1 Thessalonians, Chapter 2, verses 1-8
1 In what manner the gospel was brought and preached to the Thessalonians, and in what sort also they received itMatthew, Chapter 23, verses 23-26
13 He denounceth eight woes against their hypocrisy and blindness23
23:23 Judgment - That is, justice: Faith - The word here means fidelity.
23:24 Ye blind guides, who teach others to do as you do yourselves, to strain out a gnat - From the liquor they are going to drink! and swallow a camel - It is strange, that glaring false print, strain at a gnat, which quite alters the sense, should run through all the editions of our English Bibles.
23:25 Full of rapine and intemperance - The censure is double (taking intemperance in the vulgar sense.) These miserable men procured unjustly what they used intemperately. No wonder tables so furnished prove a snare, as many find by sad experience. Thus luxury punishes fraud while it feeds disease with the fruits of injustice. But intemperance in the full sense takes in not only all kinds of outward intemperance, particularly in eating and drinking, but all intemperate or immoderate desires, whether of honour, gain, or sensual pleasure.
23:26 Ye build the tombs of the prophets - And that is all, for ye neither observe their sayings, nor imitate their actions.
2
2:1 What was proposed, Th1 1:5-6, is now more largely treated of: concerning Paul and his fellowlabourers, Th1 2:1-12; concerning the Thessalonians, Th1 2:13-16.
2:2 We had suffered - In several places. We are bold - Notwithstanding. With much contention - Notwithstanding bothinward and outward conflicts of all kinds.
2:3 For our exhortation - That is, our preaching. A part is put for the whole. Is not, at any time, of deceit - We preach not a lie, but the truth of God. Nor of uncleanness - With any unholy or selfish view. This expression is not always appropriated to lust, although it is sometimes emphatically applied thereto.Nor in guile - But with great plainness of speech.
2:5 Flattering words - This ye know. Nor a cloak of covetousness - Of this God is witness. He calls men to witness an open fact; God, the secret intentions of the heart. In a point of a mixed nature, Th1 2:10, he appeals both to God and man.
2:6 Nor from others - Who would have honoured us more, if we had been burdensome - That is, taken state upon ourselves.
2:7 But we were gentle - Mild, tender. In the midst of you - Like a hen surrounded with her young. Even as a nurse cherisheth her own children - The offspring of her own womb.
2:8 To impart our own souls - To lay down our lives for your sake.