{2} Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;

(2) He commends them for three special gifts: effectual faith, continual love, and patient hope. And he does this to the end that they might be ashamed, being endued with such excellent gifts, not to continue in God's election.

People's New Testament

1:3 Remembering without ceasing. He states reasons for thankfulness.

Your work of faith. Works which result from faith.

Labour of love. Toil for others caused by love for them and for Christ.

Patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Patient endurance of toil, hardship and persecution through a hope in Christ. Probably a hope that soon these would cease with the coming of Christ. The Thessalonians, as we learn, expected his speedy coming.

Wesley's Notes

1:3 Remembering in the sight of God - That is, praising him for it. Your work of faith - Your active, ever - working faith. And labour of love - Love continually labouring for the bodies or souls of men. They who do not thus labour, do not love. Faith works, love labours, hope patiently suffers all things.

Scofield Reference Notes

Margin work of faith

Lit. operative faith, and laborious love, and hope-filled patience.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. work of faith-the working reality of your faith; its alacrity in receiving the truth, and in evincing itself by its fruits. Not an otiose assent; but a realizing, working faith; not "in word only," but in one continuous chain of "work" (singular, not plural, works), 1Th 1:5-10; Jas 2:22. So "the work of faith" in 2Th 1:11 implies its perfect development (compare Jas 1:4). The other governing substantives similarly mark respectively the characteristic manifestation of the grace which follows each in the genitive. Faith, love, and hope, are the three great Christian graces (1Th 5:8; 1Co 13:13).

labour of love-The Greek implies toil, or troublesome labor, which we are stimulated by love to bear (1Th 2:9; Re 2:2). For instances of self-denying labors of love, see Ac 20:35; Ro 16:12. Not here ministerial labors. Those who shun trouble for others, love little (compare Heb 6:10).

patience-Translate, "endurance of hope"; the persevering endurance of trials which flows from "hope." Ro 15:4 shows that "patience" also nourishes "hope."

hope in our Lord Jesus-literally, "hope of our Lord Jesus," namely, of His coming (1Th 1:10): a hope that looked forward beyond all present things for the manifestation of Christ.

in the sight of God and our Father-Your "faith, hope, and love" were not merely such as would pass for genuine before men, but "in the sight of God," the Searcher of hearts [Gomarus]. Things are really what they are before God. Bengel takes this clause with "remembering." Whenever we pray, we remember before God your faith, hope, and love. But its separation from "remembering" in the order, and its connection with "your . faith," &c., make me to prefer the former view.

and, &c.-The Greek implies, "in the sight of Him who is [at once] God and our Father."

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:1-5 As all good comes from God, so no good can be hoped for by sinners, but from God in Christ. And the best good may be expected from God, as our Father, for the sake of Christ. We should pray, not only for ourselves, but for others also; remembering them without ceasing. Wherever there is a true faith, it will work; it will affect both the heart and life. Faith works by love; it shows itself in love to God, and love to our neighbour. And wherever there is a well-grounded hope of eternal life, this will appear by the exercise of patience; and it is a sign of sincerity, when in all we do, we seek to approve ourselves to God. By this we may know our election, if we not only speak of the things of God with out lips, but feel their power in our hearts, mortifying our lusts, weaning us from the world, and raising us up to heavenly things. Unless the Spirit of God comes with the word of God, it will be to us a dead letter. Thus they entertained it by the power of the Holy Ghost. They were fully convinced of the truth of it, so as not to be shaken in mind by objections and doubts; and they were willing to leave all for Christ, and to venture their souls and everlasting condition upon the truth of the gospel revelation.