3:5a

May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love: Here, Paul was praying that the Lord would help the Thessalonians to know how much God loved them.

the Lord: This probably refers, as before, to the Lord Jesus, rather than to God the Father.

God’s love: The translation God’s love, which is found in most English versions, is ambiguous. It could mean:

(1) God’s love for Christians. Because they were suffering much persecution, the Thessalonians needed to be re-assured about how much God loved them.

(2) It means the Christians’ love for God.

In Paul’s writings, the phrase “the love of God” usually refers to the love God has for Christians, and it probably means the same here. Most commentators support this first option, and it is recommended that you follow it.

3:5b

and Christ’s perseverance: The Greek word hupomonē, which the Berean Standard Bible translates as perseverance, means “steadfastness, endurance.” It implies being faithful in a time of difficulty. Most English versions translate the phrase here Christ’s perseverance in an ambiguous way, and it can be understood in one of two ways:

(1) It means the perseverance shown by Christ when he suffered while he was on earth. He remained faithful to God when he was persecuted by the Jews and the Romans. This example of Christ should comfort and strengthen the Thessalonian Christians so that they also will endure when they were persecuted. Most commentators support this option.

(Contemporary English Version, SSA)

(2) It means the perseverance that Christ gives to believers to help them endure persecution.

(Good News Translation, New Living Translation (2004 Revision))

It is recommended that you follow the first option (1), as it has the best support among scholars.

Christ: It may be misleading to refer to “the Lord” at the beginning of the verse and to Christ later. Make sure that it is clear in your translation that these are not two different persons. Both words refer to Jesus.

© 2002 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.