The Thessalonians

We exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children. Thess. 2:11
by F G. Patterson
There is something very beautiful in the condition of soul in which we find the Christians at Thessalonica. There is something so fresh, and bright, and happy in the whole tone of their life, walk and ways. Paul's letter to them is not so much a grand doctrinal essay, as some portions of his epistles, but it is the joyous outflow of the heart of one who looked on them as a father does his children (1 Thess. 2:11), or as a nurse does over her charge, over whose growth and wants she has watched and whom she has cherished.
We see this state of soul sometimes in a young Christian, or a young assembly of saints. There is such freshness and earnestness and love, and the things of Christ are so dearly prized. The Spirit of adoption is so strong, and the confiding love of children so marked that even an older saint, while he can truly desire a deepening knowledge of Christ Himself to possess the soul, must feel his heart warmed and encouraged when he sees it.
How sad, too, is the reverse, or the declension from this state, when the heart grows calculating and cold, and the freshness of the things of Christ has lost its power, when the truth is feared, and the world is not overcome. The faces of those who strengthened the laborer when he saw them drinking in the truth, and who, as regularly as the hour came, were at their accustomed place in the assembly—were now seldom there. And when he meets them, there is no longer the old, warm welcome and the bright, intelligent look when Christ is mentioned, but the heart is filled with other things, and open to the charge, "Thou hast left thy first love.”