1 Thessalonians 5:12

5. Closing charges and admonitions, and farewell, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28.

a. Fulfilment of churchly duties, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15 .

12. Know them Appreciate, rightly estimate them.

Labour… over… admonish Three classes of functions, but, as the Greek shows, not three classes of men. The three terms thus translated are participles, and may be rendered those labouring, presiding over, and admonishing. Like a very high churchman, Dr. Wordsworth (though then but an archdeacon) finds in these three participles (where the working stands first and highest) “a body of clergy already established.” A Wesleyan commentator might as well find in the three words stewards, class leaders, and exhorters. It is not probable that the Thessalonian Church, but a year or so old, was numerous enough to support or need a “body of clergy.” But the absence of the repeated Greek articles shows that all three functions were performed by the same class of men. Dr. Wordsworth, in his note on 1 Thessalonians 1:1, (where see our note,) doubts, in fact, whether the Church was as yet organized. A higher dignitary than Wordsworth, Bishop Benson, as quoted by Bloomfield, gives the following more moderate and probable view: “It was common with St. Paul to collect a Church, and impart some spiritual and miraculous powers unto them, and then leave them for some time, without ordaining bishops and deacons among them. Acts 14:1; Acts 21:23; 1 Timothy 5:22; Titus 1:5; and many other places. But whenever things were found to be in a proper situation, then the apostle, or some of the evangelists, his assistants, went and ordained some of the elders, or first converts, to be bishops, and others to be deacons.” It would certainly seem, from the fact that St. Paul has no name or title to give to these functionaries, that this Church was in the inchoate state described by Benson, spontaneously controlled by men of natural or spiritual ascendency, by the spontaneous assent of the people, yet waiting for the appointment, by regular ordination, of regular officials.