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1 Thessalonians 2
1For you yourselves know, brothers, our visit to you wasn’t in vain,
2but having suffered before and been shamefully treated, as you know, at Philippi, we grew bold in our God to tell you the Good News of God in much conflict.
3For our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in .
4But even as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News, so we speak—not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts.
5For neither were we at any time found using words of flattery, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness (God is witness),
6nor seeking glory from men (neither from you nor from others), when we might have claimed authority as apostles of .
7But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother cherishes her own children.
8Even so, affectionately for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us.
9For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail; for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached to you the Good News of God.
10You are witnesses with God how holy, righteously, and blamelessly we behaved ourselves toward you who .
11As you know, we exhorted, comforted, and implored every one of you, as a father does his own children,
12to the end that you should walk worthily of God, who calls you into his own Kingdom and glory.
13For this cause we also thank God without ceasing that when you received from us of the message of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, God’s word, which also works in you who .
14For you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea in Jesus; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews
15who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men,
16forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be , to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.
17But we, brothers, being bereaved of you for a short season in presence, not in heart, tried even harder to see your face with great ,
18because we wanted to come to you—indeed, I, Paul, once and again—but Satan hindered us.
19For what is our hope, or joy, or of rejoicing? Isn’t it even you, before our Lord Jesus at his coming?
20For you are our glory and our joy.
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Questions this passage answers
How do I know God's will for my life?
Scripture speaks of God's will in two ways. His revealed will is what he has already told us plainly and is not in doubt: holiness, love, gratitude, obedience. His hidden will concerns the future and is not given to us in advance. The Bible directs almost all its attention to the first, and it teaches us to make wise decisions inside it rather than to decode secret guidance.
What happens after death?
Scripture teaches that death is not the end but a passage into God's presence for those who trust Christ, and separation from him for those who do not. For the believer, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and this immediate hope is followed by a future bodily resurrection at Christ's return. Death is appointed once, and after it comes judgment, which is why the question is never merely academic.