“We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers;”
King James Version (KJV)
1:1 Paul - In this epistle St. Paul neither uses the title of an apostle, nor any other, as writing to pious and simple - hearted men, with the utmost familiarity. There is a peculiar sweetness in this epistle, unmixed with any sharpness or reproof: those evils which the apostles afterward reproved having not yet crept into the church.
1:3 Remembering in the sight of God - That is, praising him for it. Your work of faith - Your active, ever - working faith. And labour of love - Love continually labouring for the bodies or souls of men. They who do not thus labour, do not love. Faith works, love labours, hope patiently suffers all things.
1:4 Knowing your election - Which is through faith, by these plain proofs.
1Th 1:2 We. The plural, perhaps, is used because Silas and Timothy were joined in the greeting, but the Epistle is Paul's, not the joint work of three persons. Give thanksto God. Almost all Paul's letters begin with thanksgiving.