It is a law of Christ"s kingdom. "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth." The Savior endured the cross, despising the shame; the Christian must consider him, always "looking unto Jesus." "We are appointed thereunto," St. Paul says; not himself only, but all Christians. It is God"s ordinance; it is "the trial of faith, much more precious than of gold." The gold perisheth, the faith abideth; it will issue in praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. But "we are appointed thereunto." We must recognize this, and accept it cheerfully as the law of our Christian race. The cross is the very badge and emblem of our religion; the cross is a sacred object in the Christian"s eyes; but it will not profit us unless we bear the inner cross, the spiritual cross of self-sacrifice wrought into our souls by the power of God the Holy Ghost. The Lord Jesus bore the cross first; his death upon the cross gave a deep and awful and blessed meaning to the word; it invested the cross with glory and solemn beauty and attractive sweetness. His saints have followed him. One after another they have taken up the cross; they came out of great tribulation. From the quiet rest of paradise their voices seem to float around us yet, telling us of the power of the Savior"s cross and the high rewards of suffering for his sake. "We are appointed thereunto," St. Paul said to the Thessalonians; he does not attempt to hide it from them. They were very young Christians, but, young as they were, they must experience the law of suffering. "Ye knew it," St. Paul says; for they knew the blessed story of the cross, and they knew the meaning of the cross. The Churches of Macedonia had a great trial of affliction. We are not called to suffer in the same way, but the cross has the same meaning still. "In the world ye shall have tribulation." "We are appointed thereunto." We are not in danger of the martyr"s death, but the martyr"s spirit is as necessary as ever it was; its essence lies in the prayer which we daily use, Thy will be done." We must not be moved by these afflictions; they must not be allowed to disquiet us, to disturb the steadfastness of our faith. Affliction is the ordinary atmosphere of the Christian life.

(2) St. Paul had told them this. When he was with them, short as the time was three weeks or a little more he warned them of the coming trials. It was a great help when the time came. As Chrysostom says, if the physician warns his patient of the probable symptoms of his disease, he is not so terrified when they come. Thus the Thessalonians were prepared to see the sufferings of St. Paul and his companions prepared themselves to follow them as they followed Christ. The preacher must not dwell exclusively on the bright side of religion, its beauty and its joys; he must point to the cross; he must prepare himself and his people to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

(3) But though he had warned them, he was still anxious. The affliction had come, as he had said. He knew that they were suffering; he felt for them in their trials. Especially he was anxious to know how that newly formed faith of theirs would endure the first shock of persecution. The tempter had tempted them that was certain. These trials were his work. It was permitted; it was overruled for good, as the event showed. But it came from the same evil one who had tempted Job to curse God, and was foiled then by the patience of that holy man, and now, by the grace of God, vouchsafed to the Thessalonians. But St. Paul did not know the issue. He had beard of the temptation, and with the tender, trembling solicitude of a loving parent he feared he could not help fearing lest his labor should prove in vain. Mark, again, his firm belief in the personality of Satan. He knew his malice; he was not ignorant of his devices, and he feared for his children in the faith.

LESSONS.

1. Pray for the love of souls; seek to love souls with a great love, as St. Paul yearned for the salvation of his converts.

2. Be content, like him, to suffer privations for the souls of others.

3. Pray for the grace of perseverance; be distrustful of self; trust only Christ; watch always.

4. Expect afflictions, chastisements; they must come; they form a necessary part of Christian experience; be prepared for them. B.C.C.

HOMILIES BY R. FINLAYSON Vers. 1-13. The subject is still

Great desire to see the Thessalonians.

I PAUL ALONE AT ATHENS. "Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone." There is continued the use of the plural; but it is to be regarded as corrected by the use of the singular in the fifth verse. The correction relates to the mission of Timothy, which is to be understood as covering Paul"s being left behind at Athens. For want of full materials it is difficult to understand the bearing of what is said in the Acts of the Apostles on what is said here. But the most probable account of matters seems to be the following. Silos and Timothy were left behind at Beraea. They that conducted Paul from Beraea brought him as far as Athens; and immediately returned with a commandment unto Silos and Timothy that they should come to him with all speed. Here comes in the link which is given here: Wherefore (i.e. on account of his endeavor to see the Thessalonians having twice proved abortive) when he could no longer forbear (i.e. when he was necessitated to give some relief to his feeling of being orphaned), he thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone. This was a change of plan, but arising out of the very best feeling. He sent on to Beraea a second commandment, that Timothy should proceed to Thessalonica before joining him, Silas meantime remaining at Beraea. In that case Paul was really left behind at Athens, though not with the greatest literalism. He was left behind from the point of view of Timothy going on to Thessalonica, and also of his intention to have had Silas and Timothy with him at Athens. It was the being alone at Athens that made him think of sending for Silas and Timothy, while his conductors from Beraea had not yet left. He felt the atmosphere to be so oppressive beyond his expectations that he longed for their fellowship. And while he was waiting for them, as we learn from the Acts of the Apostles, the feeling did not abate. He went forth into this beautiful city which was associated with the greatest intellectual refinement. And, though a man of gigantic intellect, he was not attracted to the study of its works of art or philosophies. No, it was the gospel sandals with which his feet were shod. It was in the light of Christ that he contemplated the city. Its principal works of art were temples. There on the Areopagus was a temple of Mars, with the subterranean sanctuary of the Furies. On the prominent Acropolis was the Parthenon, or temple of Athene, the protectress of the city, and, next to it in magnificence, the Erectheum with its presiding deities. A third rock was associated with Jove. There was an altar of Prometheus within the groves of the Academy; the Lyceum was dedicated to Apollo. At every turn were structures connected with idolatrous worship, and, among the many, the eye of the apostle detected an altar with this inscription, "To the Unknown God," from which he afterwards took occasion to preach to the Athenians some of the elementary truths of religion. It was while alone in this city full of idols, oppressed by its false forms of religion, that he longed for Silas and Timothy to come on to him. But, strong as his desire for their fellowship was, it was soon overmastered by another, viz. desire toward the Thessalonians, for the gratification of which he was willing to make sacrifice by remaining alone at Athens.

II MISSION OF TIMOTHY WITH REFERENCE TO THE THESSALONIANS. "And sent Timothy, our brother and God"s minister in the gospel of Christ." Timothy is sometimes called Paul"s son; he is here called his brother. He was a son who had already grown up to be a companion and associate in work. He was one to whom Paul gave commandment, yet it was properly to God that he stood or fell. The sphere in which he ministered to God was the gospel of Christ. It was his duty generally to bring the gospel of Christ to the wants of men. But let us think of it as his duty specially to bring the gospel of Christ to the wants of the Thessalonians.

1. Timothy was to seek to influence them against their being moved by the pressing afflictions. "To establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith; that no man be moved by these afflictions." The afflictions, not confined to the Thessalonians, but having the first reference to them, are regarded as present. It was Thessalonian afflictions that forced Paul to leave Thessalonica much sooner than he had intended. It was in a manner Thessalonian afflictions that followed him to Beraea. At the time of sending Timothy he may have had late information of the things suffered by the Thessalonians of their own countrymen. By indications, then, he could only think of the afflictions as what might any moment be experienced by them. In consequence of these afflictions Timothy was sent to establish them. It was work which might expose him to the attacks of the virulent Jews of Thessalonica; and this establishing work is usually committed to older men. But that by which he was himself established was his message. And it was to this that he was to look for establishing the Thessalonians. He was to exhort them (not comfort them) concerning their faith, that no man should be moved by these afflictions. He was to hold up persuasively

2. before them the gospel of Christ, that their faith thereby being strengthened, they might be kept from apostatizing.

3. There was reason for their not being moved by the afflictions. "For yourselves know that hereunto we are appointed. For verily, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction; even as it come to pass, and ye know." The Thessalonians, and Paul as well, and not they alone, were appointed to suffer affliction. It was the sovereign, all-wise decree of God that, through the affliction of his people, the gospel was to be spread abroad, and transmitted to future generations. And that was a reason why they were not to be moved in affliction. They were not being made the sport of chance, or simply left to the will of their enemies; but they were submitting to the reasonable necessary appointment of their heavenly Father, and that along with others. The Thessalonians were well acquainted with this doctrine. It had been taught them by Paul, when he was with them. And in this he was simply following the great Teacher. It was impossible for him to hold out false expectations. He told them whom he asked to enter into his service that they were to count the cost; they might be called even to lay down their lives for his sake. And at the last he recurs to this in speaking to his disciples. "If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated me before it hated you. Remember the word that I said unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.... These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be made to stumble. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God. And these things will they do, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I spoken unto you, that when their hour is come, ye may remember them, how that I told you." As Paul, after the Master, taught, so it came to pass, and so they had experience. Being thus prepared beforehand, their affliction, instead of shaking them, was fitted to have a confirming effect upon them.

III MISSION OF TIMOTHY WITH REFERENCE TO PAUL. "For this cause I also, when I could no longer forbear, sent that I might know your faith, lest by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor should be in vain." It seems best to connect "also" with "sent," as is grammatically allowable. He sent not merely for the sake of the Thessalonians, but also for his own sake. The affliction was a special reason why he, Paul (the singular being introduced), could no longer forbear. He wanted information regarding their faith. Connected with this was anxiety. As a fact, the tempter had tempted them. God tempteth no man; he seeks only through affliction to make his people conquerors. Through affliction Satan, according to his nature, had sought to seduce the Thessalonians to apostasy. And it might be that by some means (for he is fertile in means) he had succeeded in his nefarious object. In that case his labor among the Thessalonians, and laborious praying for them, in all of which he had a natural interest before God, would be vain. It would be as if his lot had never been cast among them. Wishing, then, to have his mind relieved from this state of anxiety, he had sent on Timothy.

IV GOOD NEWS FROM THESSALONICA. But when Timothy came even now unto us from you, and brought us glad tidings." Paul had meantime gone on from Athens to Corinth, where, according to Act_18:5, he was joined by Silas and Timothy. He lost no time in writing to Thessalonica after their arrival. Timothy, who seems not to have delayed by the way, was the bringer of good news, of a kind of gospel being. indeed, tidings of the fruit of the gospel. He announced what the gospel had wrought for the Thessalonians in three particulars.

1. "Of your faith." Timothy was able to tell his master, by whom he had been sent, that they had such a hold upon the Divine help, that they were able to stand against the assaults of their enemies.

2. "And love." He had also this good news to tell Paul, that, in the face of opposition, they were not weakened by division, but were only drawn the closer together in the bonds of Christian love.

3. "And that ye have good remembrance of us always, longing to see us, even as we also to see you." He had the further tidings to convey, that they had a lively impression of all he had been to them to whom, under God, more than to any other, they owed their existence as a Church. His name was a savor of a sweet smell among them. At all times they thought of him with pleasure. And as it had been told them that he had a longing to see them, so they wished it to be told him that they had a longing to see again the face, and not less to hear again the voice, of their teacher.

V COMFORT IMPARTED BY THE GOOD NEWS. "For this cause, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our distress and affliction through your faith: for now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord." As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." When Jacob knew that Joseph was alive, his spirit revived. Paul had. not a little of distress and affliction, of trouble from without, that was straitening and oppressive, at Corinth as elsewhere; but, when the good news came regarding his Thessalonian converts, he forgot his distress and affliction. He was comforted over them, in his brooding love. What in them specially communicated comfort to him was their faith, i.e. the faith which enabled them to stand fast in the Lord. So dependent was he on them for happiness, that he only truly lived, had life in its vigor and elasticity, if he could think of them as standing fast in the Lord. While he thus acknowledges their steadfastness in the past, he gently appeals to them to remain steadfast in the future. Let them not take away the condition of his happiness. A Christian parent is dependent for his happiness on the conduct of his children. If he hears of them, when on going out into the world they come to their trial, as departing from the Lord, then his spirit is crushed. But if he hears a good report of them as standing fast in the Lord (in his strength and purpose), then his bones are made fat. And so is it with a Christian minister and his people.

VI THANKSGIVING ON ACCOUNT OF THE GOOD NEWS. For what thanksgiving can we render again unto God for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God?" The good news, the glad tidings, filled the apostle"s heart with joy. There is an unhallowed joy which is not worthy of the name of joy. Not connected with a recognition of God, not in accordance with God"s laws, it cannot bear the Divine inspection. The joy of the apostle for his Thessalonian converts was not of this nature. It extended over a wide range, but over all the range he joyed for them before God. It was not joy away from God, but joy to which he could ask God to be privy, as being joy in their Christian state, especially in their Christian steadfastness. This pure joy, which was his life, the apostle poured forth in thanksgiving. It was God alone who bad made their mountain to stand strong; to him, therefore, was due all the praise. Thanksgiving is a return which God desires from us for his mercies. And we must often feel, with the apostle, that we cannot make a sufficient return in this form for mercies bestowed upon ourselves and upon others.

Through all eternity to thee A joyful song I"ll raise; For, oh! eternity"s too short To utter all thy praise.

VII PRAYER WITH WHICH THE THANKSGIVING IS BLENDED. Night and day praying exceedingly." He gave thanks when he prayed, and that was night and day. He borrowed from both, which is suggestive of morning and evening as fitting seasons for the duty of prayer. How fitting that in the morning we should turn to God and consecrate to him the powers he has renewed! How fitting that before returning to the world, to meet its temptations, to be entrusted with opportunities of usefulness, to meet what Providence has awaiting us, how fitting that before we take the first step we should implore the favor of him on whom the lot of every day depends! How fitting, too, that in the evening we should thank God for the benefits of the day, that we should seek to be relieved of the burden of its transgressions, and that we should commit ourselves through the night to the keeping of him who neither slumbers nor sleeps! We can understand that the apostle would borrow largely front the night; for, apart from his labors night and day, his prayers here are described as beyond measure. What a rebuke to those who, instead of breaking beyond bounds in the impetuosity of devotion, narrow their prayers within small compass, or omit them altogether! Here we discover the secret of his power; and let us, in this undevout age, go back to his style of praying, without any loss of intensity, beyond bounds. Two subjects of prayer.

1. "That we may see your face." It has been said of Paul by James Martineau, that "his ardent and generous soul had fastened itself on no one living object, but on an abstraction, a thing of his own mind, the truth;" "that he rested nowhere long enough to feel his nature silently yet irrevocably depositing itself there, but was at all times ready to gather up his feelings and pass on;" that he loved his disciples less in their individual persons and for their own sakes than as depositaries of the truth as links of a living chain of minds by which that truth would complete its circuit, and find a passage for its renovating power. But it is difficult to know what personal attachment is, if there are not the marks of it in Paul. Did he merely gather up his feelings and pass on, when he was driven by persecution from Thessalonica? No; the Thessalonians, in the short time, had obtained a place in his heart, which was not transient, which they have to this day in heaven. And night and day, when he was away, they came up before him in his audience with God; and what, going beyond bounds, he asked was partly this that he might see their face. He wished to have fellowship with them, soul with soul, such as is best promoted by direct personal intercourse. That he embraced so many in his affection, that he could not give them more time individually, did not make his attachment less truly personal.

2. "And may perfect that which is lacking in your faith." It is true that Paul had an object beyond seeing their face, and that was that he might the better impart to them spiritual benefit. But is that attaching importance to the person only as a home for the truth? If so, then it is what should be true of all affection. The more ardently we love persons, the more should we love them not as mere earthly beings, but rather as having a heavenly constitution, as those in whom it is fitting that the truth should have a resting-place and home. The more we love to see their face, the more we should seek to perfect that which is lacking in their faith. Paul meant no reflection on the Thessalonians, who were little more than beginners as believers. It was not to be expected that they had come up to the full measure of faith. They had stood the tests to which they had been put, but there might be stronger tests coming. Neither they nor he had come up to the full-measured faith of the Master, who had stood even the forsaking of the Father. Privileged to come among them, he could only hope to be helpful in making up the deficiencies of their faith by a fuller and more earnest exhibition of gospel truth.

VIII PRAYER THROWN INTO FORM TO BE OVERHEARD BY GOD. Two petitions corresponding to the two subjects of prayer.

1. "Now may our God and Father himself, and the Lord Jesus, direct our way unto you." Paul prayed to have his way directed unto the Thessalonians. In the same way the servant of Abraham prayed to have his way prospered in the obtaining of a wife for Isaac. We may learn that we are to make even external arrangements subjects of prayer. "Our God and Father himself... direct our way unto you." Satan, with his misanthropic qualities, twice succeeded in hindering him in his endeavors to proceed to Thessalonica. He looks above his own feeble endeavors and the hinderings of Satan, to God, in his almightiness and fatherliness, himself to direct his way unto the Thessalonians. "The Lord Jesus direct our way unto you." We may learn that it is right to pray to Christ, though it is more usual to pray to the Father through Christ. The way of his servants, even the external way, is in his sovereign hands. We must not forget that he controls all things in heaven and in earth. In this verse there is a most remarkable enallage of number two nominatives followed, not by a plural, but by a singular verb. It is one of the most striking proofs in Scripture, all the more that it comes in incidentally, of the absolute unity of the Father and the Son. It was made effective use of by Athanasius, in his case against Arius.

2. (1) More immediately. "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and to all men, even as we also do toward you." If there is any distinction between the two main verbs here, it is that the first refers more to range, the second to degree. It is implied that the Thessalonians already increased and abounded in love; still there was room for higher things. "Whether I come or no, the Lord make you to increase and abound in love." They were to increase and abound in love one toward another (within the Christian circle at Thessalonica), and toward all men (the wider Christian circle, and, beyond it, the world lying in wickedness). This is in conformity with what Peter says, that to brotherly kindness we are to add charity. There is a concentration of our affections in our home. But we are not selfishly to confine them there; rather are we to get there refreshment for a wider circle. So there is a concentration of our affections in the Church or enlarged home. But we are not to make it a close guild; rather, in its refreshing fellowship, are we to be fitted for embracing in our affection the whole world. The apostle supports his petition by his own example. It is literally," even as we also toward you." And it is better to leave it thus indefinite, that Paul"s example may extend over past and present. He was not one who had confined his affections to any narrow circle; but they had gone out toward them in Thessalonica, and were still going out. It is true that, when the truth finds a home in a person, there is a look beyond him to its finding a home by him in others. And the more truly and deeply we are attached to men as persons, the more shall we with Paul feel prompted to view them as appointed for the transmission of the truth.

(2) Ultimately. "To the end he may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lent Jesus with all his saints." By the stablishing of our hearts we are to understand our being made proof in our inmost being against temptation, our being placed above the reach of a fall. This is to be brought about by love proceeding from faith. As love is said to be the fulfilling of the Law, and the bond of perfection, so it is here viewed as consummating our establishment. We are to be established, so as to be in the sphere of holiness, sanctity without blame, and that under the searching yet loving eye of God. Such a consummation seems far beyond us at present; but it will be realized for us at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. His power ever the evil of our hearts, through His blood and Spirit, will then be fully manifested. With imperfect holiness now, then we shall he saints indeed. And as Christ"s saints, the trophies of his power, we shall attend on him at his coming, and swell the majesty of his train. Let us, then, give love the sweep of our being, to the dislodging of sin, to the incoming of saintliness, that in Christ"s day of triumph we may be, with the saints: in his train. R.F.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We - Paul and Silvanus. Could bear no longer - Our desire and fear for you.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Various Proofs of Paul’s Love for the Thessalonians

He sent Timothy to them as his representative:

v. 1. Wherefore, when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone;

v. 2. and sent Timotheus, our brother and minister of God and our fellow-laborer in the Gospel of Christ, to establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith,

v. 3. that no man should be moved by these afflictions; for yourselves know that we are appointed there unto.

v. 4. For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass and ye know.

Paul had protested his love for the Thessalonian Christians in the strongest terms, stating also that he had tried time and again to visit them, but had been prevented from carrying out his intention. So he had done the next best thing: Wherefore, when we could no longer endure it, we thought best to be left in Athens alone, and sent Timothy, our brother and servant of God in the Gospel of Christ, to give you strength and consolation in behalf of your faith. The longer Paul had been separated from the Thessalonian congregation, the more unendurable this separation became to him. He felt that he must get into communication with them in some way. Although he shrank from loneliness, therefore, especially where there was little or no Christian fellowship, he disregarded his own comfort and peace of mind. No sooner had Timothy (and Silas) joined him at Athens, where he had waited for them, Act 17:15, than he commissioned Timothy to return to Thessalonica. Or Paul may have countermanded the order sent to Timothy by the Berean Christians and sent him word to proceed to Thessalonica first, before joining him in Achaia, Act 18:5. He preferred to bear a certain amount of personal inconvenience to the continuation of the anxiety in behalf of his beloved pupils. As usual, Paul cannot refrain from adding a few commendatory words regarding Timothy, designating him as his brother in Christ and as a servant of God in the Gospel of Christ. These were no mere titles of honor, but were intended to show the Thessalonians how much the apostle thought of them in being willing to be deprived of the company of such a highly esteemed and unusually able helper. At the same time, Timothy, having such qualifications, was able also to strengthen the Thessalonian Christians, to confirm them, to offer them the necessary encouragement and comfort with reference to their faith. It was not that he expresses any distrust of them with regard to the soundness of their faith, but he is aware of the many dangers that surround the Christians at all times,

Of these dangers he says: That no one should be disturbed in these troubles; for yourselves know that we are destined to that end; for also when I was with you, I spoke of this to you in advance, that we must endure afflictions, just as it happened and you know, Even after the departure of Paul the Thessalonian Christians had been harassed by their own countrymen, chap. 2:14. Lest, therefore, they be disturbed in their faith on account of these troubles, lest anyone should apostatize from Christianity, Timothy had been commissioned to dispense strength and cheer to their hearts. As for the Thessalonians themselves, Paul reminds them that troubles of this kind are the fate of the Christians; it is what they must expect by reason of their calling; it is a part of the cross which their Lord expects them to bear, Mat 5:10-12; Mat 10:21; Joh 15:18; Act 14:22. Paul reminds them also of the fact that he, indeed, had during his stay with them told them of this in advance that it is a part of God’s purpose with regard to His children that they must suffer affliction. The fact, then, that this prediction was being fulfilled should cause them no surprise. It happened so to them, and it happened so to him, and the Christian should be satisfied with his lot, with the cross which he must bear according to God’s will. All this is a part of Christian knowledge, the Gospel winning believers in spite of this undisguised forewarning. Note: The Christians of the present time are inclined somewhat to shirk the bearing of tribulations by equivocating when they should really make a clear confession of their faith in word and deed. It is to be feared that many cases of denial of the Lord grow out of such behavior.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

At the latter end of the foregoing chapter, St. Paul acquainted the Thessalonians with his desires and intentions to come once and again unto them, but was always providentially hindered. Now here he gives them to understand, that such was the fervour of his affection towards them, that although he could not come, yet he could not forbear to send to them, though he left himself alone, preferring their necessity before his own conveniency: When we could no longer forbear; that is, "When I could no longer satisfy myself without knowing your state and condition, I chose, though with much inconveniency to myself, rather to be left at Athens alone, in the midst of my afflictions and tribulations, than that you should be longer destitute of one to supply my absence, in order to your confirmation and comfort." See here a special instance of ministerial love and affection in St. Paul, preferring the church’s good before his own comfort, and postponing his own conveniency to their necessity; though Timothy’s company was very desireable, very necessary and useful for him, yet, he denies himself to serve them; We thought it good to be left at Athens alone.

Observe, 2. The person sent by him, Timothy, with his deserved character and commendation, a brother, that is, a Christian, a believer, a brother in Christ; a minister of God, that is a preacher of the gospel; his fellow-labourer, or one that joined heart and hand with him in the preaching of the gospel from place to place. See here, a special instance of St. Paul’s apostolical care for the churches of Christ, when he could not visit them in person, he sends to them, not any one he could come at, but the fittest he could get, one who was most likely, through God’s assistance and blessing, to carry on the work he was sent about: I sent you Timotheus my brother.

Observe, 3. The great end for which he was sent unto them; it was to confirm them, and to comfort them; to confirm them in the faith of Christ, and to comfort them under all their sufferings for the sake of Christ. The strongest faith needs confirmation and establishment; and it is the minister’s duty, in trying times especially, to guard his people’s faith upon the stability whereof their strength and safety doth depend.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1-4. Paul at Athens found a hard crowd; i.e., the great philosophers of the earth, so fortified by human learning that he could not move them to repentance. No wonder he reduced his evangelistic force, sending Timothy and Silas back to help the Thessalonians, lest they be shaken by the bitter persecution everywhere confronting them.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore when we [by this plural Paul means himself only] could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone ;

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1–5. When we could no longer forbear. The closing verses of chapter 2 show Paul's great desire to see them, as a father to see his suffering children. Hindered (2:18), he at last “thought it good to be left alone at Athens” (Acts 18:1–5).

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Paul tells the believers he has sent Timothy to strengthen their faith.

we could no longer bear it

"we could no longer endure worrying about you"

good to be left behind at Athens alone

"good for Silvanus and me to stay behind in Athens"

it was good

"it was proper" or "it was reasonable"

Athens

This is a city in the Achaia province, which is now modern-day Greece. (See: How to Translate Names)

our brother and fellow worker

These two expressions both describe Timothy.

no one would be shaken

To be "shaken" is an idiom for being afraid. AT: "no one would be frightened away from trusting in Christ" (See: Idiom)

we have been appointed

Paul assumes that everyone knows that it was God who appointed them. This can be made explicit. AT: "God has appointed us" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

good

Timothy

brother

God

good news

Christ

faith

suffer

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Forbear [στεγοντες] . Lit. no longer forbearing. See on 1Co 9:12; LXX, Sir. 8 17. For Class. parall. Soph. O. 100 15; Elec. 1118; Eurip. Hippol. 844; Ion 1412. He means that his longing for some personal communication from the Thessalonians became intolerable.

To be left - alone [καταλειφθηναι - μονοι] . Implying, as we sent (ver. 2) and I sent (ver. 5), the previous presence of Timothy with him at Athens.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.