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LOVE 3: 11 - 4: 12. |
Abound in love (3: 12).
Concerning brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you (4: 9).
HOPE 4: 13 - 5: 11. |
Sorrow as others which have no hope (4: 13).
Hope expanded in doctrine of the Lord's Coming.
There are four references to faith in the first section, 3: 1-10. The Apostle had sent
Timothy to comfort and encourage them concerning their faith, so that the severe
afflictions they were undergoing would not move them away from the Truth. Paul had
warned them beforehand of the inevitability of their faith being tested by suffering (4).
What was a problem in O.T. days concerning the suffering and trials of the righteous now
became the normal experience of God's people and they were taught to accept this
joyfully as the will of God for them. It was indeed a precious thing, as Peter asserts in his
first epistle (I Pet. 1: 7), for it had a refining effect and took their faith out of the realm of
theory and transplanted it into the realm of certainty and fact, so that they were in no
doubt of its reality.
Paul had been anxious lest the Tempter had used these difficult experiences to turn
them away from the faith (verse 5) and spoil his work, but the return of Timothy with the
reassuring news of their steadfastness, greatly cheered him, as it did to learn that they
longed to see him again. He had been concerned lest his enforced departure from
Thessalonica had been used by Satan to break the link between them, but he was now
overjoyed to know that his fears had been groundless.
"For what thanksgiving can we render again unto God for you, for all the joy
wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God; night and day praying exceedingly
that we may see your face, and may perfect that which is lacking in your faith?"
(I Thess. 3: 9, 10 R.V.).
He continues to pray that the way might be opened for him to revisit them;
meanwhile he asks that their love may increase toward each other and verses 11 to 4: 12
expands the theme as it touches Christian practice. Overflowing love would so touch
their hearts and lives that it would lead to their strengthening and establishment, resulting
in an unblameable walk before our God and Father (verses 11-13). The Greek amemptos
translated `unblameable' occurs 4 times in Paul's epistles:
"That ye may be blameless" (Phil. 2: 15).
"The righteousness which is in the law, blameless" (Phil. 3: 6).
"Stablish your hearts unblameable" (I Thess. 3: 13).
"If that first (covenant) had been faultless" (Heb. 8: 7).
As an adverb it occurs twice in the epistle we are studying. The Apostle had lived out
the Truth before them, for he could write:
"Ye are witnesses, how . . . . . unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you that
believe" (2: 10).
In chapter 5: 23 we have: