Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 1 Thessalonians 5:26 - 5:26
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1Th_5:26. Ἀσπάσασθε τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς πάντας ] That here individuals[68] are exhorted to salute the other members of the church, whilst in the parallel passages, Rom_16:16, 1Co_16:20, 2Co_13:12, it is ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους , is a proof that this Epistle was to be received by the rulers of the church. (So also Php_4:21.) By them it was to be read to the assembled church (1Th_5:27). Erroneously, because in contradiction with the entire character of the Epistle, Schrader infers from τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς πάντας that “the writer of the Epistle wished to impart to it a general destination.”
ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ ] with a holy kiss. Comp. 1Co_16:20; 2Co_13:12; Rom_16:16; also 1Pe_5:14 ( φίλημα ἀγάπης ); Constit. ap. ii. 57 ( τὸ ἐν κυρίῳ φίλημα ); Tertullian, de orat. 14 (osculum pacis). The brotherly kiss, the usual salutation of Christians, proceeded from the custom of antiquity, particularly in the East, to unite a salutation with a kiss. But Paul calls it ἅγιον , as a symbol of the holy Christian fellowship. In the Greek church it is still used at Easter.
[68] Contrary to the sense, Hofmann, whom Riggenbach follows, makes the whole church, the ἀδελφοὶ πάντες , be addressed in ἀσπάσασθε ; thus the church is to salute itself.