For they themselves show of us what manner of welcome we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
All Commentaries on 1 Thessalonians 1:9 Go To 1 Thessalonians 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
What means, What manner of entering in we had unto you? That it was full of dangers, and numberless deaths, but that none of these things troubled you. But as if nothing had happened, so you adhered to us; as if you had suffered no evil, but had enjoyed infinite good, so you received us after these things. For this was the second entering. They went to Berœa, they were persecuted, and when they came after this they so received them, as though they had been honored by these also, so that they even laid down their lives for them. The expression, What manner of entering in we had, is complicated, and contains an encomium both of them and of themselves. But he himself has turned this to their advantage. And how, he says, ye turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God; that is, that you did it readily, that you did it with much eagerness, that it did not require much labor to make you. In order to serve, says he, a living and true God.
