We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren. — The thanksgiving is regarded as a positive debt incurred, which it would be a dishonesty not to pay.
Because. — This assigns the reason for saying that it was “meet,” and does not merely follow after “thank God:” in which case, the words “as it is meet” would have been rather weak, as containing no more than is involved in “we are bound.” The best paraphrase would be: “We feel the obligation to give thanks for you; and, in point of fact, it is but meet that we should, because,” &c.
Groweth exceedingly. — An enthusiastic word in the original: “is out-growing all bounds.” It is a metaphor from vegetable or animal growth. This was one of the very points about which St. Paul was anxious the last time that he had written: then there were deficiencies in their faith (1 Thessalonians 3:10).
Charity. — Here, too, St. Paul remembers what he had said to them in the last Epistle, in which he had devoted a whole section to the love of the brethren “toward each other.” “Of every one of you all” is a very noticeable expression, as showing the individual solicitude of the Apostles for their converts. Just as the apostolic instructions were given to each Christian privately (1 Thessalonians 2:11), so news has been brought how each several Christian is progressing. The differences which had called forth such passages as 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 4:6-10; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-14, had apparently all ceased, and mutual love was multiplying.