Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Thessalonians · About this commentary
Bold After Philippi
1 Thessalonians 2:1-2
1 For you yourselves know, brothers, our visit to you wasn’t in vain, · WEB
Paul arrived in Thessalonica straight from a beating and a jail cell, and preached anyway.
Our visit to you wasn't in vain. The word means empty — without content or result — and Paul is answering a charge, or forestalling one, about what kind of men had come through.
Verse 2 gives the circumstances, and they are specific enough to be checked by anyone who cared to. Having suffered before and been shamefully treated at Philippi . Acts records what that means: stripped, beaten with rods without trial, and put in the inner prison with their feet in stocks Acts 16:22–24. The word for shameful treatment carries the insult as much as the injury, and Paul, a Roman citizen, had been flogged without a hearing.
He arrived in Thessalonica from that. And the sentence says he grew bold in our God to tell you the Good News in much conflict.
Two details keep it from being a boast. The boldness is located in our God rather than in himself, and the conflict did not stop on arrival — it was much conflict there too. He is not describing courage that overcame difficulty but courage exercised inside it, which is the same thing he will ask of them.
settled What this mark means