1 Thessalonians 4:18

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Moffatt mentions the preservation of a letter dated from the pagan era of the first century, which reads as follows:

[@Eirene] (Peace) to Taonnophris and [@Filon], Good cheer! I was as grieved and wept as much over Eumoiros as over Didymas, and I did all that was fitting, as did all my family ... But still we can do nothing in such a case. So comfort yourselves. Goodbye.[36]

How hopeless is such a letter! And what a world of difference in the pagan "comfort yourselves" and the glowing words of Christian faith, "comfort one another with these words!"

Not only did the words of this passage allay the weeping, dry the tears and comfort the bereaved in Thessalonica, they are still doing so after some nineteen centuries have rolled away; and they are just as appropriate now as when they calmed and comforted the hearts of the bereaved in ancient Thessalonica.