1 Thessalonians 3:5

For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith Rather, I also, no longer enduring it, sent, &c. St Paul repeats what he said in 1 Thessalonians 3:1, but in a different manner, there stating the facts themselves, here indicating his own share in the trouble of his readers: "You were in affliction, and your faith endangered; and I too felt for you an unendurable anxiety." He has just spoken of Timothy as sent to comfort them, but he was sent at the same time to comfort him(the Apostle), to relieve his distressing fears about them (see 1 Thessalonians 3:5 band 6). His own troubles and despondency at Corinth helped to make him apprehensive for the Thessalonian Church (see 1 Thessalonians 3:7, and comp. Acts 18:5; Acts 18:9-10 and 1 Corinthians 2:3).

The Greek verb for "know" in this clause is different from that employed in the last; it means to ascertain, get to know that I might ascertain your faith "might learn its condition, and know whether or not you were still standing fast in the Lord."

lest by some means the tempter have tempted you "Have" is here the English subjunctive perfect, modern "should have"; but the Greek verb is indicative, and implies a positive expectation: lest by any means the tempter had tempted you(R. V.) a fact of which there was little doubt; the apprehension is revealed in the next clause (Greek subjunctive), and our labour should prove in vain. This was the dark thought which crossed the Apostle's mind, that he could "no longer bear."

This "labour" (or "toil," same word as in ch. 1 Thessalonians 1:3, see note, and ch. 1 Thessalonians 2:9) is that which St Paul described pathetically in ch. 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12, beginning with the "entrance" that certainly "was not vain." To think that all this labour might be lost, and a success at first so glorious end in blank failure! The sentence might be rendered quite as grammatically, and more vividly, in the interrogative, expressing the apprehension as it actually arose in the Apostle's mind: I sent that I might know about your faith: had the Tempter haply tempted you, and would our labour prove in vain?

"The Tempter" is so styled once besides, in the account of Christ's Temptation, Matthew 4:3. Comp. note on Satan, ch. 1 Thessalonians 2:18. While "hindering" Paul from coming to their help, Satan would be "tempting" the Thessalonians to forsake their faith. This fear wrung the Apostle's heart.

In passing from 1 Thessalonians 3:5-6 there is a striking change from painful suspense to relief and joy