<p>1:3 <em>Remembering without ceasing before our God and Father your work of faith, labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ</em>- &quot;Remembering&quot; is a similar word to &quot;making mention&quot; in :2 (see note there). Paul brought to God's attention, as it were, their faith, hope and love. And we must ask ourselves, as to how much of our prayer time is taken up with telling God the good things about others? Paul says he did this &quot;without ceasing&quot;. Quite a challenge to our prayer life, which so easily tends towards selfishness. &quot;Labour of love&quot; is literally 'toil', and is elsewhere translated &quot;trouble&quot; or &quot;weariness&quot;. Loving others results in just this- weariness and trouble. But that is what love is about in practice. &quot;Hope&quot; refers not to a hoping for the best, but a solid expectation- in this case, of salvation, because we are in Christ. That hope was 'patient' or enduring; our tendency is to be persuaded of our salvation for a moment and then drift into the mire of mediocrity in that we lose that intensity of vision and expectation. But patient or enduring hope means life lived in the constant belief that we shall be saved. Paul commends them for this- and yet has to explain to them later that those of them who had recently died were not lost, but would be resurrected at the Lord's return. The Thessalonians therefore had a basic faith, that there was hope in Christ, and they endured in that faith; but their understanding of what that hope was remained clearly very hazy. But all the same, Paul commended them in his prayers before God for believing and having the sure hope. So whilst faith must have content, we believe in something, it is also true that basic faith in Jesus is acceptable even if we have details wrong as regards how it shall all work out in practice.</p><p>Note how many times Paul gives thanks for the spiritual progress he sees in others, even though we can be sure he saw clearly enough the spiritual immaturity which there still must have been in his converts. So many times he thanks God in his prayers for what he has seen in others (Rom. 1:8-10; 1 Cor. 1:4-9; 2 Cor. 1:3-7; 9:12-15; Eph. 1:3-23; Phil. 1:3-6; Col. 1:3-14; 1 Thess. 1:2,3; 2:13-16; 3:9; 2 Thess. 1:3-10; 2 Tim. 1:3-7; Philemon 4-7). Now it follows that if we are to <em>pray </em>like Paul, we must have the heart of love for people that was in him. So often we dwell upon the negative, the scandals, the failures of others. And we can't thank God for those things. Paul's pattern of prayer was of positive praise. And we can only share that if we have a mind that is positively perceptive of signs of response to grace in others.</p><p>Their &quot;work of faith&quot; recalls how James argues that there is no essential difference between faith and works. 'Faith' is not just credulity or a vague feeling of hope, but an active, driving force. There is &quot;the work of faith&quot; (1 Thess. 1:3; 2 Thess. 1:11); faith is something which ought to be 'done', the Lord taught (Mt. 23:23). Knowledge and faith are paralleled in John's thought (Jn. 8:32 cp. 14:1; and 6:69 cp. 11:27)- in stark contrast to this world's emphasis upon works rather than faith. Hence Isaiah's appeals to <em>know</em> and <em>believe</em> Yahweh (43:10); and the Lord's parallel of 'little faith' with little understanding (Mt. 16:7,8). <em>Pistis</em>, one of the NT words for 'faith', is translated in the LXX as both 'faith' (e.g. Dt. 32:20; Prov. 12:22) and 'truth' (Prov. 12:17; 14:22; Jer. 5:1). Indeed, another word used in the LXX is 119 times translated 'truth' and 26 times 'faith'. There <em>is</em> a connection between true knowledge of the Gospel and faith. And this faith is the basis for our works. We don't just learn the propositions of the one faith before baptism, and forget them. The triumphant spiritual life <em>lives them out</em>.</p><p>We note that their &quot;hope&quot; is praised here, but they were seriously deficient in understanding what that hope was in detail, apparently not understanding much about the resurrection. Yet Paul perceived their faith in Christ and firm expectation &quot;hope&quot; of salvation in Him, and praises them for it- even if they were astray or ignorant in their understanding of how it would work out in practice. See on 4:13. We can only conclude that not understanding the details of our future hope does not mean we do not have a valid faith in Christ, nor does it hinder the validity of a baptism. But like Paul, we are to seek to fill in the gaps which believers have in their knowledge of these things.</p>