1 Thessalonians 2:8
So obeing affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.
So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.
οὕτως, ἱμειρόμενοι ὑμῶν, εὐδοκοῦμεν μεταδοῦναι ὑμῖν οὐ μόνον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς ἑαυτῶν ψυχάς, διότι ἀγαπητοὶ ἡμῖν γεγένησθε.
Textual key: no entry
o:
Romans 1:11 For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;
2 Corinthians 12:14 Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
2 Corinthians 12:15 And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.
Galatians 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
Colossians 1:28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Colossians 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
Philippians 2:17 Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.
A further account of their behaviour among them. The former verse showed their great gentleness, this their great love; expressed, first: In their affectionate desire of them; as the Latin phrase, cupidissimus fui, imports love to the person. And it was the desire of their salvation, first in their believing, and then perseverance and progress in faith. It was themselves, not their goods, they desired; as Paul elsewhere saith: We seek not yours, but you. Secondly, In the effect of it, which was imparting the gospel to them, whereby they might be saved; which is amplified by two things:
1. That they did this willingly, not out of mere necessity, with a backward mind; the word is ευδοκουμεν, we were well pleased to preach, and with complacence of mind.
2. That they were willing to impart their souls to them; that is, to hazard their lives for them in preaching to them, as Act 16:1-40; the same word signifying both the soul and life, and he that dies for another gives his life to them. Or, it may refer to their labours and hardships, whereby they endangered their lives for them, labouring night and day, 1Th 2:9. Others understand the words only as an expression of their great affection to them; a man imparts his soul to the person whom he entirely loves, as Isa 58:10; when a man gives relief to a person in want out of love and compassion, he imparts his soul in what he gives. So did they in the gospel thus preached.
And the word imparting is used to express relief to the wants of the body, Rom 12:8; and the gospel is the bread of life to give relief to the soul, and used in this sense also, Rom 1:11. The apostle may here futher allude to mothers that are nurses, who impart not only other food, but their milk, which is their blood, to cherish their children.
or, ye have been beloved of us; wherein the apostle more plainly declares their love to them as the ground of all their labours and perils in preaching to them; yea, it may reach to all that he had said before concerning their carriage among them, all was from love.