For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
For. Divine working (1 Thessalonians 2:13) is most of all seen in affliction.
Followers - Greek, 'imitators.'
In Judea. The churches in Judea were naturally the patterns to others, having been the first founded, and that on the very scene of Christ's ministry. Reference to them is specially appropriate here, as the Thessalonians, with Paul and Silas, had experienced, in their city, from Jewish persecutions (Acts 17:5-9) similar to those which 'the churches in Judea' experienced from Jews in that country.
In Christ Jesus - not merely 'in God;' for the Jews' synagogues (one of which the Thessalonians were familiar with, Acts 17:1) were also in God, in contrast to idolaters. The Christian churches alone were not only in God, but also in Christ.
Of your own country-men - primarily the Jews at Thessalonica, from whom the persecution originated; also the Gentiles there, instigated by the Jews: thus 'fellow-countrymen' х Sumfuletoon (G4853): not the enduring relation of fellow-citizenship, but sameness of country for the time being], including naturalized Jews and native Thessalonians, stand in contrast to the pure "Jews" in Judea (Matthew 10:36). An undesigned coincidence: Paul at this time was suffering persecutions of the Jews at Corinth, whence he writes (Acts 18:5-6; Acts 18:12); naturally his letter would dwell on Jewish bitterness against Christians.
Even as they (Hebrews 10:32-34). There was a likeness in respect to the nation from which both suffered-namely, Jews, and those their own countrymen; in the cause for which, and in the evils which, they suffered; also in the stedfast manner in which they suffered them. Such sameness of fruits, afflictions, and experimental characteristics of believers, in all places and at all times, are a subsidiary evidence of the truth of the Gospel.