Bible Commentaries
1 Thessalonians 3

Verses 1-11

7 What figure could more touchingly convey the apostle's genuine affection for the

Thessalonians than that of a nursing mother? How unselfish and gentle and self-sacrificing is her care! The soul is the seat of sensation. To impart his own soul to them conveys the thought that he, like the true mother, would endure any discomfort or weariness for their sakes.

11 The figure of a father is no less affectionate. His solicitude for his own is spontaneous and real. He has the welfare of his children at heart. So Paul dealt with the beloved saints at Thessalonica.

PAUL'S THANKSGIVING

13 Nothing is more important than that the Scriptures, in their pristine purity, be received as the word of God. Greece and the adjacent provinces were famed for their philosophies. Yet which of them ever produced effects to compare with the few words spoken by the apostle? He who fails to get beyond the preacher to the One Whose word he speaks has less than nothing. The one who hears the words of God receives everything.

16 What an exhibition of God's sovereign grace! The Jews, with all their advantages and their divine ritual, suffer a foretaste of God's indignation as it will be displayed in the day of the Lord. After the siege of Jerusalem under Titus, their temple was destroyed, their city razed and their whole polity brought to an end. When they go back to their land and establish their religious rites again they are meeting the more disastrous indignation of Jehovah. The Thessalonians, who had no claims on God's mercy, suffer, indeed, from their countrymen, but are promised immunity in the day of His indignation.

PAUL BEREAVED

17 Paul was torn from the Thessalonians long before he wished to go, but God had other work for him to do, especially in Corinth, where he wrote this letter. It does not seem that his desire was gratified till some years later, when he went over Macedonia on his way to Greece ( Act_20:2 ).

1 The record in the book of Acts passes over this journey of Timothy back to Thessalonica from Athens. Timothy and Silas were, indeed, charged to come to him at Athens ( Act_17:15 ) and came back from Macedonia to Corinth ( Act_18:5 ), but this visit, being outside the scope of the book of Acts, finds no place there. Such was the apostle's solicitude for them that, seeing that he cannot return to them himself, he sends his son in the faith. The persecution which forced him to leave rages about them and threatens to undermine their faith, for unlike Corinth and Ephesus, where the apostle remained for years, he had been with them but a few weeks and even then spent much of his time toiling for his living.

10 The "deficiencies" in the faith of the Thessalonians are met in this epistle and in his second letter to them, as well as in all his nine letters to the seven ecclesias. The historical order of Paul's epistles should always be borne in mind. While the Thessalonian epistles come after the Ephesian group in the canon, they were written long before, during one of the earlier ministries of the apostle. Perhaps one of the important lessons for the apostle himself lay in his enforced absence from Thessalonica. The spiritual contact of an epistle accords much more with the trend of his ministries than his personal presence. His epistles, also, have ministered to millions who have found themselves in need of the same help that he extended to the Thessalonians. This is the key to much that is inexplicable in the later epistles of Paul. He is always looking forward with confidence to a physical presence with those to whom he wrote. Even if the expectations were fulfilled, the Scriptures are silent, and leave us with the impression that his presence, like his ministry, forsook the physical.

Verses 12-13

12 Paul gives us the true motive and incentive of a holy life and a steadfast faith. It springs from the overflow of love to our fellow saints and to all others as well. It looks forward to the presence of Him Who does not decide by the outward appearance, but rewards according to the secret motives of the heart. The presence of our Lord is to be understood in its plainest literal sense. This is His absence. Whenever He is actually near and known, He will be present.

ASKING AND ENTREATING

3 Looseness in marriage relations is one of the saddest spots on the history of mankind. The gods of the nations were most offensive in this regard and their reputed misdeeds gave ample excuse for the trespasses of their devotees. Besides this the religious ceremonies and rites by which they were worshiped gave sanction to the most debasing excesses and abuses. No wonder the apostle speaks plainly and sharply. He will allow no trifling. Each one is to have his own wife and is not to interfere with his brother in this matter. No doubt the apostle refers to special customs and abuses in Thessalonica.

9 One of the earliest impulses of the new life of the believer is to love his fellow saints. We are taught by God. It is instinctive and should be fostered and encouraged. Let us not allow party lines and differences in details to divide between us and all who have the same life and harbor the same love.

11 In the midst of such a great spiritual awakening as occurred at Thessalonica there is a temptation to neglect the necessary duties of life and mistake enthusiasm and noise for the quiet yet powerful operations of the spirit. The apostle urges them to attend to their own affairs and provide for their needs, so that their enemies will not find occasion to reproach them.

THE LORD'S PRESENCE

13 We do not sorrow when our dear ones are literally reposing. The reference is to death under a most beautiful figure for the distressed Thessalonian saints. The resurrection of Jesus is the guarantee that all who are His will likewise be raised. Until Paul received this revelation, the only resurrection of the saints was the "resurrection of life" ( Joh_5:29 ) called the "former" resurrection ( Rev_20:5 ), at the beginning of the thousand years, after the judgment period. Then the Lord comes down to earth. The saints are not snatched into the air. But this resurrection follows the Lord's presence in the air long before His coming to the earth. It precedes the great judgment era which ushers in the day of Jehovah. Being justified in the blood of Christ, we shall be saved from God's indignation through Him ( Rom_5:9 ). God has not assigned us to indignation but to the procuring of salvation ( 1Th_5:9 ). This new revelation is further unfolded to the Corinthians ( 1Co_15:51 ), where the secret is disclosed that the living, as well as the dead, will be changed . Both will be given incorruptible, spiritual, celestial bodies, without which, indeed, they could hardly meet Him in the air. The crowning glory of this blessed expectation was made known to the Philippians. These bodies of humiliation will be transfigured to conform them to that glorious body which blinded Paul when first he beheld Him ( Php_3:21 ; Act_9:3 ; Act_9:8 ; Act_9:18 ) .

17 "We, the living." Paul does not insist that he must survive to the advent, any more than he meant to assert positively that he should die when he said the Lord Jesus "shall raise us up" ( 2Co_4:14 ).

2 This is man's day ( 1Co_4:3 ). It is near its end. The day of Jehovah, with its awful divine judgments, is fast approaching. It will give no notice of its coming. On the contrary, it will seem unnecessary and impossible. Is it not true that never, in the history of the race, was there such a hope and expectation of the end of war? The parliament of nations, the reduction of armaments, the federation of the world-are we not always hoping for peace and security?