1 Thessalonians 3:1 Commentary and Bible Study

In chapter 3 we are given a portrait of Paul and his whole disposition and spirit, and how he lived, and how he worked. We can also see it as a chapter about faith, because that term is emphasised in this chapter – faith, its application and its growth. A year had elapsed since Paul was evangelising in the city of the Thessalonians. There had been a tremendous response to the gospel there. From the Jews there was hostility and antagonism. As was his custom Paul had gone with Silas and Timothy, his companion preachers, to the synagogue first and people were converted, but soon there was great hostility. He then turned to the Gentiles and there was a glorious response, and people in large numbers were humbled and turned to the gospel. They were idolaters. They paid a very great price for turning to Christ. They would be cast out of their trade guilds, if they had good jobs and they were craftsmen. They would be jobless and they would be just left to do whatever work they could to survive. There would be great persecution among Gentile converts, but nevertheless the church of Jesus Christ grew and flourished.Well, the apostle Paul and Silas and Timothy had been forced out of the city and had gone on to Berea; we read all about it in the book of Acts. From there they had worked their way to Athens. And in Athens it would appear that Silas had been sent off elsewhere, leaving Paul alone with Timothy. Now it was a highly idolatrous city. It would be there that Paul would preach his famous sermon at Mars Hill, Areopagus. There he would face intense intellectual opposition, and he would preach to the Epicureans and the Stoics, most notably. But he would do it alone. There is something that the apostle is intensely anxious about – what was happening among the Thessalonian converts? We can assume that he was concerned about them because the priest of the idol cult would have been doing all they could to discourage them in their Christian walk and to bring them back to their former idol worship. Would they collapse? Had they experienced merely emotional conversions? Would there be no true work of the Spirit so that they turned back to idolatry? Were they only intellectually converted? They had seen through the follies of idolatry, and they had turned to Christ, but perhaps they had not really discovered the power of conversion and of the gospel. So Paul was naturally concerned. It was a very young church and a large community. And then maybe the Judaizers had arrived, getting in among those churches and persuading them that they could not know God without following the Jewish law and all the rest of it and all the ceremonies. His heart was towards them, his pastoral heart was so stirred, and he prayed for them night and day. He has mentioned it in the second chapter, his efforts to see them. But he had been hindered very seriously.‘We thought it good’ – he and Timothy together. Timothy too felt he should leave the apostle alone and go back to see the Thessalonians.