1 Thessalonians 3:8

for now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord "if yestand fast:" the pronoun bears the emphasis. St Paul felt as though his life was wrapped up in this Church. A load of apprehension was lifted from his mind, and he resumed his work at Corinth with the sense of renewed health and vigour, saying to himself, "Yes, now one really lives!" For in truth

"The incessant care and labour of his mind

Had wrought the mure, that should confine it in,

So thin, that life looked through and would break out."

His heaviest burden, weighing down body and mind alike, was "the care of the Churches" (2 Corinthians 11:28-29).

This passage, like the Epistle to the Galatians and the Second to Corinth, shews St Paul as a man of high-strung and ardent nature, sensitive in his affections to an extreme degree. His whole soul was bound up with the Churches he had founded (comp. ch. 1 Thessalonians 2:8, and note). They were his "children," his "loved and longed for," his "joy and glory, and crown of boasting." He lived for nothing else. Read in illustration of this 2 Corinthians 7:2-16.