But concerning brotherly love you need not that I write unto you: for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
All Commentaries on 1 Thessalonians 4:9 Go To 1 Thessalonians 4
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Why then having discoursed with them earnestly concerning chastity, and being about to discourse about the duty of working, and about the not sorrowing for the departed, does he introduce that which was the principal of all good things, love, as if he were passing it over, saying, We have no need to write to you? This also is from his great wisdom, and belongs to spiritual instruction. For here he shows two things. First, that the thing is so necessary, as not to require instruction. For things that are very important are manifest to all. And secondly, by saying this he makes them more ashamed than if he had admonished them. For he who thinks that they have behaved aright, and therefore does not admonish them, even if they had not behaved aright, would the sooner lead them to it. And observe, he does not speak of love towards all, but of that towards the brethren. We have no need to write unto you. He ought then to have been silent, and to say nothing, if there was no need. But now by saying there is no need, he has done a greater thing, than if he had said it.
For you yourselves are taught of God. And see with how high a praise he has made God their Teacher in this matter. You need not, he says, to learn from man. Which also the prophet says, and they shall all be taught of God. Isaiah 54:13 For you yourselves, he says, are taught of God to love one another. For indeed ye do it toward all the brethren, and those which are in all Macedonia; and toward all the others, he means. These words are very encouraging to make them do so. And I do not merely say, that you are taught of God, but I know it from the things which you do. And in this respect he bore many testimonies to them.
