1 Thessalonians 2:19

Of course we wanted to come back, for (γάρ), etc. The touch of fine exaggeration which follows is true to the situation. Paul's absence from the young church was being misinterpreted in a sinister way, as if it implied that the Achaian Christians had ousted the Thessalonians from his affections. You it is, he protests, who but you (καὶ superfluous after ἤ, as in Epict. i. 6, 39; Romans 14:10, but really heightening the following word, as in Romans 5:7; almost = “indeed” or “even”) you are my pride and delight! στέφανος, of a public honour granted (as to Demosthenes and Zeno) for distinguished public service. The metaphor occurs often in the inscriptions (cf. also Pirke Aboth, iv. 9). Paul coveted no higher distinction at the arrival of the Lord than the glory of having won over the Thessalonian church. Cf. Crashaw's lines to St. Teresa in heaven:

“Thou shalt look round about, and see Thousands of crown'd souls throng to be Themselves thy crown”.

Παρουσία = royal visit (cf. Wilcken's Griech. Ostraka, i. 274 f.), and hence applied (cf. Matthew 24.) to the arrival of the messiah, though the evidence for the use of the term in pre-Christian Judaism is scanty (Test. Jud. xxii. 3; Test. Levi. viii. 15; for the idea of the divine “coming” cf. Slav. En., xxxii. 1, xlii. 5). This is the first time the term is used by Paul, but it was evidently familiar to the readers. Later on, possibly through Paul's influence, it became an accepted word for the second advent in early Christianity.