1 Thessalonians 2:2 – Bold in Our God

2 but, though suffering before and being outraged in Philippi, according as you are aware, we are bold in our God to speak the evangel of God to you with a vast struggle.

What had been done to Paul and Silas in Philippi had not silenced them. In Thessalonica they once again spoke freely, even though the opposition there was also great. Paul does not simply say that they were bold, but that they were bold “in our God.” There lay the source of their boldness. And what they spoke was no more their own: it was “the evangel of God.”

Acts tells us what that speaking in Thessalonica looked like. For three sabbaths in succession Paul “argues with them from the scriptures,” “opening up and placing before them” (Acts 17:2–3, literally translated). He opened the Scriptures and set before his hearers from them that the Christ must suffer and rise from among the dead and that Jesus is this Christ. His boldness, then, did not consist of grand words or human bravado. He spoke freely because he had something to set before them from the Scriptures.

And this happened “with a vast struggle.” Acts 17 tells how the opposition ultimately resulted in a mob and the assault on Jason’s house. Yet Paul was not silenced by it. In our God he spoke, from the Scriptures, the evangel of God. There lay his boldness.

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