For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Judea that are in Christ Jesus. You suffered from your own countrymen the very things they suffered from the Jews,
14 For ye became imitators. If you are inclined to restrict this to the clause in immediate connection with it, the meaning will be, that the power of God, or of his word, shews itself in their patient endurance, while they sustain persecutions with magnanimity and undaunted courage.
Here observe, I. The apostle makes mention of the success of his ministry among these Thessalonians (Th1 2:13), which is expressed, 1. By the manner of their receiving the word of God: When you received the word of God, which you heard of us, you received it, not as the word of men, but (as it is in truth) the word of God.
Commenting on 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16
For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God,.... As of the Lord and of the apostle, Th1 1:6 so of the churches of God that were before them, who were gathered out of the world by the grace of God; and who were united in the fear of God, and assembled together for his worship, to bear a testimony to his truth and...