1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

section ii

The Apostle's Conduct at Thessalonica. Ch. 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Analysis. The ministry of Paul and his colleagues at Thessalonica had been unmistakably genuine, 1 Thessalonians 2:1. This appeared (1) by their boldnessin the conflict amid which their work began, 1 Thessalonians 2:2; (2) by their sincerity and freedom from personal ambition, 1 Thessalonians 2:3; (3) by their gentleness and tender affectiontoward the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 2:7; (4) by their extreme and self-denying labours, 1 Thessalonians 2:9; (5) by the purity of their life, 1 Thessalonians 2:10; and (6) by the fidelity and high spiritual aimof their teaching, 1 Thessalonians 2:11. Four words resume the whole: courage, purity, love, fidelity. Here is a mirror for ministers of Christ, and an ideal for all His servants. The service of Christ called into exercise in Paul and his companions the highest and finest qualities of mainly character. And this is still the case, especially on missionary fields of labour, where similar dangers are encountered and the same powers of leadership required.

This section is of the nature of a self-defence, called forth (see Introd. pp. 23, 24) by the calumnies of St Paul's enemies at Thessalonica. But there blends with his self-defence the lofty strain of thanksgivingin which the letter commenced, and which breaks forth again distinctly in 1 Thessalonians 2:13 and Is pursued to the end of ch. 3; so that this paragraph grows naturally out of the last.

The Apostle continues to identify Silas and Timothy with himself writing in the plural,