As Paul begins his letter to the Thessalonian church, he mentions the witness for which, judging by his words...
As Paul begins his letter to the Thessalonian church, he mentions the witness for which, judging by his words, this church was known throughout mainland Greece, which consisted of two regions: Achaia and Macedonia (vv. 6-10). At the same time, almost in passing, the apostle also describes the mechanism that makes such witness and the spread of the good news possible. He recalls his own witness to the Thessalonians when they were still newly converted, as well as the witness of his coworkers, which Paul describes as a witness not only in word, but also in the power of the Spirit of God (v. 5). And in that witness the newly converted received not only words, but also the Spirit, who opened the Kingdom to them. Then they, in turn, became able to carry the witness they had received further, continuing the work begun by the apostle.
The situation Paul describes is a characteristic example of how the good news spreads in the world. The Church is not a religious organization, but a community of people living in the Kingdom. Its main task is to make the Kingdom, with its life and its laws, which differ fundamentally from the laws of our world that has not yet been transformed, present in the world so that the world may be transformed and everyone seeking the Kingdom may share in the new life. But then it becomes clear that the preaching of Christianity can and must be not an account of a new religion that the preacher offers to those seeking the truth, but a witness to this Kingdom and to the One who brought it into the world.
Witness of this kind will, of course, be received as empty talk if the witness cannot offer proof that the Kingdom he speaks about is not an invention or a dream, but true reality. And in this case the proof can only be one's own example. Everyone listening to the preacher must see in the preacher himself signs of belonging to the Kingdom, just as everyone seeking the Kingdom must see a visible example of the life of the Kingdom when coming to the assembly of the community of the faithful. The Kingdom cannot be proved by any arguments; the only argument here can be the personal experience of one who has shared in it. And Paul thanks God for his Thessalonian brothers, who, as is clear, helped many of those who were seeking the Kingdom experience it.
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1:1 Paul - In this epistle St. Paul neither uses the title of an apostle, nor any other, as writing to pious and simple - hearted men, with the utmost familiarity.There is a peculiar sweetness in this epistle, unmixed with any sharpness or reproof: those evils which the apostles afterward reproved having not yet crept into the church.
1:3 Remembering in the sight of God - That is, praising him for it. Your work of faith - Your active, ever - working faith. And labour of love - Love continually labouring for the bodies or souls of men. They who do not thus labour, do not love. Faith works, love labours, hope patiently suffers all things.
1:4 Knowing your election - Which is through faith, by these plain proofs.
1:5 With power - Piercing the very heart with a sense ofsin and deeply convincing you of your want of a Saviour from guilt, misery, and eternal ruin. With the Holy Ghost - Bearing an outward testimony, by miracles, to the truth of what we preached, and you felt: also by his descent through laying on of hands. With much assurance - Literally, with full assurance, and much of it: the Spirit bearing witness by shedding the love of God abroad in your hearts, which is the highest testimony that can be given. And these signs, if not the miraculous gifts, always attend the preaching of the gospel, unless it be in vain: neither are the extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost ever wholly withheld, where the gospel is preached with power, and men are alive to God. For your sake - Seeking your advantage, not our own.
1:6 Though in much affliction, yet with much joy.
1:8 For from you the word sounded forth - (Thessalonica being a city of great commerce.) Being echoed, as it were, from you. And your conversion was divulged far beyond Macedonia and Achaia. So that we need not speak anything - Concerning it.
1:9 For they themselves - The people wherever we come.
1:10 Whom he hath raised from the dead - In proof of his future coming to judgment. Who delivereth us - He redeemed us once; he delivers us continually; and will deliver all that believe from the wrath, the eternal vengeance, which will then come upon the ungodly.