1 Thessalonians 2:18 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

This he adds further to satisfy them of his real affection to them, that he attempted to come to them once and again, that is, often, as Nehemiah 13:20 Philippians 4:16. And that they might be assured it was not his fellow ministers desire only to come, therefore he expresseth his own name particularly in a parenthesis (even I Paul). Or by his saying, even I Paul, he assures them concerning his own desire to come to them; at least I Paul, though others did not so; as the French Bible reads it. And he had come to them had not Satan hindered him, either by raising up disputes against the gospel at Athens by the philosophers there, which he was concerned to stay and answer, Acts 17:18; or else by stirring up wicked men to lie in wait for him in the way: or by raising tumults, as the Jews did at Berea, whereby he was constrained to go as it were to the sea, Acts 17:14; or by sowing dissensions in other churches, which detained him to end them. Or by what way it was, is somewhat uncertain; but being thus hindered it made his desire the more fervent by the opposition. And hereby we see Satan's enmity to the gospel, especially to churches newly planted, that they might not take rooting.