He sets forth in what manner the gospel was brought and preached to the Thessalonians, and how they received it. A reason is given both why St. Paul was so long absent from them, and why he was so desirous to see them.
Anno Domini 52.
IN this chapter the Apostle proposes his second argument in proof of the truth of the gospel. It is taken from the character, the behaviour, and the views of the persons who first preached it. Now, the importance of this argument will appear, if we consider what the things were which the preachers of the gospel published, and required mankind to believe. They told every where, that Jesus, their master, is the son of God; that he wrought many miracles in Judea; that he was crucified by the Jews, his countrymen, as a deceiver; but that God declared him, with power, to be his son, by raising him from the dead, agreeably to what our Lord, before his death, had foretold; that after his resurrection, having spent some time on earth among his disciples, he ascended into heaven, while they looked on; and that two angels, who were present on the occasion, assured them, that in like manner as they had seen Jesus go into heaven, so he would return.
But to induce mankind to believe matters so extraordinary, it was necessary that the persons who called themselves eye-witnesses of them, and who reported them to the world, should be men of sound judgment and known integrity, and free from all interested views; that they should be fully persuaded themselves of the truth of the things which they told; that they should use no guile nor flattery to procure themselves credit; and that, by their whole deportment, they should shew themselves to be pious and virtuous persons, whose only aim, in this undertaking, was to promote the glory of God, and the good of mankind. Wherefore, although the Apostle and his assistants had said, in a general way, chap. 1 Thessalonians 1:5, Ye know what manner of men we were among you, for your sake, they judged it necessary to employ the greatest part of this chapter, in setting forth distinctly the facts and circumstances by which their sincerity, their integrity, and their disinterestedness in preaching the gospel, were evinced; together with those particulars by which their moral character was raised above all suspicion. Being in every respect, therefore, such men as missionaries from God ought to be, the evidences of the gospel, so far as they depend on human testimony, derive great lustre from the character and behaviour of its first preachers.
His illustration of these topics, the Apostle begins with shewing, that he and his assistants werefully persuaded of the truth of all the matters which they preached. For he told the Thessalonians, that their entrance among them was not false. They did not come with a feigned story in their mouth, which they themselves did not believe, 1 Thessalonians 2:1.—Their persuasion of the things which they preached, they shewed at their entrance among the Thessalonians, by the persecution which they suffered, and were suffering for the gospel. Say they, Although we had before suffered, and were shamefully handled at Philippi, (they had been scourged, and laid in the stocks,) as ye know, we were bold through God to speak to you the gospel of God, amidst a great combat; that is, amidst a new and heavy persecution, raised against us in your city by the unbelieving Jews, 1 Thessalonians 2:2. Their preaching of the gospel under persecution is fitly mentioned by the Apostle as a proof of their firm persuasion of the things which they preached; because impostors having nothing in view by their fictions but to acquire fame, or power, or riches, or pleasures, they seldom endure a long continued course of heavy sufferings in propagating these fictions; far less do they exposethemselves to death for maintaining them. Next, the Apostle affirms, that their exhortation, or gospel, did not proceed from error; that is, from an erroneous opinion, rashly taken up, without any foundation; nor from those impure worldly motives, which influence impostors: neither did they use any guile in contriving or in gaining credit to the gospel which they preached, 1 Thessalonians 2:3.
But the freedom of the apostles, and other ministers of the word, from error, impurity, and guile, being circumstances which rendered their testimony credible in the highest degree, it was improper to speak of these things at more length. And therefore, beginning with their freedom from guile, the Apostle observes, that, as persons commissioned of God to preach the gospel, they delivered its doctrines and precepts exactly as they received them from God; at no time preaching so as to please men, but God, who knew their hearts. And this they did, notwithstanding they were sensible that the doctrines of the gospel, as they delivered them, would be reckoned by the Greeks foolishness; and that its precepts would be condemned as unreasonable severities, because they were contrary to the maxims and practices of the world, 1 Thessalonians 2:4. Who does not see, that if the Christian preachers had been impostors, they never would have framed a gospel, or scheme of religion, of this kind?—And as the Christian preachers used no guile in framing their exhortation, or gospel, so they used none of the base arts practised by impostors for procuring credit to it. They never accosted any person with fawning flattering speeches, to win his affections; neither did they make hypocritical pretensions to piety, as a cloke to cover covetous designs. From these well known arts of impostors, St. Paul and his assistants were entirely free; as the Thessalonians, who were thoroughly acquainted with their manner of preaching, well knew, 1 Thessalonians 2:5.—Next, with respect to impurity, the Apostle and his assistants were not influenced by any of those corrupt motives which actuate impostors. Instead of seeking to make ourselves powerful, or rich, by the gospel, we never demanded the honour of obedience, nor of maintenance, either from you, or from others; although we could have been burdensome to you, in both these respects, as the apostles of Christ, 1 Thessalonians 2:6.—The truth is, as apostles, they had authority from their Master to enjoin their disciples what was fit (Philemon 1:8.); and on that pretext, if their ruling passion had been the love of power, they might have exercised an absolute dominion over their disciples, as false teachers never fail to do. They had also a right to be maintained by those to whom they preached, and, on that score, if they had loved money, they might have enriched themselves at their expence, after the example of all false teachers, 2 Peter 2:3.—But so far were the ministers of the gospel from behaving among their disciples at Thessalonica in an imperious, insolent manner, that they were gentle among them, as a nurse towards her own sucking children, 1 Thessalonians 2:7. (See Acts 20:29.)—and took a most affectionate care of them; and were well pleased to impart to them, not only the gospel of God, but also their own lives; which in fact they hazarded, by preaching it to them: and all this from no motive but because the Thessalonians were become dear to them, on account of their love of truth, 1 Thessalonians 2:8.—And, with respect to maintenance, they put the Thessalonians in mind that, instead of demanding any thing from them on that account, they wrought night and day, that none of the Thessalonians might be burdened, while they preached to them the gospel of God, 1 Thessalonians 2:9.—These facts, well known to the Thessalonians, were there no other, are undeniableproofs of the sincerity, honesty, and disinterestedness of the first preachers of the gospel; and, if such arguments were necessary, would add no small degree of credibility to the things which they have testified concerning their Master.—Lastly, with respect to error: to shew that in believing the gospel the Apostle and his associates were not prejudiced by the influence of vicious inclinations, they appealed to the sober, holy, and virtuous manner of living, which they all along followed among their disciples, and especially among the Thessalonians. Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and unblameably we lived among you who believe, 1 Thessalonians 2:10. This is not the manner of life which false teachers, who are seduced by corruption of heart, follow among their disciples. Such never fail to make themselves known, by some vicious practice which cleaves to them, and which they justify by their erroneous principles. See 2 Peter 2:18. Jude 1:4.—Farther, to shew that they were not blind antinomians, St. Paul and his assistants called on the Thessalonians to bear witness to the earnestness with which they exhorted every one of them, even as a father his children, to follow all the branches of holiness, 1 Thessalonians 2:11.—And how they solemnly testified that they should walk worthy of the true God, whom they now worshipped; and suitably to the nature of that glorious dispensationinto which he had called them, 1 Thessalonians 2:12.—Appeals of this kind, made by the preachers of the gospel to their own disciples, concerning the manner in which they lived among them, and concerning the instructions and exhortations which they gave them, are incontestable proofs, both of the soundness of their understanding, and the purity of their heart. Wherefore, no reasonable person can suspect that they were influenced, either through weakness or vice, to receive a scheme of error, held out to them by their Master, without any evidence to support it. To be the more convinced of this, we need only compare with them the first disciples of such impostors as have deluded the world, whose credulity may easily be traced in the weakness of their understandings, or in the viciousness of their lives. Upon the whole, as the first preachersof the gospel are distinguished from imposters in general by the qualities above mentioned; so, by the same qualities they were distinguished from the Greek philosophers in particular; who, though they spake admirably concerning the moral virtues, yet, in general, followed the most dissolute courses in private, and, in teaching, had no regard to any thing, but to the hire which they received for their instructions.
The Apostle and his assistants having, in this and the preceding chapter, proved the divine original of the gospel, by the miracles which they wrought in the presence of the Thessalonians; by the miraculous gifts which they conferred on them who believed; by the disinterestedness which they shewed in preaching the gospel, and by the holiness of their lives,—the more fully to convince after ages that what they have written, concerning these things was strictly true, they tell us, they gave thanks to God without ceasing, because, when the Thessalonians received the preached word of God from them, they knew that they embraced not the word of men; but, as it is in truth, the word of God; which also wrought effectually in them who believed, such an attachment to Christ, and such fortitude, as enabled them to suffer for the gospel, 1 Thessalonians 2:13.—By thus ending the arguments taken from the miracles, the character, the views, and the behaviour of the first preachers of the gospel, with a solemn thanksgiving to God for the faith and sufferings of the Thessalonians, the Apostle not only told them plainly that their faith was, through the divine grace, established on their own knowledge of the things he had written, but he appealed to God for the truth of them. There cannot, therefore, be the least doubt that St. Paul and his coadjutors were the sincere, sober, holy, disinterested, meek persons that he has represented them to be; and that their irreproachable behaviour added great weight to their testimony concerning their Divine Master.
Before the Apostle proceeded to his third argument, he answered certain objections, which, it is probable, were much insisted on by the learned Greeks for discrediting the gospel. And, because these objections were levelled against the miracles and character of the Christian preachers, they are introduced with great propriety, after finishing the arguments drawn from these topics.
Objection 1. The Apostle, after thanking God that the behaviour of the preachers of the gospel, aswell as their miracles, had induced the Thessalonians, through grace, to receive their word as the word of God, proceeds to observe, that they shewed the strength of their faith, by becoming imitators of the churches of God which, in Judea, are in Christ Jesus; having suffered the same things from their own countrymen, as the others did of the Jews, 1 Thessalonians 2:14.—This manner of expressing the sufferings of the Thessalonians for the gospel, the Apostle adopted, because it gave him an opportunity of answering a very plausible objection, which the philosophers raised against the gospel, from the unbelief of the Jews in Judea. Said they, the Christian preachers build the gospel upon the Jewish revelation, and tell us, that their master gave himself out in Judea, as the great personage foretold by the Jewish prophets; and that, in confirmation of his pretensions, he wrought many miracles in different parts of the country. But the rejection of the gospel by the Jews, their putting Jesus to death, and their persecuting his disciples, are strong presumptions, or rather clear proofs, that the gospel is inconsistent with the Jewish revelation, and that the Jews did not believe the miracles which Jesus pretended to perform, but considered him as an impostor, and his miracles as feats of magic. This objection, it is true, the Apostle has not stated; but, seeing that what follows is a direct answer to it, and comes immediately after the Thessalonians are said to have suffered like things from their own countrymen, as the churches of God in Judea had suffered from the Jews, we cannot avoid supposing, that when he says of the Jews, Who have both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have greatly persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men, &c. he intended to remove any suspicion that might arise to the prejudice of the gospel, from the unbelief of the Jews, their crucifying the Lord Jesus, and their persecutinghis Apostles. For it is the same as if he had said, the Jews, indeed, have killed the Lord Jesus; but they have also killed their own prophets, notwithstanding they wrought miracles among them, and were universally acknowledged to be true prophets. The same persons have persecuted us, the apostles of Jesus, in the persuasion that they please God. But they do not please God; for in this, as in their whole conduct, they are enemies to mankind, 1 Thessalonians 2:15.—and in a little time God will shew his extreme displeasure with them, for crucifying his Son, and persecuting his apostles, by destroying their nation, 1 Thessalonians 2:16.—So remarkable were the Jews, in all ages, for their enmity to the messengers of God, that Stephen challenged the council to shew which of the prophets their fathers had not persecuted. This being the character of the Jews, their rejectionof the gospel, their killing the Lord Jesus, and persecuting his apostles, afford not the smallest presumption, either that the gospel is inconsistent with the Jewish revelation, or that the miracles of Jesus and his apostles were false. In these things the Jews behaved as their fathers did to the prophets, who brought the former revelations from God to them; and the punishment which soon fell on them, shewed how much God was displeased with them for so doing.
Objection 2. The second objection was levelled against St. Paul and Silas in particular, being founded on their behaviour duringthe tumult at Thessalonica. These men, said the philosophers, though the chief preachers of the new doctrine, did not appear with Jason and his brethren before the magistrates, either to defend it, or to suffer for it. What could this be owing to, but to their consciousness that the whole was a fraud, or to their timidity? Either of which was inexcusable in missionaries from God, who boasted in their sufferings, as adding weight to their testimony concerning their master. Something of this sort must have been said against St. Paul and Silas; otherwise their fleeing, which was advised by the Thessaloniansthemselves, Acts 17:10 needed no apology, at least to the Thessalonians; and far less so earnest an apology as that which the Apostle has offered in this chapter, where he assures the brethren that, when he fled to Berea, he intended to be absent during the time of an hour, that is, for a short time, or for a few days only, till the rage of the Jews should subside: and that accordingly, while in Berea, he had endeavoured, with great desire, to see them, 1 Thessalonians 2:17.—and would have come to them once and again, but Satan hindered him, by bringing the Jews from Thessalonica to Berea, where they stirred up the people against him, and forced him to flee to Athens, 1 Thessalonians 2:18.—Yet, on neither of these occasions did he flee from a consciousness of fraud, or from the fear of death; but from his wishing to have an opportunity of perfecting the faith of the Thessalonians, and of converting a greater number of the Gentiles. For he assured them that he considered them, and the rest of his Gentile converts, as his hope, and joy, and crown of glorying at the day of judgment, 1 Thessalonians 2:19.—And, to convince them that he really believed his future happiness would be increased by their perseverance, and by the conversion of the Gentiles, he repeated the same assurance, 1 Thessalonians 2:20