The Bright State of the Church: Thanksgiving and Their Virtues (1 Thessalonians 1:2–3)

In the first part of the Epistle the holy Paul recalls all the historical events pertaining to the Thessalonians from the time he gained entry among them until the time he is writing the Epistle, in order—by pointing to the finger of God in everything—to root in them the conviction that the faith they have received bears the palpable seal of divinity, and thereby to inspire them all the more to stand firm in it despite sorrows and privations. He achieves this by depicting: 1) the radiant state of the Thessalonian Church—in itself, in God’s relation to it, and in its relation to all others (1 Thess. 1:2–10); 2) his sojourn among them, marked by a high moral character that they themselves acknowledged (1 Thess. 2:11–16); and 3) his fatherly and heartfelt care for them (1 Thess. 2:17–3:13).

1. The radiant state of the Thessalonian Church in spiritual regard (1 Thess. 1:2–10)

The Apostle depicts the radiant grace-filled Christian state of the Thessalonians by pointing to: b) the perfection in them of the foundational Christian virtues (1 Thess. 1:3); c) God’s goodwill toward them, manifested in their election (1 Thess. 1:4–7); d) the salutary effect of the glory of their conversion and faith on all other Christians (1 Thess. 1:8–10). Recalling all this, the holy Paul a) expresses his feelings of gratitude to God (1 Thess. 1:2), attributing to Him all the good he has seen in the Thessalonians; so that the content of this chapter may be expressed as follows:

a) Joyful thanksgiving to God for the manifestation of grace-filled Christian life among the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 1:2)

1 Thess. 1:2. We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers.

Having received from the holy Timothy the pleasing news about the Thessalonians, the holy Paul was gladdened by it (1 Thess. 3:9) and in his joy gives thanks to God for all the good with which it pleased Him to endow the Thessalonians. From the very first word he turns their minds to God and, pointing to Him as the Author of their progress, instills in them that they are God’s and that the work of their faith is the work of God. Almost all his Epistles the holy Paul begins with thanksgiving, some with nearly the same words (Rom. 1:8–9; Eph. 1:16; 2 Thess. 1:3; 2 Tim. 1:3); this, however, is not a mere turn of phrase or a matter of custom, but the expression of genuine feelings with which his soul was full (see 1 Thess. 1:3, 8–9). Called to the work of God, he could not but rejoice at its successes and, palpably seeing the finger of God in everything, could not but thank God. “Always,” he says, “we give thanks to God.” And this is no exaggeration. The Apostle lived in God and prayerful turning to Him did not depart from his face. Such is the force of the apostolic spirit, the bearer of the Spirit of God. Thanksgiving in words, of course, was not constant, but it was always present in the feeling of his heart, ready to pour forth in words as well. That he gives thanks for all of them seems to be intentional. Although the Apostle knew that not all were perfect, he does not narrow the scope of his thanksgiving—so that by this he might open in advance the way of his word to the hearts even of those who are imperfect, when the time comes to touch on their correction. The words “making mention of you” and so on define the act of thanksgiving when it is expressed also in words during prayer. The Apostle speaks as though saying: in our prayers, calling you to mind, we pour out feelings of gratitude to God. But what were the prayers of the Apostles like? They constituted half of their apostolic labors. “We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word,” they said at the election of deacons for the Jerusalem Church (Acts 6:4).

The holy Chrysostom says: “The thanksgiving to God for the Thessalonians is a testimony to their great progress; for the Apostle not only praises them but also thanks God, as the Author of all their advancement. Moreover, he teaches them humility, as if saying that all this is the work of God’s power. Thus he speaks of thanksgiving on account of their good works, and of remembrance of them in prayers—on account of his love for them.”

In other Epistles the thanksgiving stands as a kind of introductory passage, followed by the introduction of other subjects. Here, however, the thanksgiving is closely connected with what follows and forms the subject of the first chapter. The holy Paul thanks God for the Thessalonians, reflecting on the perfection of their Christian character and on God’s election of them. These motives—or subjects of thanksgiving—are also highlighted in the structure of the discourse by the words: “constantly remembering” (1 Thess. 1:3) and “knowing” (1 Thess. 1:4).

b) The perfection in them of the foundational Christian virtues (1 Thess. 1:3)

1 Thess. 1:3. Constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith, and labor of love, and steadfast endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is the first aspect of the Thessalonians’ radiant state. The Apostle, “wishing to show that he remembers the Thessalonians not only in prayer but also apart from prayer, says: ‘constantly remembering’” (the holy Chrysostom). The Apostle has said that whenever he calls them to mind in his prayers, he always gives thanks to God. For what reason? Because the image of their Christian perfection stands constantly in his soul. This constant remembrance of their good state—which is from God—is what causes him always to thank God for them in his prayers.

The holy Paul recalls those perfections which he himself saw and about which the holy Timothy told him, and speaks of them with such expressiveness because he intends afterward to speak well of his own activity among them. “He speaks first of their labors, and then of his own, so as not to appear to be boasting” (Chrysostom). He speaks thus not in order to ingratiate himself with them and thereby prepare the way for his subsequent words, but as a father rejoicing at the perfection of his children. For all that, however, one may allow that the Apostle had also in view to sketch what they ought to manifest in their lives in ever greater perfection. By depicting the beginnings of perfect life as perfections, he stirs zeal to attain the indicated limit of perfection.

The singular remembrance of the holy Apostles is threefold in its objects. This threefold character is formed by the three principal Christian virtues: faith, hope, and love. These are the forces, principles, and elements of the grace-filled Christian life that in the act of regeneration in Christ are poured into the hearts of Christians by the Holy Spirit, and without which no truly Christian disposition or action is possible. Hence the holy Paul often introduces them into his discourse in his Epistles (compare: 1 Thess. 1:5, 8; 1 Cor. 13:3; Col. 1:4). Here the discourse about them has the distinctive quality that the Apostle does not merely mention them, but characterizes each by particular marks defining how they were actually manifested in the lives of the Thessalonians, affirming that he remembers their “work of faith, labor of love, and steadfast endurance of hope:” not just work, labor, and endurance alone, nor just faith, love, and hope alone, but both together in their mutual interpenetration—as if saying: endurance full of hope and hope that endures, labor full of love and love that labors, faith full of works and works full of faith. For in reality they mutually give birth to one another, sustain one another, and preserve one another.

The work of faith is more difficult to define precisely than the other two terms. The work of faith is both the first act of believing—itself no small or easy task—and the beginning and root of all other manifestations of Christianity. Faith is not formed at once: first comes the thought—should I not believe? This thought enters into conflict with what is within and what is without. When all is overcome, a resolution is spoken in the heart: I believe—and the work of faith is accomplished. Whether we understand this act as a divine working or as the inclination and resolve of the heart, it is always something noteworthy. The Apostle is saying: I remember how you came to believe. The work of faith in this sense is the work that the Saviour demanded of the Jews who asked what they should do: “that you believe in Him whom God has sent” (Jn. 6:29).

But this act is more or less invisible; whereas the work of faith here, by its correspondence to the labor of love and the endurance of hope—which are visible—must be something visible. The visibility of faith is its manifestation in what signifies faith. Faith has its own sphere of expression: the reception of the sacraments, its own confession, communion with those of the same faith in one spirit with them, and separation from those of false belief and from all that manifests false belief. Whoever shows all this is performing the work of faith. The work of faith in this sense is the constant, steadfast, fearless manifestation everywhere and in everything of the identity of a believing Christian—and it corresponds to the performance of the work of the Law written on the hearts (Rom. 2:15).

Close to this is the third meaning of the work of faith pointed out by the holy Chrysostom—namely, steadfastness and constancy in faith despite hardships. “What is the work of faith? It is that nothing has shaken your constancy. If you believe, stand firm; if you do not stand firm, you do not believe. Faith is justified by constancy and zeal.” In this sense, the work of faith is believing energetically begun and constantly maintained, despite sorrows, attacks, persecutions, and afflictions—as an occupation, a profession, the work of a whole life, giving it its character. But this is not the same as the endurance of hope, for the latter is entirely directed toward the future, while the former is occupied with the present, resting on what has been.

In what sense, then, are we to understand the work of faith in the present passage? In all of them; for in all these forms the work of faith was indeed manifested by the Thessalonians. A closely equivalent term for it may be found in the good fight of faith (1 Tim. 6:12).

“Labor of love”—the cares and sacrifices of the Thessalonians in relieving the lot of fellow Christians and helping them in every way—what the Thessalonians did “for all the brothers throughout Macedonia” (1 Thess. 4:10). The holy Paul rejoices that even in this difficult time, when they themselves were subjected to attacks on every side, the Thessalonians not only preserved love among themselves but also extended its sacrifices everywhere, embracing all the saints. Labor presupposes action with weariness, burden, and toil. But the labor of love does not notice this and seems not to feel it. There is endurance in it too, but the endurance of love—endurance absorbed by love. This is, one might say, a laboring that is without toil, or a labor that does not weary.

“Endurance of hope”—the unwavering standing beneath the cross, the immovability under suffering, manifested by the Thessalonians in the persecution that came upon them (Acts 17:5 and Acts 17:9), as the fruit of hope which in the present sorrow knows how to point out the surest path to the attainment of eternal glorification in the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:18). “In these events”—the persecutions of the Thessalonians—“was expressed,” says the holy Chrysostom, “not only their courage, but also the fact that they believed with full conviction in the promised rewards.” Endurance is the constant companion of hope: for even hope itself, as hope, endures (Rom. 8:25); it is not only the bearer of hope, as a body enlivened by it, but itself gives birth to hope (Rom. 4:5). Hence in certain passages of Scripture endurance is visibly used in place of hope (Tit. 2:2).

The work of faith embraces the relation to God; the labor of love defines the relation to one’s brothers—fellow Christians; the endurance of hope outlines the personal lot of each believer in this present life, with a view into the life to come. The work of faith fills life with vitality, strength, and readiness to act; the labor of love opens a field for living and fruitful action; the endurance of hope completes and crowns the labors—and is something higher and more self-transcending. Patient endurance pleasing to God is more difficult than active labor pleasing to God; yet it, through its final testing, leads—in the footsteps of the Lord—into ultimate perfection and glorification. In these three the root, stem, and ear of the new life in the Lord Jesus Christ manifest themselves. Faith receives grace and is the seeding of Christian life, the transplanting through Christ the Saviour into God, the grafting into Him. From this proceeds love, as the reflection of God’s love in the heart of man, or the response of the human heart to the love of God felt toward it—the soul of each Christian and of the whole body of the Church of Christ. Hope knows that the future belongs to the Lord Christ and the Holy Church of Christ. It is as though it already migrates there and lives there not only by contemplation but also by feeling, in the certainty that the spiritual life is most glorious—a life that, proceeding from the glorified Lord, now dwells within the members of Christ still only inwardly, but in its own time will be gloriously revealed outwardly as well, will permeate everything, and the present adversaries to it—the flesh, the world, and the devil—will be removed from the scene of life by the new appearing of the Lord, when all that exists will be purified by fire. Such are the agents of the inner life in Christ. The holy Paul rejoices and in his joy gives thanks to God that He was pleased to manifest in the Thessalonians this fullness of the life-forces that characterize a Christian.

The holy Chrysostom explains all three of these distinguishing marks of the foundational Christian virtues—work, labor, endurance—from the difficult circumstances in which the Thessalonians then found themselves, and sees in this the seal of the divinity of the faith they had received. “God,” he says, “allowed persecution to come upon them immediately, so that no one should say that the preaching of Christ had taken hold among them by chance; but rather, that it might be manifest that not human persuasion, but the power of God gave such strength to the souls of the believers.”

The words “our Lord Jesus Christ” may be referred to all three virtues, pointing to the Lord as their object and source; or to hope alone: the latter seems more fitting. The Lord Christ is directly called our hope (1 Tim. 1:1; Col. 1:27) and is the essential object of hope—not only because all our hopes rest and are grounded upon Him, but also because He Himself is awaited, and through His Second Coming and the associated unfolding of the glory of Christ’s Kingdom, the hope of glory will be fulfilled, and hope itself, as it were, will be glorified (Tit. 2:13). It is not hard to notice that by this addition the holy Paul from the very beginning brings hope to the fore above its companions, because later he was to speak about its principal object—the Second Coming of Christ.

“Before our God and Father” may be referred to “remembering” or to the three Christian virtues. The holy Chrysostom, blessed Theodoret, and Oecumenius say that it may be referred to either, but they incline more to the latter, which is to be preferred. For if we take the former—that is, that the holy Paul was constantly remembering the Christian virtues of the Thessalonians before God and the Father—then there is the same thought as in the preceding verse, where he said that he thanks God, making mention of them in his prayers. Yet from the flow of thought it is clear that what was needed was not a repetition of the same idea in plainer words, but an indication of what moved him to thank God for the Thessalonians. And this will be clear of itself when we connect the words “before our God and Father” with the virtues mentioned above. What moved him? The perfection of their Christian virtues before God and the Father. What is worthy of praise and thanksgiving is that the Thessalonians displayed their work of faith, labor of love, and endurance of hope before God and the Father—dedicating them to Him with thought of Him, performing them in His presence, and consequently with all care and zeal, with all sincerity and purity of motive. The Thessalonians kept in mind that “over all this the God of all things keeps watch” (blessed Theodoret), that “He sees all and that with Him nothing of what they do is forgotten” (Oecumenius). Therefore they strove to manifest the aforesaid virtues in such strength. Here the holy Paul sees in the Thessalonians that same perfection, greater and greater advances in which he then desires for them at the end of the first part of the Epistle, praying that the Lord “may establish” their “hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father” (1 Thess. 3:13). And it was very fitting to note this, since immediately after this expression of the Thessalonians’ relation to God, the Apostle wishes to speak of God’s relation to them—as if saying: you do everything before God—and it is right to act so; for God too has shown great mercy to you, having chosen you.