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There is another reading of this passage, which modern editors have preferred, and I think with good reason; for πρόπῳ they substituted πότῳ — "in every place" for "by all means." The expression in our version may, no doubt, have a good and important sense; but it sounds like a tame addition to the words which have preceded. The other suggests a new thought, which enlarges and completes the prayer. "May the Lord of Peace give you peace at all times and in all places." Such a petition must needs have a deep and solid ground to rest upon. "The Lord of Peace," he says, "give you peace." This he assumes as the very name of God. A god of war they had all heard of. He was said to have watched over the infancy of the greatest city in the world, to have been the father of its first king. Whithersoever the Roman Eagle had been borne, there were the tokens of his presence. The name Thessalonica testified that he had been on that soil. He knew that the heathens had never been satisfied with the idea of a god of war, however much it might have possessed them. They felt that the olive was a sacred emblem as well as the laurel. There must be some One from whom it came — of whom it testified. The quiet homestead, the growth of trees and flowers, the power and art of tillage, must have an origin, as well as the skill and feats of armies. Surely tempests did not witness of unseen power more than a still lake or an evening of clear starlight. All sweet notes and their intricate combinations told of some secret source of harmony. The heart which responded to these sights and sounds demanded a Lord of Peace nigh, and not afar off. Was He a different Being from the other? It was the misery of Polytheism to believe that He must be different. How could such opposite effects proceed from the Same Cause? It was the blessed privilege of the Jew to be taught in direct words, and by the whole course of his history, that the Lord his God was one Lord, that the God of armies was the same as the Lord of Peace. The acts of His power were the manifestations of His righteous will. He was the Lord God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy; therefore would He not clear the guilty; therefore was all evil, everything unmerciful and oppressive, hateful in His eyes; therefore was He pledged to destroy it. There was no actual or implicit contradiction in His nature.

I. The words are very EMPHATIC. May He HIMSELF give you peace. As if he had said, "I know and am persuaded that no one else can give it you; not I, not all the preachers and doctors in the universe. Properly speaking, you do not even receive it at second hand through us. He gives you the thing itself; we present you with the seals and sacraments of it. He opens a direct communication with your hearts; he conveys into them that which we only stand offering to them from without. "May He," says the apostle, "Himself give it you! Be not content to take it from any other."

II. And be sure also that He GIVES it. You do not purchase it by prayers or faith or good deeds. He receives the gift of a higher life, or he sinks into death. In other words, God gives him peace, or he continues in a state of perpetual war.

III. THIS PEACE the apostle desires for the Thessalonians. Not some image or shadow of peace, but peace itself, in its full meaning. Not a peace which depends upon pacts and bargains among men, but which belongs to the very nature and character and being of God. Not a peace which is produced by the stifling and suppression of activities and energies, but the peace in which all activities and energies are perfected and harmonized. Not a peace which comes from the toleration of what is base or false, but which demands its destruction. Not a peace which begins from without, but a peace which is first wrought in the inner man, and thence comes forth to subdue the world. Not a peace which a man gets for himself by standing aloof from the sorrows and confusions of the world into which he is born, of the men whose nature he shares, choosing a calm retreat and quiet scenery and a regulated atmosphere; but a peace which has never thriven except in those who have suffered with their suffering kind, who have been ready to give up selfish enjoyments, sensual or spiritual, for their sakes, who have abjured all devices to escape from ordained toils and temptations; the peace which was His who bore the sorrows and infirmities and sins of man, who gave up Himself that He might become actually one with them, who thus won for them a participation in the Divine nature, an inheritance in that peace of God which passeth understanding.

IV. St. Paul could then say boldly, "The Lord give you peace is ALL TIMES." He was living in a time of exceeding restlessness. All about him were wars and rumours of wars. The Jewish commonwealth was breaking to pieces, from the hatreds of its sects, from its mad desire to measure its strength with its Roman masters. St. Paul was the object of the fiercest spite of those fighting sects. They did not abhor each other so much as they abhorred him. And he knew that the end was coming — that God Himself had pronounced the doom of the city of David; that if he did not witness the fall of that nation, to save which he was willing to be accursed, it would be only because some violent death would take him sooner than it out of the world. In this time, which affected all his disciples as well as himself, which had caused great sufferings to the Thessalonian Church, both from present Jewish persecutions and from the dim feverish apprehension of some day of the Lord which was near at hand; in this time, he could ask the Lord of Peace to give himself and them peace. He could ask it confidently, nothing doubting that the petition would be heard and answered, nay, that the very tumults in the world and in themselves were intended to awaken it and to accomplish it. He knew that easy and comfortable circumstances do not impart the peace which men want. He knew that the most disastrous may drive them to that centre where it dwells and Where they may possess it.

V. He prayed also, if the reading I have spoken of is the true one, that they might have peace IN EVERY PLACE. He had some experience of different places, of Greek cities and Jewish, if he had not yet seen Rome, as he purposed to do; and all his experience hitherto had been of strifes, tumults, persecutions. He had come to Thessalonica because he had been thrown into prison at Philippi. He escaped from Thessalonica to Beraea, thence to Athens. In Corinth the continued Jewish opposition was trifling compared with the struggle in his own spirit, which made him despair even of life. At Ephesus he was destined to fight with men who assailed him as the beasts assailed those who were exposed in the Amphitheatre. At Jerusalem voices cried, "Away with such a fellow from the earth! it is not fit that he should live." Bonds and imprisonments awaited him in the capital of the world. And yet he could say, "The Lord of Peace give you peace in all places." In the prison he had found it; in that infinite tumult and despair of his own spirit he had found it. And this, he was certain, was not because he was an apostle — because he had Divine revelations — because he had singular gifts. It was because he was a man, sharing the temptations of men, experiencing in himself the redemption which had been wrought out. for men.

VI. DO WE NOT NEED TO HEAR AT THIS TIME, IN THIS PLACE, THE SAME MESSAGE?

VII. But is not THE WEEK THAT WITNESSES OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE VICTIM ONE THAT BRINGS PEACE, IF IT FINDS BUT LITTLE? Is not the week that commemorates the completion of the sacrifice one that carries peace even into the midst of war? Yes! this, and nothing less, is what these days signify. "The Lord of Peace Himself give you peace in all places." You want a Lord of Peace, One in whom Peace dwells always, under all conditions, amidst all turmoils. Here, in the agony of the garden, on the cross of Calvary, behold Him!

(F. D. Maurice, M. A.)

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KJV: Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.

WEB: Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with you all.