1 Thessalonians 1:5

C reads ευαγγ. του θεου (instead of ημων); א του θεου ημων, by conflation: this aberrant variation may be due to the influence of 1 Thessalonians 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 2:8 f.

ACDGKP, &c., influenced by the context, repeat εν before πληροφοριᾳ—wanting in אB 17.

εν before υμιν is supported by BDG and the T.R., against אACP 17 67** in which it is wanting; cf. note on 1 Thessalonians 1:4 above. Here εν might easily be dropped after εγενηθημεν, and would hardly be officiously inserted: transcriptional probability favours its genuineness. In 1 Thessalonians 2:10 εν is absent in construction with this verb; but εγενηθημεν is there qualified by adverbs which the bare dative suits, while in this place διʼ υμας suggests the antithetical εν υμιν: see 1 Thessalonians 3:7; 1 Thessalonians 4:14; 2 Corinthians 1:11; 2 Corinthians 1:20; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 1:17, for the like Pauline play upon prepositions.

5. ὅτι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐγενήθη εἰς ὑμᾶς κ.τ.λ. Ὅτι—introducing the coordinate and corresponding sentences of 1 Thessalonians 1:5-6 (τὸ εὐαγγ. ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐγενήθη εἰς ὑμᾶς … καὶ ὑμεῖς μιμ. ἡμῶν ἐγενήθητε)—is explicative of εἰδότες, not τὴν ἐκλογήν, signifying in that, seeing that, rather than how that (R.V.); for ὅτι of the ground, not content, of knowledge, cf. John 7:29; John 18:2; otherwise in 1 Corinthians 1:26. The other view is strongly stated in Lightfoot’s Note ad loc.

For γίνομαι εἰς of local direction, cf. Acts 20:16; but ethical direction (cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:5) is implied: “our Good News reached you, arrived at your hearts.” The “good news” is ours as “we proclaim” it (1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 4:3; Romans 1:15; Romans 2:16, &c.), but God’s as He originates and sends it (1 Thessalonians 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; Romans 1:2, &c.), and Christ’s as He constitutes its matter (1 Thessalonians 3:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; Romans 1:2; 1 Corinthians 1:23, &c.). Ἐγενήθην, the Doric aorist of the κοινή, is frequent in this Epistle.

οὐκ … ἐν λόγῳ μόνον� κ.τ.λ. Εἰς gives the persons to whom, ἐν the influence in which the εὐαγγέλιον came. Its bearers in delivering their message at Thessalonica were conscious of a supernatural power that made them at the time sure of success. For the antithesis λόγος—δύναμις, familiar in the Epistles, see 1 Corinthians 2:1; 1 Corinthians 2:4 f., 1 Corinthians 4:19 f.; 2 Corinthians 10:11 (ἔργον), 1 John 3:18; in 1 Thessalonians 2:13 below the same contrast appears in the form λόγος� and θεοῦ (see note). For the phrase ἐν δυνάμει, cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:9.

Behind the effective power (δύναμις) with which the Good News wrought on its Thessalonian hearers there lay certain personal influences operative therein, ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ πληροφορίᾳ πολλῇ: the single ἐν (cf. note on ἐν, 1 Thessalonians 1:1) combines these adjuncts as the two faces, objective and subjective, of one fact. The πνεῦμα ἄγιον reappears in 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 1 Thessalonians 4:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:19; the Thessalonians knew “the Holy Spirit” as an invisible power attending the Gospel and possessing the believer with sanctifying effect, which proceeds from God and is God’s own Spirit (τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ τὸ ἅγιον, 1 Thessalonians 4:8). See 1 Corinthians 2:9-16; 2 Corinthians 1:22; Romans 8:1-27; Galatians 3:14; Galatians 4:4-7; Ephesians 4:30, for St Paul’s later teaching; and Luke 11:13, John 14-16, for the doctrine of our Lord respecting the Spirit. The power of the Gospel was ascribed to the Holy Spirit in the original promise of Jesus (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8); cf. Luke 1:35; Luke 4:14; Matthew 12:28; Acts 10:38; Galatians 3:5; Romans 15:13; Romans 15:19, for various powerful activities of the Spirit. Physical miracles (δυνάμεις, see note, 2 Thessalonians 2:9) are neither indicated nor excluded here.

Πληροφορία has two meanings: (a) fulness (R.V. marg.), i.e. full issue or yield, as from πληροφορέω in 2 Timothy 4:5 or Luke 1:1; (b) or full assurance (A.V. R.V. text, much assurance; certitudo et certa persuasio, Erasmus), as from πληροφορέω in Romans 4:21; Romans 14:5. According to (a) the thought is that the Good News came to the hearers “in the plenitude” of its effect and bore rich fruit (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:13); according to (b), that it came with “full conviction” and confidence on the part of preachers and hearers (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:2 ff.). The foregoing subject, εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν, sustained by οἶοι ἡμεῖς ἐγενήθημεν in the sequel, speaks for the latter interpretation, which accounts for the combination ἐν πν. ἁγ. καὶ πληροφ. (see note above) in this connexion: “We delivered our message and you received it under the mighty influence of the Holy Spirit, and so in full assurance of its efficacy.” Πληροφορία bears the subjective sense in the other N.T. exx.—Colossians 2:2; Hebrews 6:11; Hebrews 10:22; so in Clemens Rom. ad Cor. xlii., μετὰ πληροφορίας πνεύματος ἁγίου ἐξῆλθον εὐαγγελιζόμενοι, which echoes this passage; to the like effect πν. ἅγιον is associated with παρρησία in Acts 4:31, and with μαρτυρία in Acts 1:8 and John 15:26 f. The warm convictions attending the proclamation of the Gospel at Thessalonica reflected themselves in the χαρὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου of its recipients (1 Thessalonians 1:6).

For confirmation of what the writers assert about their preaching, they appeal, in passing, to the knowledge of the readers: καθὼς οἴδατε οἶοι ἐγενήθημεν [ἐν] ὑμῖν διʼ ὑμᾶς, as you know the sort of men that we proved (were made to be) to [or amongst] you on your behoof,—how confidently full of the Spirit and of power. In this connexion, διʼ ὑμᾶς refers not to the motives of the preachers (shown in 1 Thessalonians 2:5-12), but to the purpose of God toward their hearers, who for their sake inspired His servants thus to deliver His message (cf. Acts 18:9 f.; also 1 Corinthians 3:5 f., 21 f.; 2 Corinthians 1:6; 2 Corinthians 4:7-15): proof is being adduced of God’s electing grace towards the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:4). For collocation of different prepositions (ἐν, διά) with the same pronoun, cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:14; see Textual Note, preferring ἐν ὑμῖν. The repeated and varied references made in the Epistle, by way of confirmation, to the readers’ knowledge (1 Thessalonians 2:1 f., 5, 9 f., 1 Thessalonians 3:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:2) are explained in the Introd. p. lxii.

The relative οἶος should be distinguished from the indirect interrogative ὁποῖος, as used in 1 Thessalonians 1:9 : there strangers are conceived as asking, “What kind of entrance had Paul, &c.?” and receiving their answer; here it is no question as to what the Apostles were like at Thessalonica, but the fact of their having been so and so is reasserted from the knowledge of the readers. For similar exx. of the relative pronoun apparently, but not really, substituted for the interrogative, cf. 2 Timothy 1:14; Luke 9:33; Luke 22:60; Mark 5:33 : see Kühner’s Ausführliche Grammatik d. griech. Sprache2, ii. § 562. 4, “Dass das Relativ (ὅς, οἶος, ὅσος) in abhängigen Fragesätzen an der Stelle des Fragepronomens ὅστις oder τίς, ὁποῖος oder ποῖος, u. s. w., gebraucht werde, wird mit Unrecht angenommen”; also Rutherford’s First Greek Syntax, § 251.

A colon, not a full-stop, should close 1 Thessalonians 1:5.

1 Thessalonians 1:6 supplies the other side to the proof given in 1 Thessalonians 1:5 of the election of the readers (1 Thessalonians 1:4), ὅτι … καὶ ὑμεῖς (in contrast to τὸ εὐαγγ. ἡμῶν, 1 Thessalonians 1:5) μιμηταὶ ἡμῶν ἐγενήθητε κ.τ.λ. The internal construction of the verse is open to doubt, as to whether the δεξάμενοι clause (a) explains the μιμηταί,—“in that you received the word, &c.”; or (b) supplies the antecedent fact and ground of the imitation,—“after that,” or “in-asmuch as, you had received the word,” &c. According to (a), the Thessalonians imitated the Apostles and their Lord in their manner of receiving the word: such a narrowing of μιμηταί is not in keeping with 1 Thessalonians 1:3 nor 1 Thessalonians 1:9 f., which describe the general Christian behaviour of the readers, as in the parallel instances of μιμητής—1 Thessalonians 2:14; 1 Corinthians 4:16; 1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1; Philippians 3:17-20. According to (b), the Thessalonians in their changed spirit and manner of life, on receiving the Gospel, had copied “the ways in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 4:14-17) of their teachers (1 Corinthians 11:1; cf. Ephesians 4:20-24; 1 John 2:6; John 13:34, &c.)—since you gave a welcome to the word: the good beginning accounts for the worthy course. By their cordial reception of the Divine message they entered bravely and joyfully upon the way of life marked out by the example of the Apostles and their Lord—a decisive evidence of God’s loving choice of this people (1 Thessalonians 1:4).

δεξάμενοι τὸν λόγον ἐν θλίψει πολλῇ μετὰ χαρᾶς πνεύματος ἁγίου. The welcome given to the Gospel was enhanced at once by the adverse conditions attending it (in much affliction) and by the gladness which surmounted these conditions (with joy of—inspired by—the Holy Spirit). Cf. the case of Berœa: ἐδέξαντο τὸν λόγον μετὰ πάσης προθυμίας, Acts 17:11. For the warmth of reception implied in δέχομαι, see 1 Thessalonians 2:13, and note; also 2 Thessalonians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Luke 8:13; James 1:21, &c. For the association of joy with receiving the word, see Luke 2:10; Luke 8:13; Acts 8:8; Acts 8:39; Acts 13:48; of Christian joy with affliction, Romans 5:3; Romans 12:12; 2 Corinthians 6:10; Colossians 1:24; Acts 5:41, &c.; of joy with the Holy Spirit—a conjunction as characteristic as that of power and the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:5)—Romans 14:17; Romans 15:13; Galatians 5:22; Philippians 3:3; Luke 10:21; Acts 13:52. The genitive is that of source connoting quality—a joy that comes of the Spirit and is spiritual. Acts 17:5-13 shows the kind of θλίψις “amid” which this Church was founded.