2 Thessalonians 3:5
And hthe Lord idirect your hearts into the love of God, and jinto 3the patient waiting for Christ.
And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.
ὁ δὲ Κύριος κατευθύναι ὑμῶν τὰς καρδίας εἰς τὴν ἀγάπην τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ εἰς τὴν ὑπομονὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ.
Textual key: no entry
h:
1 Chronicles 29:18 O LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee:
Jude 1:21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
1 John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
1 John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
1 Thessalonians 4:1 Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
1 Thessalonians 4:9 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
i:
1 Thessalonians 3:11 Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you.
j:
1 Thessalonians 3:3 That no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto.
1 Thessalonians 1:3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;
1 Thessalonians 1:10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
2 Timothy 4:8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
Hebrews 9:28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
2 Peter 3:12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
3:
1 Thessalonians 1:3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;
Here the apostle prays for them again, as he had done a little before, 2Th 2:17; and as this shows how much they were in his heart, so the frequent mingling of prayers with his exhortations shows they could not be effectual without God. And he prays for two things:
1. To have their hearts directed into the love of God; which is either meant passively, for God’s love to them, to have their hearts, that is, their whole soul, engaged in the study, contemplation, and admiration of this love; or rather actively, for their love to God, to have their hearts set straight into the love of God, as the Greek word imports; drawn out towards him as a straight line to its centre, or as an arrow directed to the mark. Till man’s love is set upon God, the motions of the heart are crooked and irregular; as the ways of sin are called crooked ways, Psa 125:5; and John Baptist’s ministry was to make crooked things straight, Isa 40:4. The turning man’s heart and ways towards God makes them straight.
David prays, Psa 119:36: Incline my heart unto thy testimonies; [Hebrew] or, bend my heart; as we bend a crooked stick to make it straight. Or as he prays God to unite his heart to his fear, Psa 86:11; so here Paul, to direct theirs to his love, by which some understand all religion. We learn hence, that to direct man’s heart to the love of God is the work of God, and beyond our power.
And the hearts of the best saints stand in need of a more perfect and constant direction unto the love of God. Patient sufferings for Christ’s sake; as the apostle calls his sufferings for Christ’s sake, the sufferings of Christ, often, 2Co 1:5 Php 3:10, &c.; and patience for his sake, is called the patience of Christ, Rev 1:9. In this sense, the apostle prays they may have hearts ready to suffer, and patiently to suffer for Christ’s sake, Heb 10:36 Jas 5:10; and suited to a suffering state, which the heart is naturally averse and disinclined unto. And the word is often used in this sense for patience under the cross.
And so the apostle hath his eye in his prayer upon the suffering state these believers were in for Christ’s sake. If the sense be rendered as in our translation, he prays for their hearts to be fixed upon the coming of Christ, to look towards it, and patiently to wait for it; the Greek word being often taken for the patience of expectation as well as of suffering, Rom 8:25 Heb 10:36: and so it is the same as waiting for the Son of God from heaven, mentioned 1Th 1:10, and looking for the Saviour, Php 3:20; that hereby they might not faint under his sufferings, nor be surprised by his coming. And because the hearts of the best are apt either to be remiss or secure upon the delay of Christ’s coming, he therefore prays their hearts might be directed to a patient waiting for it, as the apostle Peter upon the same account exhorts believers to the girding up the loins of their mind, 1Pe 1:13.