Giving Thanks for These Believers

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.

We always give thanks to God for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers;

constantly keeping in mind your work of faith and labor of love and perseverance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father,

knowing, brothers and sisters, beloved by God, His choice of you;

For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place the news of your faith toward God has gone out, so that we have no need to say anything.

For they themselves report about us as to the kind of reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God,

but after we had already suffered and been treated abusively in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition.

but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not intending to please people, but to please God, who examines our hearts.

For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is our witness—

in the same way we had a fond affection for you and were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

For you recall, brothers and sisters, our labor and hardship: it was by working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, that we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.

You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly and rightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers;

so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of mere men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe.

For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews,

who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all people,

and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you for the benefit of your faith,

For what thanks can we give to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice because of you before our God,

Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you;

so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.

Sanctification and Love

Finally then, brothers and sisters, we request and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel even more.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality;

not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

For God has not called us for impurity, but in sanctification.

Therefore, the one who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.