1 Thessalonians 2:15

2:13-16 We should receive the word of God with affections suitable to its holiness, wisdom, truth, and goodness. The words of men are frail and perishing, like themselves, and sometimes false, foolish, and fickle; but God's word is holy, wise, just, and faithful. Let us receive and regard it accordingly. The word wrought in them, to make them examples to others in faith and good works, and in patience under sufferings, and in trials for the sake of the gospel. Murder and persecution are hateful to God, and no zeal for any thing in religion can excuse it. Nothing tends more to any person or people's filling up the measure of their sins, than opposing the gospel, and hindering the salvation of souls. The pure gospel of Christ is abhorred by many, and the faithful preaching of it is hindered in many ways. But those who forbid the preaching it to sinners, to men dead in sin, do not by this please God. Those have cruel hearts, and are enemies to the glory of God, and to the salvation of his people, who deny them the Bible.

1 Thessalonians 2:15 . Ἀποκτεινάντων , who have killed ) This is indeed the sin of the whole people, their greatest sin, and one not yet acknowledged.— προφήτας , the prophets ) This word is construed with who have killed . That former guilt of theirs [in killing the prophets ] woke up in all its strength then especially, when they slew the Lord Himself.— ἡμᾶς , us ) the apostles.— ἐκδιωξάντων , who have cast out by persecution ) Luke 11:49 , note.— μὴ ἀρεσκόντων ) not seeking to please .— ἐναντίων , and are adverse [ contrary ]) The Jews regarded the Gentiles with aversion, and were unwilling at that time that the word should be preached to them.

{13} Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; {14} and they please not God, and are contrary to {i} all men: (13) He prevents an offence which might be taken, because the Jews especially above all others persecuted the Gospel. That is no new thing, he says, seeing that they slew Christ himself, and his Prophets, and have banished me also. (14) He foretells the utter destruction of the Jews, lest any man should be moved by their rebellion. (i) For the Jews would neither enter into the kingdom of God themselves, nor allow others to enter in.

Persecuted (ἐκδιωξάντων) Rev. more literally and correctly, drave out. The word only here, though it occurs as an alternative reading, Luke 11:49. Probably with special reference to his own expulsion from Thessalonica. Acts 17:5-10. Contrary to all men Tacitus (Hist. v. 5) describes the Jews as stubborn in their faith, prompt in kindly offices to each other, but bitterly hostile toward everybody else: Juvenal (Sat. xiv. 102 f.) says that they observe and respect whatever Moses has taught in his mystical volume; not to show the way except to one who practices the same rites, and to show the well only to the circumcised.

Verse 15. - Who both killed the Lord Jesus ; emphatic, to point out the greatness of their wickedness. And their own prophets ; or, as some manuscripts read, and the prophets . This crime was often laid to the charge of the Jews: thus, by our Lord, "Ye are witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets" ( Matthew 23:31 ); and by the protomartyr Stephen, "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?" ( Acts 7:25 .) And have persecuted us ; literally, driven us out , as Paul and Silos were expelled from Thessalonica. And they please not God, but are contrary to all men. The hatred and contempt which the Jews bore to other nations is noticed by Tacitus, Juvenal, and other heathen writers.

Thus Tacitus writes of them: "They are faithful to obstinacy, and merciful toward themselves, but toward all others are actuated by the most irreconcilable hatred ( odium humani generis )." And Juvenal says, "They will not show the road to one who was not of their religion, nor lead the thirsty person if uncircumcised to the common spring." Perhaps, however, the apostle refers here, not to the enmity of the Jews to the human race in general, though perfectly cognizant of their bigotry and intolerance; as this enmity was a perversion of their peculiar distinction as he people of God; but rather to their opposition to his preaching the gospel to the Gentiles - to their extreme reluctance that the Gentiles along with themselves should be admitted into the kingdom of God. 1 Thessalonians 2:15

15. the Lord Jesus—rather as Greek, "Jesus THE Lord." This enhances the glaring enormity of their sin, that in killing Jesus they killed the Lord (Compare Ac 3:14, 15). their own—omitted in the oldest manuscripts. prophets—(Mt 21:33-41; 23:31-37; Lu 13:33). persecuted us—rather as Greek (see Margin), "By persecution drove us out" (Lu 11:49). please not God—that is, they do not make it their aim to please God. He implies that with all their boast of being God's peculiar people, they all the while are "no pleasers of God," as certainly as, by the universal voice of the world, which even they themselves cannot contradict, they are declared to be perversely "contrary to all men." Josephus [Against Apion, 2.14], represents one calling them "Atheists and Misanthropes, the dullest of barbarians"; and Tacitus [Histories, 5.5], "They have a hostile hatred of all other men." However, the contrariety to all men here meant is, in that they "forbid us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved" (1Th 2:16).

(15) Who both killed. —A tremendous invective against the Jews, the purpose of which is (1) to show the deep sympathy of St. Paul with the persecuted Thessalonians, and his indignation against the persecutors; (2) to make them see still more deeply the value of their faith by the efforts made to keep it from them. Objection is often made to St. John’s Gospel on the ground that no born Jew could have written of “the Jews” in the bitter way so common in that book, or viewed them so completely as a separate body from himself. This passage, in an indubitable epistle of “a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” seems a satisfactory answer. The memories of St. Stephen’s speech ( Acts 7:52 ) seem to be waking in the mind of him who was once a persecuting Jew himself. Have persecuted.—Take the marginal version, “chased” (not “have chased”) “us violently out of Thessalonica.” They please not God—(though to serve and please Him was the special purpose for which the nation was set apart, ) “and are at cross purposes with all mankind.” The historian Tacitus gives, as a characteristic of the race, “an attitude of hostility and hatred towards all others.” Juvenal makes the same accusation.

Who both killed the Lord Jesus; no wonder then though they have persecuted you, and the believing Jews their countrymen. They killed the Lord Jesus by the hands of Pilate, crying: Crucify him, crucify him. Though it was by God’s determinate counsel, and the Roman power, yet by the Jews’ malice they killed him; Matthew 21:38 : This is the heir; let us kill him. And their own prophets; of their own nation, and directed and sent particularly to them of God; so that it was no new thing in them thus to do. Not that these individual Jews who persecuted Paul killed the prophets, but they were of the same nation, the same blood, and of the same spirit with them, and were the children of them, that killed the prophets, as our Saviour charged them, Matthew 23:31 . The spirit of persecution was natural to them, it descended from one generation to another; their kings were guilty of it, their priests, their false prophets, and the common people. And though better things might be expected of the Jews than any other people, yet thus they did. And it was not only because of the new doctrine or worship that the apostle preached, for they killed their own prophets before them; but it was their love to their lusts, hatred of reproof, enmity to holiness, &c., that was the cause. And Christ himself chargeth them with the same things, Matthew 23:37 : O Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, & c.; and foretells it as that which they would yet practise, Matthew 23:34 .

And they please not God; by the figure called meiosis; it is meant they highly displeased God, and were haters of God, and hated, and now rejected, of him. Though they had the advantages and reasons to please God above all other people, having had the law and ordinances of his worship among them, yet they pleased not God, and particularly in their persecutions of the gospel and the apostles, though they might think that therein they did God good service, as John 16:2 . And are contrary to all men; contrary in their worship, laws, and customs. Or rather, contrary to all men, in hindering the course of the gospel appointed for men’s salvation. And despising all other nations in comparison of themselves, they were apt to be seditious, and raise tumults every where, and to disdain familiarity and common friendship with the Gentiles.

Who both killed the Lord Jesus - see the notes on Acts 2:23 . The meaning here is, that it was characteristic of the Jews to be engaged in the work of persecution, and that they should not regard it as strange that they who had put their own Messiah to death, and slain the prophets, should now be found persecuting the true children of God. And their own prophets - see the Matthew 21:33-40; Matthew 23:29-37 notes; Acts 7:52 note. And have persecuted us - As at Iconium Acts 14:1, Derbe, and Lystra Acts 14:6, and at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. The meaning is, that it was characteristic of them to persecute, and they spared no one. If they had persecuted the apostles themselves, who were their own countrymen, it should not be considered strange that they should persecute those who were Gentiles. And they please not God - Their conduct is not such as to please God, but such as to expose them to his wrath; 1 Thessalonians 2:16. The meaning is not that they did not aim to please God - whatever may have been the truth about that - but that they had shown by all their history that their conduct could not meet with the divine approbation. They made extraordinary pretensions to being the special people of God, and it was important for the apostle to show that their conduct demonstrated that they had no such claims. Their opposition to the Thessalonians, therefore, was no proof that God was opposed to them, and they should not allow themselves to be troubled by such opposition.