Imitators of the Assemblies in Judea
14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men, 16 forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.
Their suffering makes them like churches they had never met — and the sharpest words in the letter follow.
You became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea. The word is the same one used in 1 Thessalonians 1:6, but the imitation here was not chosen. It happened to them.
The likeness is specified precisely: you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen. That is the comfort in the verse, and it is the only comfort offered. A Gentile congregation in Macedonia is told that its experience matches congregations in Judea it had never seen — the persecution is not evidence of having gone wrong.
Verses 15 and 16 are the hardest words in the letter. Paul lists what was done: they killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, drove us out, and forbid us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved.
The clause describes the particular opponents who had driven him from city to city, not a people as such — and the man writing it was himself a Jew who elsewhere could wish himself cursed for their sake Romans 9:3. The charge is against actions, and the last stings most: obstructing the message that would have saved the very Gentiles being written to.
held with reason What this mark means