1 Thessalonians 3:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"And may the Lord make you increase and abound." Do you see the irresistible impulse of love expressed in these words? "May the Lord make you increase," he says, "and abound," meaning, may He make you grow.

One might say that he desires to be loved by them in overflowing measure. "As we do toward you," he says. That is, love for you already exists on our part, and we desire it to exist on yours as well.

Do you see how far he wishes to extend this love? Not only toward one another, but toward all. Love according to God is truly manifested in this, that it seeks to embrace everyone. But if you love one and not another, your love is human. Ours is not so. He shows that this love benefits those who love, not those who are loved.

“And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love toward one another and toward all.” Do you see the irresistible impulse of love, in that he prays for them that the Lord would fill and overfill them with love? And not only toward one another, but toward all. For love for God is revealed precisely in this, that it strives to embrace all. If you love one person but not another, this is human love. “As we do toward you.” On our part, he says, it already exists. We ask that in time to come it may exist on your part also. Have us as the measure and pattern of love.

For if we had first loved, so that for this merit He also loved us, then we would first have chosen Him, so as to be deemed worthy of election by Him. But He Who is the Truth says otherwise, and plainly contradicts such human vanity: "You did not choose Me," He says (Jn 15:16).

And if you did not choose, then without doubt you did not first love. For how could they have chosen One Whom they did not love? "But I," He says, "chose you" (Jn 15:16).

How then, after this, did they not choose Him and prefer Him to all the goods of this present age? They chose Him because they themselves had been chosen. They were not chosen because they had chosen.

The divine Apostle called progress in love the fulfillment of the whole law. Therefore he prays that the Lord would complete their number and make them abound in love. That is, he prays that they may acquire perfect love, so as to lack nothing at all in it. They are to show it not only to one another, but also to all fellow believers, wherever they may be. For so also we, says the Apostle, though far from you, are disposed toward you. We desire to establish your hearts, so that, free from every vice, you may even now be seen before the God of all. Then, with all the saints, you may meet the Master Christ.

The Apostle's prayer contains his desire to see the Thessalonians and to perfect them in mutual love, after the example of the Apostle's love for them. It also asks for their holiness, so that, being established in it, they may be found blameless in every respect at the meeting of the Lord. He is to appear in order to present His faithful ones to God the Father.

"The Apostle desires love above all because it is the bond of perfection (Col 3:14), the fulfillment of the law (Rom 8:10). Christian progress is progress in love (Eph 1:8). As the Lord Himself and the other Apostles do, so St. Paul places love above all else in Christianity (1 Cor ch. 13). But whom does the Apostle mean by all? He often inculcates love for all men (Tit 3:2; 1 Tim 2:1; 1 Thess 5:1)" (Bishop Theophan).

Speaking thus, the Apostle does not exaggerate his love for the Thessalonians in the least. He cannot even render sufficient thanks to God for the spiritual joys which the Thessalonians give him by their faith.

To this divine benefaction he can respond only with fervent prayer, asking God to grant him again the possibility of serving the Thessalonians by seeing them in person. And now the Apostle prays first that God would make his path to Thessalonica straight.

He also prays that, whether or not the Apostle comes to them, God would increase love among the Thessalonians. The Apostle's work is to help complete the Thessalonians' knowledge of the Christian faith. God's work is to multiply love in Christians, and such love as would embrace all men.

Good wishes for the Thessalonians in the spirit of faith and hope. He wishes them perfection in love, which alone is strong enough to preserve them unshaken in faith and pure in life until the very second coming of Christ, when the eternal lot of each is decided.

But may the Lord make you. Before he had said: God and Father, and the Lord. Now he says only the Lord. This is because the Lord and the Father are one, according to the word of the Lord Himself: "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30). It is also because the good wishes that follow concern the dispensation of our salvation, which the tri-hypostatic God accomplishes through the incarnate God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.