1 Thessalonians 2:11

11 just as you know how we were ¹exhorting and encouraging and ²imploring each one of you as ³a father would his own children,

1 Thessalonians 2:11 Meaning and Commentary

1 Thessalonians 2:11

As you know
This is added to the end of the last verse in the Arabic version, and which begins this verse thus, "as one of you, and as a father comforting his sons, so we" but for what is said in the former verse, an appeal is made both to God and to the Thessalonians, so that there is no need of adding such a clause there; it properly stands here in connection with what follows,

how we exhorted;
to flee from wrath to come, and to Christ for refuge; to look to, and believe in him, as the only Saviour of lost sinners; to perform the duties of religion, and to continue in the faith; to cleave to Christ, and walk on in him as they had received him, and to abide by the truths and ordinances of the Gospel they had embraced:

and comforted;
under a sense of sin, with the soul comforting doctrines of free justification by the righteousness of Christ, of full pardon by his blood, and of a plenary satisfaction and atonement by his sacrifice; and under all their afflictions and persecutions for the sake of Christ, with exceeding great and precious promises of the presence, grace, and strength of Christ here, and glory hereafter:

and charged everyone of you;
not only publicly, but privately, going from house to house; not in an austere and domineering way, but with the greatest tenderness, and yet faithfulness: even

as a father doth his children;
not only in an authoritative, but in an affectionate way, and also with solid wisdom and judgment; for in such a relation, in a Spiritual sense, did the apostle and his fellow ministers stand in to them; see ( 1 Corinthians 4:15 ) and the substance of the charge is as follows:

1 Thessalonians 2:11 In-Context

9 For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

10 You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers;

11 just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children,

12 so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

13 For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

Cross References

• 1. 1 Thessalonians 5:14
• 2. Luke 16:28; 1 Thessalonians 4:6
• 3. 1 Corinthians 4:14; 1 Thessalonians 2:7

Footnotes

• [a]. Or "testifying to"