So that we ourselves glory in you
Or "of you"; for though they were the subject concerning which,
yet not the object in which they gloried; the apostle elsewhere
advises not to glory in men, but only in the Lord; nor was this
his practice contrary to his advice, for he did not boast of
these persons with respect to their carnal things; he did not
glory in their flesh, nor in their riches, nor wisdom, nor
strength, nor any external gift; he gloried indeed of their
graces, and of the exercise and increase of them; but of these
not as of themselves, or as owing to him, and his fellow
ministers, but as instances of the grace of God, and for which he
gives thanks to him: and besides, he did not glory of these in
the presence of God, in whose presence none should glory, but
in the churches of God;
the other churches in Macedonia and Achaia, as Philippi, Berea,
Corinth he gave thanks to God for them, and gloried of them
before men, or among the saints, to the glory of the grace of God
in them, and in order to stir up other churches to an emulation
and imitation of them. And the particulars he gloried of them for
were as follow,
for your patience and faith in all your persecutions
and
tribulations that ye endure:
many and sore were the reproaches, the afflictions, and
persecutions that befell them for the sake of Christ, and their
profession of him, and his Gospel; and which is more or less the
case of everyone that will live godly in Christ Jesus: and these
they endured, they bore and stood up under, they were not
shocked, and staggered, and moved from the hope of the Gospel by
them; which shows that the truth of grace was in them; for where
there is not the root of the matter, when tribulation and
affliction arise because of the profession of the word, such are
offended, stumbled, and quickly gone; but these saints endured
their afflictions, and with great patience, without murmuring and
repining, and with great constancy, firmness, and resolution of
mind. They stood fast in the grace and doctrine of faith, and in
the profession of both, which they held without wavering, and
none of the things they met with could move them from it. The
apostle had mentioned their faith before, and he takes notice of
it again, because their patience, constancy, and perseverance in
sufferings, arose from it; for the trying of faith works
patience, ( James 1:3 ) . The
Ethiopic version leaves out the word "faith", but very wrongly.
