1 Thessalonians 2

Paul has served God among the Thessalonian Christians

1 Our Christian friends, you yourselves know that our visit to you had good results. 2 You know what happened to us before we came to you. The people at Philippi had done bad things to us. They had caused us to suffer. When we came to you, our God helped us to be brave. We were not afraid to tell you his good news. Many people tried to stop us, but we told you God's message.

3 When we tell people to obey God's message, we are not saying anything that is not true. We do not have a wrong purpose. We are not trying to deceive anyone. 4 Instead, we say what God wants us to say. He has chosen us to tell his good news to people. So we are not trying to please people. God is the one that we want to please. He knows all our thoughts.

5 When we came to you, we did not say nice things only to please you. You know that we never did that. We did not try to make you give things to us. We never had a secret purpose like that. God knows that this is true. 6 We did not want you, or anyone else, to praise us. 7 We could have used our authority over you, because we are Christ's apostles. But instead, we chose to be kind to you and to help you. We took care of you, like a mother takes care of her little children. 8 We loved you very much, so we wanted to tell you God's good news. We wanted to share our lives with you too.

9 Our Christian friends, remember how we worked so hard when we were with you. We worked during the day and even during the night. We did not want to cause any problems for you. So we taught you God's good news and we did not ask you to give us anything in return.

10 You know that we lived in a good way when we were with you. God also knows that. We were completely honest with you believers. Nobody could say that we did anything wrong. 11 You know that we helped you, like a father helps his own children. 12 We taught you clearly what is true. We helped you to be strong as believers. God has chosen you to be his own people. You belong to his great kingdom, where he rules. So we told you to live in a way that pleases him.

13 There is another reason why we always continue to thank God for you. When we told God's message to you, you knew that it was not human ideas. You accepted it as God's own message, and that is what it certainly is. And God continues to use his message to work among you as believers.

14 Our Christian friends, you have suffered in the same way that the people in the churches of Judea suffered. People in your own country have caused you to suffer. The people in Judea who believed in Christ Jesus received trouble from their own Jewish people. 15 It was people like that who killed the Lord Jesus. They killed God's prophets, too. They also did cruel things to us, so that we had to leave their towns. They make God become angry. They are enemies of all people, 16 because they try to stop us speaking to Gentiles. They do not want God to save anyone from another nation. In this way, they continue to do more and more bad things. When their sins become too many, God has to stop them. Now he has become so angry that he will finally punish them.

Paul wants to return to Thessalonica

17 Our friends, we have had to go away from you for a short time. But we continue to think about you. We have wanted more and more to see you again. 18 Yes, we really wanted to visit you. Certainly, I, Paul, tried many times to come to you, but Satan stopped us.

19 You are the people who make us very happy! We know that you will continue to trust God. So, when our Lord Jesus returns, we will be proud of you. You will be like a crown that he gives us when we stand in front of him. 20 You show the great results of our work. Yes, it is because of you that we are very happy.