Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Thessalonians · About this commentary
Taught by God to Love
1 Thessalonians 4:9-10
9 But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another, · WEB
Paul says they need no instruction on brotherly love, gives none, and then asks for more of it.
But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. Having just written firmly about purity, Paul changes register entirely. On this subject he declines to instruct them.
The reason is a single compound word occurring nowhere else in Scripture: they are taught by God to love one another. Paul appears to have made it for the occasion, and the prophets had promised exactly this — a law written on the heart, with no need for a man to teach his neighbor Jeremiah 31:33–34.
Verse 10 supplies the evidence, and it is geographic: they do it toward all the brothers in Macedonia . Their love had crossed city boundaries to congregations they were not responsible for.
Then, having said they need no instruction, he exhorts them anyway — abound more and more, the phrase of 1 Thessalonians 4:1. Paul asks for increase in what is working rather than repair of what is broken, and never treats a genuine commendation as a reason to stop asking.
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