1 Thessalonians 2:4
Entrusted with the gospel
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγέλιον euangelion · gospel
Original
Translations
Instead, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, not in order to please men but God, who examines our hearts.
But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.
but as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the good news, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who is proving our hearts,
오직 하나님의 옳게 여기심을 입어 복음 전할 부탁을 받았으니 우리가 이와 같이 말함은 사람을 기쁘게 하려 함이 아니요 오직 우리 마음을 감찰하시는 하나님을 기쁘시게 하려 함이라
다만 우리는 하나님의 허락을 받아 복음을 위탁받은 대로 말하노니 이것은 사람들을 기쁘게 하려 함이 아니요 오직 우리의 마음을 시험하시는 하나님을 기쁘게 하려 함이라.
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on 1Thess 2:1-6 as a whole
The apostle had no wordly design in his preaching. Suffering in a good cause should sharpen holy resolution. The gospel of Christ at first met with much opposition; and it was preached with contention, with striving in preaching, and against opposition. …
Read the whole commentary →Wesley
Nothing on this verse itself.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
Paul has just said what his preaching was not: it did not "arise from deceit or ulterior motives or trickery" (1 Thessalonians 2:3). This verse says what it was. He and his companions spoke as men God had tested and then trusted with the gospel.
Instead, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, not in order to please men but God, who examines our hearts.
1 Thessalonians 2:4The paragraph (2:1–12) is Paul's account of his conduct at Thessalonica. He never used "words of flattery or any pretext for greed" (1 Thessalonians 2:5), and he did not seek praise from anyone. This verse gives the root of all those denials: what they spoke was not theirs to shape. It had been put into their hands.
is the object of πιστευθῆναι, an aorist passive infinitive of πιστεύω, the verb "to believe." In the passive with an object it means "to be entrusted with": the gospel is a deposit, and its owner is plain. The same verb returns, again in the passive, when Paul speaks of "the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted" (1 Timothy 1:11).
More striking still is a verb used twice. is to test something, as metal is tested, and to approve it when it proves genuine. At the start of the verse it stands in the perfect passive, δεδοκιμάσμεθα: we have been tested and approved, and the approval stands. At the end it is a present participle, τῷ δοκιμάζοντι: God, who goes on testing our hearts. The One who approved them still examines them, so the message could not be bent toward what pleased the audience. Paul makes the same contrast in Galatians: "If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10).
The English versions show this play on the verb more or less. The KJV says "allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel" and "God, which trieth our hearts", where "allowed" meant approved. The BSB has "approved" and "examines". The LSV keeps the link best, with "approved by God" and "God, who is proving our hearts": proving and approving from one root, as in the Greek.
Matthew Henry finds here "the great motive to sincerity, to consider that God not only sees all we do, but knows our thoughts afar off, and searches the heart" Matthew Henry. Wesley, on the verse before, puts Paul's denials plainly: "We preach not a lie, but the truth of God" Wesley, and not in guile, "But with great plainness of speech" Wesley.
Because the message is held in trust and is not the messenger's to reshape, what a hearer receives from it is not a speaker's craft but the word of the God who entrusted it.