(1) “PAUL, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. (2) We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; (3) remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father; (4) knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, (5) how that our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; even as ye know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake. (6) And ye became imitators of us, and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit; (7) so that ye became an ensample to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia. (8) For from you hath sounded forth the Word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything. (9) For they themselves report concerning us what manner of entering in we had unto you; and how ye turned unto God from idols, to serve a living and true God, (10) and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to come.”
QUESTIONS.
1. What message does Paul with his co-laborers bear to the church of the Thessalonians? Verse 1.
2. For whom did the apostle give thanks and pray? Verse 2.
3. What did he remember? In whom and before whom was this work wrought? Verse 3. Note 1.
4. Of what was the apostle assured? Verse 4.
5. How did the Gospel come to them? What did the brethren know? Verse 5.
6. Of whom did they become imitators? Under what circumstances and how did they receive the Word? Verse 6.
7. What did this fit them to be? Verse 7.
8. What was the effect of their faith? Of what did believers elsewhere bear witness concerning Paul’s work? Verse 8. Note 2.
9. What did they say of the church? Verse 9.
10. For whom were they looking? Verse 10.
NOTES.
1. True faith—there is no other—always works. Love born of God labors cheerfully, joyfully; it must labor. And hope endures steadfast to the end. Faith works in love, hoping to the end. Love believeth all things, hopeth all things. Hope endures as seeing Him who is invisible.
2. Every true believer must be a missionary. Faith, living faith, must show itself. It must tell the story of its love to others. It must proclaim the Word of life. If it fail to find utterance and free course, it will die. He who thinks to cherish in his own heart God’s living Gospel and not tell it to others, commits double crime: he holds from the starving the bread of life, and he commits self-murder. The bread he has eaten becomes poison; his righteousness becomes sin; his life becomes death. God gives that we may give.
