After all, who is our hope, our joy, our crown of boasting, if it is not you yourselves in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming?
19 For what is our hope. He confirms that ardor of desire, of which he had made mention, inasmuch as he has his happiness in a manner treasured up in them. “Unless I forget myself, I must necessarily desire your presence, for ye are our glory and joy.” Farther, when he calls them his hope and the crown of his glory, we must not understand...
In these words the apostle apologizes for his absence. Here observe, 1. He tells them they were involuntarily forced from them: We, brethren, were taken from you, Th1 2:17. Such was the rage of his persecutors. He was unwillingly sent away by night to Berea, Act 17:10. 2. Though he was absent in body, yet he was present in heart.
Commenting on 1 Thessalonians 2:17-20
For what is our hope, or joy,.... The apostle here gives a reason why they were so concerned at parting with the Thessalonians, and were so desirous of seeing them again, and attempted it so often, cause they were their "hope"; not the foundation of it, which was Christ; nor the thing hoped for, which was eternal life; nor the ground of their hope, which...