Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - 1 Thessalonians 1:2 - 1:2
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
We give thanks (eucharistoumen). Late denominative verb eucharisteō from eucharistos (grateful) and that from eu, well and charizomai, to show oneself kind. See charis in 1Th 1:1. “The plural implies that all three missionaries prayed together” (Moffatt).
Always (pantote). Late word, rare in lxx. So with eucharisteō in 2Th 1:3; 2Th 2:13; 1Co 1:4; Eph 5:20; Phi 1:3. Moffatt takes it to mean “whenever Paul was at his prayers.” Of course, he did not make audible prayer always, but he was always in the spirit of prayer, “a constant attitude” (Milligan), “in tune with the Infinite.”
For you all (peri pantōn humōn). Paul “encircled (peri, around) them all,” including every one of them and the church as a whole. Distance lends enchantment to the memory of slight drawbacks. Paul is fond of this phrase “you all,” particularly in Phil. (Phi 1:3, Phi 1:7).
Making mention (mneian poioumenoi). Paul uses this very idiom in Rom 1:9; Eph 1:16; Phm 1:4. Milligan cites a papyrus example of mneian poioumenoi in prayer (B. Y. U. 652, 5). Did Paul have a prayer list of the Thessalonian disciples which he read over with Silas and Timothy?
In here is epi = “in the time of our prayers.” “Each time that they are engaged in prayers the writers mention the names of the converts” (Frame).