Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Thessalonians · About this commentary
Approved to Be Entrusted
1 Thessalonians 2:3-4
3 For our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in deception. · WEB
Three denials about the preaching, and then the reason: the audience Paul is actually performing for is not in the room.
Our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in deception. Three charges denied in a row, and they map onto what a traveling speaker in that world would routinely be suspected of — being deluded, being immoral, and working a confidence trick.
The denials are the more striking for coming so early. Paul had been gone a matter of weeks and evidently expected his character to be discussed in his absence, which the length of this chapter confirms.
Verse 4 supplies the ground, and it turns on being trusted with something. We have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News — the verb for approval is the one used of metal tested and passed, and what follows the testing is a deposit handed over.
So we speak, not as pleasing men, but God. The contrast is the whole of it. A speaker who needs his audience will shape the message to them, and the only protection against that is a different audience.
And the last clause names why the arrangement works: God, who tests our hearts. Not who hears our words. The examination goes somewhere an audience cannot follow.
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