1 Thessalonians 1:8

) was very famous, and spread abroad. This is the radical grace; and their faith was a true and living faith, because a working faith. Note, Wherever there is a true faith, it will work: it will have an influence upon heart and life; it will put us upon working for God and for our own salvation.

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For from you the word sounded forth - (Thessalonica being a city of great commerce.) Being echoed, as it were, from you. And your conversion was divulged far beyond Macedonia and Achaia.

From you sounded out - As Thessalonica vas very conveniently situated for traffic, many merchants from thence traded through Macedonia, Achaia, and different parts of Greece. By these, the fame of the Thessalonians having received the doctrine of the Gospel was doubtless carried far and wide. And it appears that they had walked so conscientiously before God and man, that their friends could speak of them without a blush, and their adversaries could say nothing to their disgrace.

PAUL went to Thessalonica from Philippi with a sore back but with a sound heart. He went resolved to spend and to be spent for his Lord in that city. On the first three Sabbaths he spoke to the Jews in the synagogue but he soon found that they were obstinately resolved to reject Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Therefore he directed his attention to the heathen of Thessalonica and among them he had wonderful success.

In "sounded," the image is that of a trumpet filling with its clear-sounding echo all the surrounding places. to God-ward--no longer directed to idols. so that we need not to speak any thing--to them in praise of your faith; "for (1Th 1:9) they themselves" (the people in Macedonia, Achaia, and in every place) know it already.

PAUL went to Thessalonica from Philippi with a sore back but with a sound heart. He went resolved to spend and to be spent for his Lord in that city. On the first three Sabbaths he spoke to the Jews in the synagogue but he soon found that they were obstinately resolved to reject Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Therefore he directed his attention to the heathen of Thessalonica and among them he had wonderful success. Large numbers of persons, some of honorable rank, turned from their idols to worship the living God and he soon gathered about him an enthusiastic people. During his stay at Thessalonica he pretty nearly wore himself out—for he had determined that he would accept no help from the people who appeared to have been in great straits at that time. He toiled night and day at his trade of tent-making but even then could not earn sufficient income to survive. He might have failed to maintain his existence had not the Believers at Philippi sent once, and again, to assist him. Thus, being affectionately desirous of winning them to Jesus, the Apostle was willing to have given to them not the Gospel of God, only, but even his own life. The Lord accepted the cheerful sacrifice and gave the Apostle the reward he sought. The Thessalonians not only received the Word with joy of the Holy Spirit but became zealous in making it known. Their intensity of faith helped to spread the Gospel, for their lives were notably affected by it. And for their earnestness and godliness they were everywhere talked of. Living in a trading town, to which many went and from which many came, their singular devotion to the faith of the Lord Jesus became the theme of conversation all over Greece. And thus enquiry was promoted and the Gospel was sounded out far and wide. In their case, learners speedily became teachers.

A WORKMAN likes to see that he has been doing something. It is very dispiriting if he has spent much toil and can see no result. God's workmen by faith would continue still to labor, even if they saw nothing come of it, but it is much more comforting, much more easy for them to continue in service when they see that God is blessing them.

A WORKMAN likes to see that he has been doing something. It is very dispiriting if he has spent much toil and can see no result. God's workmen by faith would continue still to labor, even if they saw nothing come of it, but it is much more comforting, much more easy for them to continue in service when they see that God is blessing them. Now it is not wrong for a Christian minister to speak about the conversions that have been worked under his ministry, for Paul says that he would have done so, only that others did it so constantly that there was no need of it. Paul, however, would not, under any circumstances, have done a wrong thing and, therefore, we gather that it is sometimes most allowable that we should see what has been done and should speak of it—and the more especially because if any good is done by any ministry, it is God that has done it—and all the glory is due to Him and to Him, alone! Not to speak of what God has done would be ingratitude. It might have a semblance of humility, but in reality it would be disloyalty to the Most High. Paul, therefore, did not hesitate to speak of his converts at Thessalonica and of their good character—and of the good fruit which they had borne and the way in which they had spread abroad the Gospel. He did not boast—he gave God the glory of it, but he did speak of what had been done. And we think we may do the same in any measure in which God shall bless our work—any one of us may tell of it to the praise and glory of God and to the encouragement of our fellow laborers. Now the Apostle in this passage tells us what God had done at Thessalonica. We will proceed at once, for our text is long—we will proceed at once to the handling of it. And you will note that he tells us, first, what he had preached at Thessalonica. Then how it had come to the people. And thirdly, what had been the result of this to themselves.

For from you sounded out the word of the Lord - The truths of religion were thus spread abroad. The word rendered “sounded out” - ἐξήχηται exēchētai - refers to the sounding of a trumpet (Bloomfield), and the idea is, that the gospel was proclaimed like the sonorous voice of a trumpet echoing from place to place; compare Isa 58:1; Rev 1:10. Their influence had an effect in diffusing the gospel in other places, as if the sound of a trumpet echoed and reechoed among the hills and along the vales of the classic land of Greece. This seems to have been done: (1) Involuntarily; that is, the necessary result of their conversion, even without any direct purpose of the kind of their own, would be to produce this effect. Their central and advantageous commercial position; the fact that many of them were in the habit of visiting other places; and the fact that they were visited by strangers from abroad, would naturally contribute to this result. But. (2) This does not appear to be all that is intended. The apostle commends them in such a way as to make it certain that they were voluntary in the spread of the gospel; that they made decided efforts to take advantage of their position to send the knowledge of the truth abroad. If so, this is an interesting instance of one of the first efforts made by a church to diffuse the gospel, and to send it to those who were destitute of it. There is no improbability in the supposition that they sent out members of their church - messengers of salvation - to other parts of Macedonia and Greece that they might communicate the same gospel to others. See Doddridge. But also in every place - Thessalonica was connected not only with Macedonia and Greece proper, in its commercial relations, but also with the ports of Asia Minor, and not improbably with still more remote regions. […]