Paul Writes To His Friends At Th


Paul and Silas and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians which

lives in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.



May good-will and peace be granted to you.



We thank God always for you all and mention you in our prayers, for we

constantly remember before our God and Father your active faith and

loving service and firm hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.



You yourselves know, bro
hers, that our visit to you was not without

results. At Philippi, as you remember, we had the courage through divine

help to tell you the good news of God even though we had been ill

treated and insulted. We loved you so much and you had become so dear to

us that we would gladly have given to you not only God's good news, but

also our very lives.



Brothers, you remember our hard labor and toil, how we worked at our

trade night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, while we

told you God's good news. You are witnesses, and so is God, that our

dealings with you who believe in Christ were pure, just, and beyond

reproach, and that we treated each of you as a father treats his own

children, persuading and encouraging you, and appealing to you to live

so that you would be worthy of the God who calls you to his own Kingdom

and glory.



We thank God constantly for this also, that when you received God's

message from us you accepted it not as a mere word of man but for what

it really is, the message of God, which even now is doing its work in

the hearts of you who believe. You have begun to follow the example of

the churches of God in Judea which are united with Jesus Christ, for you

have suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they have

suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus.



Brothers, when we were torn away from you for a little time (out of

sight but not out of mind!), we were exceedingly eager to see you face

to face. We did want to come to you--I, Paul, did more than once, but

Satan put difficulties in our way. For who is "our hope, our joy, our

crown" of which we have a right to be proud? Is it not you? For you are

our glory and our joy!



So when I could stand it no longer, I decided that it was best to remain

alone at Athens and send Timothy, our brother and God's servant in

telling the good news about Christ, to strengthen your faith and so to

encourage you that none of you might be disturbed by the troubles

through which you are passing, for you know that we must have them.



But now that Timothy has just come back and brought me the good news of

your faith and love and how you always remember me lovingly, longing to

see me as I long to see you, I have been comforted, brothers, in all my

distress and trouble by your faith.



How can we thank God enough for all the joy that comes to us through

you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see your faces and

supply whatever is lacking in your faith. May our God and Father himself

and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you, and may the Lord make your

love for one another and for all men grow ever greater, even as does our

love for you, so as to make your hearts strong and your characters

without fault in the sight of our God and Father.



I solemnly charge you in the name of the Lord to have this letter read

aloud to all the brothers. The love of our Lord Jesus Christ be with

you.



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