Matthew Poole and continuators on 1 Thessalonians 5:11

11 Wherefore comfort your selves together , and edifie one another even as also ye do .

These words are an exhortation to the whole Church of Thessalonica, to comfort and edifie one another. Though the ministry is appointed to this by especial office, yet private Christians are to practise it to one another, the former doth it in way of authority, the latter in a way of charity. The Apostle had laid before them many comfortable truths; which they were to comfort one another by; and if we read the words, exhort one another, it referrs to the necessary duties of Religion he had mentioned in this and the foregoing chapter.

And this follows from both the former, as alluding to an house that is built up by degrees; and so is every Church the house of God; and consisting of living stones, every part is to seek the building up of the whole. And by mutual exhortation and comfort the whole may be edified: Christians then are to be blamed that only seek to edifie themselves, and much more they who pull down and divide, and destroy instead of building up▪

And what the Apostle exhorted them to, they were already in the practise of; for which he here again commends them as he had done upon several accounts before, not to flatter but to encourage them to proceed, and to set before other Churches their example for imitation.

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