1 Thessalonians

2.1-20

Paul carefully chooses his words in this passage. The Thessalonians would have been hearing from unbelieving Jews and Gentiles much to discredit Paul's ministry. Much of this letter is effectively Paul's defense against their false accusations, maligning his character. Calling on the Thessalonians to remember for themselves all that they knew of Paul, Silas, and Timothy's ministry to them and the loving compassion they'd shown without imposing a burden was key to Paul's address. Paul gives thanks to God for their conversion to the true Gospel while lamenting the lost - those who drove them out, not pleasing God, hostile to all men, hindering the Gospel, and subject to God's wrath. But the true enemy, Satan, is known and identified.
Remain a people committed to character and purity. Know that the world will always attack the reputation of those who stand for and declare the righteousness of God. And embrace the high calling we have to share the Gospel, just as Paul is demonstrating here, that your hope, joy, and crown of boasting before the Lord may be in your testimony of the Word of Christ.

CHAPTER 2

Entrusted with the Gospel

1 For you yourselves know, brothers, that our entrance to you was not in vain,
2 but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much struggle.
3 For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit;
4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts.
5 For we never came with a flattering word, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness—
6 nor seeking glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you.
7 But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.
8 In this way, having fond affection for you, we were pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become beloved to us.
9 For you remember, brothers, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.
10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly and righteously and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers;
11 just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and bearing witness to each one of you as a father would his own children,
12 so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
13 And for this reason we also thank God without ceasing that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe.
14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also suffered the same things at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews,
15 who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and do not please God, and are hostile to all men,
16 hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.
17 But we, brothers, having been taken away from you for a short while—in face but not in heart—were all the more eager with great desire to see your face.
18 For we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, more than once—and yet Satan hindered us.
19 For who is our hope or joy or crown of boasting? Is it not even you, before our Lord Jesus at His coming?
20 For you are our glory and joy.