This verse expresses the result of which the reason has just been given. Believers is here a synonym for “Christians,” a rare term in the New Testament (see Acts 11.26). Paul does not mean that the Thessalonian Christians set out to evangelize the rest of Macedonia and areas beyond, but that the Christians in those places were strengthened when they heard what had happened in Thessalonica.

The term example takes up the concept of imitation. The word is in the singular (“example,” not “examples”). It does not refer to the lives of certain outstanding individuals, but to the life of the whole Christian community which has influenced others. One may translate as “So you became the kind of people that all the believers in Macedonia and Greece could imitate,” or “… that all the believers in Macedonia and Greece should be like.” In a more extended form, this sentence may be translated as “So you lived in such a way that all the nonbelievers in Macedonia and Greece could see and could live as you live.”

Achaia is “Greece” in some translations (e.g. Bible en français courant) and was so rendered in earlier editions of the Good News Bible. There had been times when the name Achaia was applied to the whole of Greece, but at the time Paul wrote, Macedonia and Achaia were two Roman provinces whose boundaries corresponded to those of no modern state. Together, they covered almost the whole area of modern Greece and Albania, and also the southern part of Yugoslavia, which is still called Macedonia.

Verses 8-10 form a single sentence in the Greek text. This sentence illustrates two tendencies of Paul’s style. The first is his movement from the general to the specific, which we have already noticed in verses 2-5. There is nothing totally new in verse 9a. This verse simply amplifies three earlier statements: there is nothing … that we need to say (v. 8), we brought the Good News to you (v. 5), and your faith in God (v. 8). Secondly, verses 8b-9a illustrate Paul’s tendency to make a negative statement (there is nothing … that we need to say), and then to repeat the substance of it in positive terms (all those people speak…). Paul has already used the same device twice, in verses 5 and 8.

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .