The word that Paul uses here for
afflictionhappens to be the Greek word thlipsis, and the meaning of that word is to have severe pressure applied to you from the outside. That is what they were experiencing—severe, harmful pressure applied to them in a way that hurt. It is a verb that would be used for the pressing of grapes in a winepress until they burst. And so Paul is talking about great trouble that causes serious harm, and Christians must be prepared for that. Now, in our situation here in the West, we are mainly likely to suffer social rejection—maybe the loss of valued relationships, maybe our career prospects would be lessened or threatened because of our faith in Christ. And those can be very real sufferings that grieve our hearts. But we also need to realize that there may be more tangible and severe suffering required of us as we follow Jesus.Geoffrey Wilson says this:
Richard D. PhillipsIt was never Paul’s practice to portray an easy road to heaven.Do not think that you are going to be on an easy road. He knew that all who became imitators of the Lord are called to share in the rejection that Jesus met from the unbelieving world. Now, as Paul teaches this, he is again following Jesus’ example. What did our Lord Jesus say?If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it(Luke 9:23–24). And so these believers received the Word in great affliction. And yet what particularly distinguished them—and the early church as a whole, as well as the apostles—was not merely that they received the Word in affliction, but that they nonetheless did so with a great spiritual joy. That is what Paul goes on to say in 1 Thessalonians 1:6: “You received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit.”1
6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,