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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - 1 Thessalonians 2:15 - 2:15
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Our apostle's design being to encourage the Thessalonians to patience and constancy under their persecutions for Christianity, he acquaints them, that they did not walk alone in this thorny path, but that Jesus Christ, the prophets and apostles, went before them, and every step they took in it, was up to the knees in blood; They killed the Lord Jesus, &c.
Where observe, the bitter and bloody persecution which the Jews were guilty of,
they killed the Lord Jesus, and before him their own prophets, called their own, because of their own nation, and sent with a peculiar message to them; and now they persecuted, banished, and drove away St. Paul, and the rest of the apostles;
they pleased not God, that is, they highly displeased him, dreadfully provoked him, they were haters of God, hateful to him, now hated of him, and, lastly,
rejected by him; contrary to all men, that is, to the common interest of all men, by endeavouring to obstruct the preaching of the gospel, which bringeth salvation to all men;
forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that is, to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and consequently obstructing, what in them lay, the salvation almost of all the world;
filling up the measure of their sins, till at last the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost, in their judicial obduration, and the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; after which the Jews have been no more a people, but scattered abroad through the face of the earth.
From the whole, learn 1. That it is a singular support to suffering saints to consider, that Christ and his apostles suffered before them; and by his sufferings, has sanctified a state of affliction and persecution to them.
Learn, 2. That a spirit of persecution seems oft-times to run in the blood, and passes from parent to child, through many generations. Persecution became, as it were, hereditary, and, in a sort, transient from one generation to another among the Jews; they killed Christ, stoned the prophets, and persecuted the apostles.
Note 3. How St. Paul ranks and reckons them that are enemies to the preaching of the gospel, with the obstinate shedders of Christ's blood, they are enrolled amongst the capital enemies of mankind; They killed the Lord of life, forbidding us to preach to the Gentiles; such as are enemies to preaching are enemies to the souls of men.
Object. But what need so much preaching amongst us, who are converted from heathenism to Christianity?
Ans. It is one thing to be converted from heathenism to Christianity, and another thing to be converted from sin to God.
Object. But we have the Bible for that end, and can make use of that.
Ans. Observe it, and you will find that such as are no friends to the pulpit, are usually none of the best friends to the Bible; follow them to their families, how doth the Bible lie by as a neglected book amongst them; and it must be a large charity, that can judge it is conscientiously used in the closet, when it is carelessly neglected in the family.