CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
1 Thessalonians 3:1. When we could no longer forbear.—This latter word occurs in 1 Corinthians 13:7 to describe the endurance of love.
1 Thessalonians 3:2. Fellow-labourer is omitted from the R.V. text, which reads, “our brother and God’s minister in the gospel of Christ.” To establish you.—To fix firmly; as Christ said to Peter, “Stablish thy brethren.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 1 Thessalonians 3:1-2
A Difficult and Important Mission.
Paul had been compelled to leave Thessalonica in consequence of the malignant opposition of the Jews. They thirsted for his life, and it would still be dangerous for him to visit the city. But Timothy might venture where it would be perilous for the apostle to appear. While the wrath of the Jews raged against the gospel as a whole, it culminated in its fury around the head of Paul, the ringleader and champion of the movement. Fearing that his absence might be misconstrued, and anxious to strengthen the faith of the infant Church in the midst of trial, the apostle determines to send a trusted messenger. It is a significant testimony to the sound judgment and prudence of Timothy, that he is selected for this difficult and important mission.
I. This mission was the suggestion of an uncontrollable anxiety.—“Wherefore, when we could no longer forbear” (1 Thessalonians 3:1). This anxiety sprang from the intensity of the apostle’s love. It is a striking feature of genuine, Christian love that, while it bears with uncomplaining patience any amount of external suffering, it is restless with a holy impatience of delay in doing good to those it embraces. The devoted mother can endure anything but restraint in her desire to promote the best welfare of her child. David was indifferent to the exposure and dangers of his wilderness-life; but his soul panted after God with all the raging thirst of the hart in autumn for the cooling water-brook.
II. This mission involved great personal inconvenience.—“We thought it good to be left at Athens alone” (1 Thessalonians 3:1). The unselfishness of true love ever prefers another’s good to its own. Timothy had travelled so constantly with Paul, and had been so great a comfort to him in his captivities and trials, that his absence was a keenly felt loss. Specially was his sympathy and co-operation needed when the great Gentile missionary entered the region
“Where on the Ægean shore a city stood,
Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil,
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence.”—Milton.
“At Athens alone.” What a sublime historical picture is portrayed in these words! Christianity embodied in a single, lonely man, standing in the midst of the populous metropolis of pagan culture and idolatry! Yet the power sustained in that solitary man broke up and scattered the huge fabric of heathenism. “Solitude is one of the highest enjoyments of which our nature is susceptible. Solitude is also, when too long continued, capable of being made the most severe, indescribable, unendurable, source of anguish” (Deloraine).
III. This mission was entrusted to a thoroughly qualified messenger.—The high character of Timothy and the relations existing between the two preachers are brought out in the epithets applied to him. “Timothy our brother” (1 Thessalonians 3:2). In other places Paul calls him his “own son in the faith,” his “dearly beloved son”; but in speaking of him to the Churches he recognises him on the equal footing of a brother. He was also a minister of God, solemnly set apart to this service by the voice of prophecy, and by the consecrating hands of the presbytery, and of Paul himself. And finally he was Paul’s fellow-labourer in the gospel of Christ, not only as all God’s ministers are fellow-labourers, working the work of the same Lord, but also on the ground of that special intimacy of personal intercourse and co-operation, to which he was from the first admitted by the apostle (Lillie). Thus Timothy was thoroughly qualified—
(1) to carry out the apostle’s wish concerning the Thessalonians, and
(2) to sympathise with the Church’s peculiar difficulties and trials. He was more than a mere courier. He was faithful to Paul’s instructions, and valuable to the Church in himself.
IV. This mission was charged with a work of high importance and necessity.—“To establish you, and to comfort you, concerning your faith” (1 Thessalonians 3:2).
1. To establish—to comfort, or set fast their faith by a fresh, authoritative manifestation of the gospel truth and its divine evidences; and this would be done by private conversation and public ministration.
2. To comfort.—The word means also, and especially here, to exhort, though doubtless comfort would be mingled with the exhortation. The Thessalonians were exposed to the storm of persecution that was everywhere raging against the gospel and its adherents, and they were exhorted to steadfastness, “that no man should be moved by these afflictions.” Paul and Barnabas had a similar mission to the Churches in Lesser Asia (Acts 14:22). There are none so strong in faith but need confirmation, none so courageous but need comfort.
Lessons.—
1. The establishment of believers is ever a subject of anxiety to the true minister.
2. The desire to promote the highest welfare of the Church should ever be paramount.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSE
1 Thessalonians 3:1. “At Athens alone” (cf. Acts 17:16-17). The Solitude of a Great City—
I. Affords a painful opportunity to reflect on its moral condition.—“He saw the city wholly given to idolatry.”
II. Awakens profound concern in a great soul.—“His spirit was stirred in him.”
III. Rouses to immediate action in promoting the welfare of the citizens.—“Therefore disputed he in the synagogue and in the market daily.”