by Darrel Cline (darrelcline biblical-thinking.org)
Chapter # 1 Paragraph # 2 Study # 4 March 6, 2024 Broadlands, Louisiana (Download Audio)
I. The Overall Paragraph In Terms Of Its Focus.
A. Paul's prayers because of the response the Thessalonians gave to the message of the Gospel.
1. Began with "thanksgiving" expressed to God.
2. Moved from this gratitude to incessant, intercessory, prayer.
a. Paul's words are somewhat vague: there is an element of latitude of meaning in terms like "always" and "you all" and "mention" and "incessant".
b. But, these words do provide a framework for those who would "become imitators" of both Paul, Sylvanus, and Timothy (on the human side) and "The Lord" (on the divine side) according to 1:6.
c. The general parameters of these words.
1) "Always" does not mean "all the time"; rather, the phrase "upon [the time of] our prayers" gives the meaning of "in all of our specific times of prayer".
2) "Concerning all of you", likewise probably does not mean "individually" as much as "all of you in the 'group' of those who responded to the Gospel".
a) That there were, by this time, hundreds of people who had heard and believed the Gospel from Paul's lips makes it unlikely that he considered each one individually in the times of his daily prayers.
b) There were special circumstances for each group that Paul had taught over the times of his travels, and it is likely that his prayers for "all of them" fell into the context of those circumstances.
(1) The brethren in Antioch where Paul had spent a good amount of time all had the same "general" needs.
(2) Those in the Galatian regions also had specific "issues" that were different from those of Antioch.
(3) Those in Philippi, likewise, represented the specific setting of that city.
(4) In the letter to the Ephesians, there are two specific sections of the early part of the letter that give some indication as to what was included in Paul's appeals to God for "all of you" (1:16-23 and 3:14-19).
3) "Making mention" does not go into any specifics about what "mention" entails: was it a brief "mention", or was it an involved "mention"?
4) "Incessantly bearing in mind" (this verb is linked to the "mention" to which Paul already referred) is, likewise, probably not "all that he thought about" "upon [the time of] our prayers", but a "regular element" that surfaced when he prayed for all of those with whom he had had a significant input as a preacher of the Truth.