They were able to imitate the patience and constancy of the Judaean Churches under great persecutions. These Churches were referred to probably because they were the oldest Churches, and the most severely persecuted.

I. IT IS A HIGH HONOR AS WELL AS PRIVILEGE FOR CHURCHES TO BE SELECTED AS PATTERNS OF PATIENCE TO OTHER CHURCHES. "For ye, brethren, became followers of the Churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus." We are first to be imitators of Christ, then of all who follow in his steps, who keep on "looking to Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2). There were many Churches in Judaea, for Christianity was founded by Jews; its first converts were Jews; its first martyrs were Jews; and the Churches among them rejoiced in the fellowship of Christ, as the Source of their life and comfort.

II. THE PATH OF THE THESSALONIANS WAS ONE OF SEVERE TRIAL AND CONTINUOUS PERSECUTION. "For ye also have suffered like things from your own countrymen, even as they from the Jews."

1. They had received the Word "in much affliction." (1 Thessalonians 1:6.) The first outbreak of violence against them occurred after their conversion (Acts 17:5). They belonged to one of those Churches of Macedonia of which the apostle long afterwards wrote to the Corinthians as "enduring a great trial of affliction." It came from their heathen countrymen.

2. Their trials attested the genuineness of their conversion. The heathen would have had no quarrel with a dead faith. The Thessalonians did not "sleep as did others." They discovered by sharp experience that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Timothy 3:12).

3. Their trials involved the precious experience of a "fellowship in Christ's sufferings." (Philippians 3:10.)

4. Their trials manifested at once the strength of their faith and their Christian constancy.

III. IT WAS SOME COMFORT TO THE THESSALONIANS TO KNOW THAT THEY WERE NOT THE ONLY SUFFERERS FROM THE FURY OF PERSECUTORS. "Even as they have of the Jews: who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and drave us out." This terrible invective against the Jews illustrates the saying that the apostle often "goes off at a word." It recalls the language of Stephen before his murderers (Acts 7:52). The malignity of the Jews against their believing countrymen was extreme.

1. The Jews were murderers of Jesus and the prophets. Though the Savior was executed by the Romans, the responsibility of the terrible deed rests on the Jews, who "fur envy" delivered him up, and "killed the Prince of life." They likewise killed their own prophets, whose very sepulchers they afterwards built and garnished. What wonder, then, that the Thessalonian converts should escape!

2. The Jews, though zealous for God, did not please him. "They pleased not God," but rather provoked him to anger by their unbelief and their wickedness.

3. They were at cross-purposes with all mankind. They were "contrary to all men." They were anti-social, exclusive, and bitter, so that the heathen Tacitus could describe them as "holding an attitude of hostility and hatred to the human race." But it was specially manifest in their resistance to the calling of the Gentiles - "forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved. The Acts of the Apostles supply abundant evidence of this fact.

4. The end to which all this wickedness toward God and man was tending. "To fill up their sins at all times."

(1) God often allows nations to complete the sum of their wickedness before bringing upon them final retribution. "The iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full" (Genesis 15:16).

(2) The judgment upon the Jews was at hand - "but the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." "There is now nothing between it and them." The destruction of Jerusalem was still future, but "the days of vengeance were already come." The fire was already burning, which would never be quenched till the vengeance was complete. The apostle seems to regard the moment of the rejection of the Messiah as marking the outpouring of the Divine wrath. The history of the Jews from that moment is a significant commentary on the passage. - T.C.

It often happens that suffering reveals new features of character and awakens powers before dormant. It is said that Agrippa had a dormouse that slumbered so profoundly that it would never wake till cast in a cauldron of boiling lead. So there are some natures which put forth their powers only when in extremity. The piety of God's people is often tested by affliction. The faith of thousands has sunk, while those who have borne the strain have gained an accession of moral nerve. The Thessalonians imitated the churches of God in facing the storm of persecution with unconquerable firmness.

I. THEIR SUFFERING HAD A COMMON ORIGIN. "Ye of your own countrymen" — they "of the Jews."

1. It is the unkindest cut of all that comes from the sword of our own people — people with whom we have lived in amity, but from whom conscience compels us to differ (Psalm 55:12), when natural love is turned into unnatural enmity.

2. What a revelation this of the devilish nature of persecution. Its insensate malice rudely sunders all bonds of fatherland, friendship, or kindred. The close affinity between Cain and Abel does not arrest the murderer's hand. The tender ties between Saul and David avail not to curb the mad cruelty of the king.

3. How deep and changeless is the truth — "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." The suffering that tests is still from the same source. "A man's foes are they of his own household."

II. THEIR SUFFERING WAS BORNE WITH EXEMPLARY CHRISTIAN FORTITUDE. The same thought is expressed in 1 Thessalonians 1:6. At the head of the long line is Jesus, the captain of salvation; and all whom He leads to glory walk in His steps, imitate His example, and so become followers one of another.

1. It is not suffering in itself that purifies, so much as the spirit in which it is borne. It was enough to cool the fiery ambition of the aspiring disciples when Jesus said, "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?" And yet the following of Christ in suffering is the true test of discipleship. "He that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me."

2. It is a proof of the supernatural efficacy of the gospel that it inspires so intense a love of it as to make us willing to endure suffering for its sake. The love of truth becomes supreme. John Huss, lamenting the rupture of an old and valued friendship, said, "Paletz is my friend; truth is my friend; and both being my friends, it is my sacred duty to give the first honour to truth."

3. The soul, penetrated with this devotion, will pass unscathed the fiery test. On the destruction of the London Alexandra Palace by fire, it was found that, while many specimens of old English porcelain exhibited there were reduced to a black, shapeless mass, the true porcelain of Bristol, though broken into fragments, still retained its whiteness, and even its most delicate shades of colour uninjured by the fire. So the truly good, though wounded, shall survive the fiercest trial, and retain intact all that distinguishes the Christian character.Lessons: —

1. Our love of the Gospel is tested by what we suffer for it.

2. The similarity of experience, in all times and places, is a strong evidence of the truth of the Christian religion.

3. Suffering does not destroy, but builds up and perfects.

(G. Barlow.)

A wolf flies not upon a painted sheep, and men can look upon a painted toad with delight. It is not the soft pace, but the furious march of the soldier that sets men a-gazing and dogs a-barking. Let but a man glide along with the stream of the world, do as others do, he may sit down and take his ease; but if he once strive against the stream, stand up in the cause of God, and act for Christ, then he shall be sure to meet with as much malice as men and devils can possibly throw upon him.

(J. Spencer.)

One who was persecuted in Queen Mary's time wrote thus, "A poor prisoner for Christ! What is this for a poor worm! Such honour have not all His saints. Both the degrees I took in the university have not set me so high as the honour of becoming a prisoner of the Lord."

Do they cast us out of the city? They cannot cast us out of that which is in the heavens. If they who hate us could do this, they would be doing something real against us. So long, however, as they cannot do this, they are but pelting us with drops of water or striking us with the wind.

( Gregory Nazianzen.)

A coloured man applied to a New York merchant for a subscription, who at once knocked him into the street. The coloured man started on telling the story of his abuse, won sympathy by it, and, before night, collected fifty dollars. The persecutor, hearing the story, desired to silence the man, sent for him, and gave him a liberal subscription,

As frankincense, when it is put into the fire, giveth the greater perfume; as spice, if it be pounded and beaten, smelleth the sweeter; as the earth, when it is torn up by the plough, becometh more fruitful; the seed in the ground, after frost and snow and winter storms, springeth the ranker; the nigher the vine is pruned to the stock, the greater grape it yieldeth; the grape, when it is most pressed and beaten, maketh the sweetest wine; linen, when it is bucked and washed, wrung and beaten, is so made fairer and whiter: even so the children of God receive great benefit by persecution; for by it God washeth and scoureth, schooleth and nurtureth them, that so, through many tribulations, they may enter into their rest.

(Cawdray.)

A certain amount of persecution rouses a man's defiance, stirs his blood for magnificent battle, and makes him fifty times more a man than he would have been without the persecution. So it was with the great reformer when he said, "I will not be put down, I will be heard." And so it was with Millard, the preacher, in the time of Louis XI. When that sovereign sent word to him that unless he stopped preaching in that style he would throw him into the river, he replied, "Tell the king that I shall reach heaven sooner by water, than he will by fast horses."

(T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

Paul, ThessaloniansJudea, Philippi, ThessalonicaAssemblies, Brethren, Brothers, Christ, Churches, Countrymen, Endured, Example, Examples, Followed, Followers, God's, Hands, Ill-treatment, Imitators, Jews, Judaea, Judea, Seeing, Suffered, Sufferings, Underwent1. In what manner the gospel was brought and preached to the Thessalonians.
18. A reason is rendered both why Paul was so long absent from them, and also so desirous to see them.

1 Thessalonians 2:14

     5565   suffering, of believers
     5661   brothers
     7797   teaching
     8206   Christlikeness
     8449   imitating

1 Thessalonians 2:4-15

     7775   prophets, lives

1 Thessalonians 2:13-14

     5830   delight

1 Thessalonians 2:13-16

     8795   persecution, nature of

1 Thessalonians 2:14-15

     2339   Christ, example of
     2525   Christ, cross of
     5564   suffering, of Christ

1 Thessalonians 2:14-16

     2426   gospel, responses
     5493   retribution
     6155   fall, of Adam and Eve
     7135   Israel, people of God

The Bible
THE WORD OF GOD "When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God." (1 Thessalonians 2:13.) THE Apostle here testifies that he believes himself to be the bearer of a revelation direct from God; that the words he speaks and the words he writes are not the words of man, but the Word of God, warm with his breath, filled with his thoughts, and stamped with his will. In this same epistle he writes: "For this we say unto …
I. M. Haldeman—Christ, Christianity and the Bible

Thessalonica and Berea
'Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: 2. And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath- days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, 3. Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. 4. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

The Calling of the Regenerate:
"Whom He did predestinate, them He also called."--Rom. viii. 30. In order to hear, the sinner, deaf by nature, must receive hearing ears. "He that hath ears let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." (Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 29; iii. 6, 13, 22). But by nature the sinner does not belong to these favored ones. This is a daily experience. Of two clerks in the same office, one obeys the call and the other rejects it; not because he despises it, but because he does not hear God's call in it. Hence …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Protevangelium.
As the mission of Christ was rendered necessary by the fall of man, so the first dark intimation of Him was given immediately after the fall. It is found in the sentence of punishment which was passed upon the tempter. Gen. iii. 14, 15. A correct understanding of it, however, can be obtained only after we have ascertained who the tempter was. It is, in the first place, unquestionable that a real serpent was engaged in the temptation; so that the opinion of those who maintain that the serpent is only …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Effectual Calling
'Them he also called.' Rom 8:80. Q-xxxi: WHAT IS EFFECTUAL CALLING? A: It is a gracious work of the Spirit, whereby he causes us to embrace Christ freely, as he is offered to us in the gospel. In this verse is the golden chain of salvation, made up of four links, of which one is vocation. Them he also called.' Calling is nova creatio, a new creation,' the first resurrection. There is a two-fold call: (1.) An outward call: (2.) An inward call. (1.) An outward call, which is God's offer of grace to …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

1 Thessalonians 2:14 NIV
1 Thessalonians 2:14 NLT
1 Thessalonians 2:14 ESV
1 Thessalonians 2:14 NASB
1 Thessalonians 2:14 KJV

1 Thessalonians 2:14 Bible Apps
1 Thessalonians 2:14 Parallel
1 Thessalonians 2:14 Biblia Paralela
1 Thessalonians 2:14 Chinese Bible
1 Thessalonians 2:14 French Bible
1 Thessalonians 2:14 German Bible

1 Thessalonians 2:14 Commentaries

Bible Hub