Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Thessalonians 2:11

"as ye know how we [dealt with] each one of you, as a father with his own children, exhorting you, and encouraging [you], and testifying," — 1 Thessalonians 2:11 (ASV)

As (emphatic): “We lived holily—just (in fact) as you remember we tried to persuade each one of you to live.”

Every one—Now they appeal to the individual recollection of the Thessalonians. It gives us an incidental glimpse of the apostolic method, which was to deal with individual souls (Compare to Acts 20:20, Acts 20:31, Colossians 1:21). St. Chrysostom exclaims: “Imagine! Not one in all that multitude was overlooked!” The image is changed from that of motherly tenderness to that of fatherly direction.

Comforted is used here as almost equivalent to “exhorted,” or, rather, encouraged, when moral aspirations were beginning to falter.

Charged.—Better, adjured; compare Galatians 5:3.