Contents of the epistle.
| i. | 1. | Salutation. |
| 2–10. | Thanksgiving for reception and diffusion of the Gospel. | |
| ii. | 1–12. | Appeal to their knowledge of what Paul’s ministry had been. |
| 13–16. | Thanksgiving for fidelity under the strain of Jewish hostility. | |
| 17—iii. 13. | Baffled purposes resulting in the despatch of Timothy, and theoutburst of joy for the good news with which he returned. | |
| iv. | 1–12. | Warning against lustful injustice, and exhortation to a furtherdevelopment of brotherly love. |
| 13—v. 11. | The Second Advent in its relation to those who already slept. | |
| 12–24. | Ethics of Church-life and personal life. | |
| 25–28. | Conclusion. | |
CHAPTER I.
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
Ver. 1. Paul, and Sylvanus, and Timotheus.—As to Paul, it may be noted that he does not mention his office. It was largely owing to the aspersions of others that he came, later, to magnify his office. Sylvanus is the “fellow-helper” and fellow-sufferer of the apostle, better known to New Testament readers by the shortened form of his name—Silas. That he was a Jew appears from Acts xv., but, like Paul, able to claim the privilege of Roman citizenship (Acts xvi.). Timotheus is the valuable and dear companion of St. Paul. Twelve or fourteen years later he is said to be still young (1 Tim. iv. 12). He, too, is only partly a Jew (Acts xvi. 3). Grace be unto you, and peace.—The men who are by birth and training divided between Jew and Gentile, salute both. It is not less true of the Gospel than the law that it speaks the language of the children of men. All that grace could mean to the Greek, or peace to the Hebrew, met in Him whose title was written above the cross in Hebrew and Greek and Latin.
Ver. 3. Work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope.—The famous three sister-graces familiar to us from St. Paul’s other letters. As Bengel says, they are Summa Christianismi. St. James, one thinks, would have liked the expression, “work of faith” (Jas. ii. 14–26). But if faith works, love cannot be outdone (1 Cor. xiii. 13), and toils with strenuous endeavour; whilst hope—a faculty flighty enough with some—here patiently endures, “pressing on and bearing up.”
Ver. 4. Your election.—God is said to pick out, not for any inherent qualities, certain persons for purposes of His own. The same idea is in the word “saints,” as those whom God has separated from a godless world and made them dear to Himself.
Ver. 5. Our gospel.—The good news which we proclaimed; so when St. Paul in Rom. ii. 16 calls it “my gospel.” In word . . . in power.—The antithesis is sometimes between the word or declaration and the reality; here perhaps we have an advance on that. Not only was it a word the contents of which were really truth, but efficacious too. In much assurance.—R.V. margin, “in much fulness.” “The power is in the Gospel preached, the fulfilment in the hearers, and the Holy Spirit above and within them inspires both” (Findlay).
Ver. 6. Followers of us and of the Lord.—R.V. “imitators.” St. Paul begs his Corinthian readers to imitate him, even as he imitates Christ. The same thought is implied here: We are walking after Christ; walk after us, and you will follow Him. With joy of the Holy Ghost.—Not only was the word preached “in the Holy Ghost” (ver. 5), but it was eagerly welcomed by hearts made ready by the Holy Ghost—as St. Paul said to the Corinthians, “So we preach, so ye believed.”