So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith
The apostolic commendation
I. The manner.
1. The person commending--“We ourselves.” In 1 Thessalonians 1:8 he speaks of their faith as praised by others: here he justifies common fame by His own testimony.
(1) It is easy to deceive the credulous multitude, but to deserve esteem of those who are best able to judge is a comfort.
(2) Where grace is eminent it may be praised without suspicion of flattery.
(3) We should keep up the value of our testimony that it may be of weight to those who receive it.
2. The act of praising. Glorying imports exaltation or rejoicing of mind and the outward expression: The one comes from the apprehension of some excellency, the other from a desire that others may know how we are affected with it. This glorying became apostolic gravity for--
(1) It was for the honour of God who had wrought these graces, and not himself.
(2) For the encouragement of the Thessalonians. We ought to give a testimony to those who deserve it, not to curry favour with them, but to incite them to perseverance in the way of God.
(3) For the example of others and the edification of the Church.
(4) For his own comfort (1 Thessalonians 2:20).
3. The persons before whom. Not in common meetings, but where. God’s people were met for worship and spiritual benefit. “Churches of God” are so called because:--
(1) God instituted and founded them (Acts 20:28).
(2) There God is worshipped and acknowledged (Psalms 22:3):
(3) There He manifests His power and presence (Ephesians 2:22).
II. The matter.
1. The graces wherein they excelled “faith and patience” before it was faith and love. These two are often joined (Hebrews 6:12; Philippians 1:29). Faith precedes suffering, for the sufferer must first be a believer; but when God calls to it both must go together (Hebrews 10:35-36).
2. The grievousness of those temptations wherewith these graces were exercised.
(1) They were many--“All.”
(2) They took effect: persecution worked tribulation (Romans 8:35).
(3) But the Thessalonians continued, firm, “endured.” (T. Manton, D. D.)
The purpose of trouble
Tribulations and persecutions often befall God’s dearest and choicest servants (2 Timothy 3:12; Acts 14:22). It is--
I. That we may be conformed to our Lord and pledge Him in His bitter cup (Colossians 1:24). The sufferings of Christ personal are complete and meritorious; they need not to be filled up; but the sufferings of Christ mystical (1 Corinthians 12:12) are not complete until every member of His body have their own allotted portion and share. Christians should be animated to suffer patiently by the fact that the Captain of our Salvation was made perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10). Those who will partake with Christ in His kingdom must share with Him in sorrows. Paul counted all things but dross that he might know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings (Philippians 3:10).
II. For our trial (1 Peter 1:7). A man may be deceived at other times, and think that faith strong which a trial discovers to be weak: as Peter (Matthew 26:35). A man may doubt, and think his faith weak, which a trial discovers to be strong (Hebrews 10:32; Hebrews 11:34).
III. That the excellency of our spiritual state may appear. What can be more excellent than that which affords joy under the saddest temporal condition (John 16:33; 2 Corinthians 1:5). This will sweeten the bitter waters, like the wood in Marsh. A drop of this honey will make our bitterest cup agreeable.
IV. Because we need them (1 Peter 1:6).
1. To modify our pride.
2. To keep us close to God.
3. To tame our flesh. Great prosperity perverts the best.
Conclusion:
1. With what thoughts we should take up the stricter profession of Christianity, viz., with expectations of the Cross, Many think they may be good Christians, yet all their days live a life of ease. This is just as if we should enlist as a soldier and never expect battle, or as if a mariner should go to sea and always expect a calm.
2. What fools they are that take up religion expecting honour, ease, and plenty. You may do so for a time, but the trials will come. The summer friends of the gospel, or those painted butterflies that flutter about in the sunshine of prosperity, must expect that a winter will come. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Faith and patience
I. What is patience? A contented endurance of painful evils. It is a moral virtue when by the argument of human prudence we harden ourselves to bear the evils that befall us. The spiritual grace is the fruit of the Spirit, and we bear these evils from Divine principles to Divine ends. The latter as it is wrought in us by God (Romans 15:5) so it fetcheth its strength from God’s Word (Romans 15:4). Now scriptural arguments are fetched either from the will of God who appoints us to this conflict (1 Thessalonians 3:3), or from the glory of God, which is promoted thereby (Philippians 1:20), or else our final happiness (James 1:12) or from the example of Christ (1 Peter 2:21). This grace of patience may be considered--
1. Barely as tried. Some give up at the first assault (Matthew 13:21). Others hold up against the first brunt, but begin to be tired and wax weary in their minds (Hebrews 12:3).
2. As tried with many and long afflictions (Hebrews 10:32; Colossians 1:4). Many cannot bear any evil; they have no faith. Some hold out in slighter temptations for a while; they have weak faith. But the constant and unconquered patience is the fruit of strong faith.
II. What of faith is manifested by it?
1. Assent, for we must believe the truth with a Divine faith before we can suffer for it. How can we endure afflictions for supernatural things, which merely depend on revelation, unless we are firmly persuaded of their truth? (Acts 14:22).
2. Consent, or fidelity to Christ in our covenanted duty (Matthew 16:24). In great afflictions we are tried whether we love anything above Christ (Matthew 10:37). The resolution of this consent is the thing tried, i.e., whether we are prepared to endure anything for Christ’s sake (Acts 21:13). It is easier to discourse of patience than to practice it, as it is easier to build a castle in time of peace than to defend it in time of war.
3. Confidence, or relying upon God’s promises, which are our support. There are two sorts of promises.
(1) That God will enable you to bear them (2 Timothy 1:12; 2 Timothy 4:18; 1 Corinthians 10:13).
(2) That He will graciously reward them (Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17).
III. The reasons.
1. Faith is the grace that is most struck at in our tribulations (James 1:3); therefore if a man know the strength of it in time of tribulation, then ordinarily he has a clearer proof of the truth and strength of that grace than at other times.
2. It is the grace that is of most use to us at such times (1 Peter 5:9; Ephesians 6:16). Three benefits we have by it--
(1) It keeps us so that we do not for these things question the love of God (Isaiah 49:14; Psalms 77:9; Hebrews 12:5).
(2) So that we take no sinful course for our escape (Psalms 125:3; Psalms 125:5). It should not shake our constancy and persuade us to do as the wicked (Isaiah 28:16; Hebrews 11:35).
(3) So that we may not faint and grow weary of duties, even of life itself, as Jonah (4:8; see Psalms 27:13; Psalms 42:5).
3. In such times faith is manifested. The true and sensible discovery of faith is patience under manifold tribulations.
(1) Because then we have nothing to stick unto but the comforts and supports of faith.
(2) Its proper, genuine effect is then produced to the view of both conscience and the world. What courage our belief in God’s promises has produced in us sensibly appears by enduring the greatest extremities rather than forsake the way of the Lord. (T. Manton, D. D.)
The power of patience
Among the regular and consistent worshippers at the Bohemian Church in Berlin during the ministry of Pastor Janike was a colonel at the War Office. His brother officers mocked at his piety, and used every opportunity of turning religion into ridicule. Being unable by these means to provoke the good man to indiscretions, they determined to provoke him by a more definite act of rudeness and scorn. Accordingly one of his colleagues in the office sketched a caricature of the colonel kneeling in church and receiving the holy communion. It was plain, from the entire character of the work, that a deadly hatred against the holiness of the Lord had inspired the pen that drew it. The sketch was secretly placed on the desk of the colonel, and the perpetrators of the miserable jest watched his arrival, and counted on an outburst of wrath. However, when the good man came and saw the sketch, he gravely shook his head, folded the paper, put it in his pocket, and then went on with his work, conversing with his colleagues in the usual friendly manner. A few days after the man who had drawn the shameful sketch knocked at the colonel’s door. The patience of the Christian was more than his conscience could bear. He came now, and with deep emotion, to apologise for his impertinence. The colonel gave him his hand, and assured him he had forgiven him everything. Not very long after this man knelt by the colonel’s side to receive the Lord’s supper, testifying with tears of gratitude that he had found Christ. From henceforth he became one of the warmest friends of the pious and long-suffering Christian. (Sunday at Home.)
Patient endurance
I shall never forget as long as I live that day where, in the glow of the eventide, as the sun was sinking and as the mists were creeping over the land, I walked with one of our native brethren by the riverside, and saw a light in the dim distance, when he said to me, “Yonder is the only Christian in all that great town.” Ten years ago he received Christ into his heart; his father and mother turned him out; his friends forsook him; his neighbours persecuted him; and all these years he stood his ground, scarcely getting food to eat. During all these ten years he maintained his Christian character unspotted in the midst of the heathen around him, and the native brother said to me, “Now his business is reviving, because people say he sells the best things and always means what he says.” I entered his humble bamboo hut and sat down on the ground by his side, and as I discoursed about his loneliness and his sadness the tears sprang into his eyes, and he said, “No, I am never lonely; for as Christ was with the Hebrew children, and as He was with Daniel in the lions’ den, so all these years He has been with me.” (A. H. Baynes.)