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Thanksgiving #1 2We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, A. For their Christian lives: 3remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. B. For God’s work in them: 4For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. B1. For their faithfulness in suffering: You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. A1. For their Christian witness: 8For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. 9For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. |
Thanksgiving #2 13And we also thank God constantly . . . . For God’s work in them: for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For their faithfulness in suffering: 14For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, 15who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind 16by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!
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– The second thanksgiving parallels the first thanksgiving, especially the middle portion (B and B1).
– Both begin with a statement about giving thanks “always” /“constantly.”
– Both end with a statement about God’s “wrath.”
– Both focus on their receiving the gospel and have the phrase, “you received the word” – 1:6; 2:13.
– The sections on thanks for God’s work in them both have a statement of contrast concerning the gospel. It was not just a word, but God was at work.
– The sections on thanks for their faithfulness in suffering both have an imitation of suffering theme.
– The last part of the first thanksgiving(A1) and the second one contain a contrast between the witness of the Thessalonians’ Christian lives and how some Judeans have been an obstacle to Christian witness.
Christian teaching 
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