Patient Endurance
A. H. Baynes. 2 Thessalonians 1:4 So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations… I shall never forget as long as I live that day where, in the glow of the eventide, as the sun was sinking and as the mists were creeping over the land, I walked with one of our native brethren by the riverside, and saw a light in the dim distance, when he said to me, "Yonder is the only Christian in all that great town." Ten years ago he received Christ into his heart; his father and mother turned him out; his friends forsook him; his neighbours persecuted him; and all these years he stood his ground, scarcely getting food to eat. During all these ten years he maintained his Christian character unspotted in the midst of the heathen around him, and the native brother said to me, "Now his business is reviving, because people say he sells the best things and always means what he says." I entered his humble bamboo hut and sat down on the ground by his side, and as I discoursed about his loneliness and his sadness the tears sprang into his eyes, and he said, "No, I am never lonely; for as Christ was with the Hebrew children, and as He was with Daniel in the lions' den, so all these years He has been with me." (A. H. Baynes.) Parallel Verses KJV: So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: WEB: so that we ourselves boast about you in the assemblies of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which you endure.