Overflowing Abundantly
Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith. (1 Thess 3:10)
“Earnestly” is “hyper-ekperissou”, a quite unusual word that means to overflow abundantly: in this case, “to overflow super-abundantly!”
Thessalonica was famous for its hot springs which continually overflowed abundantly. At an earlier time, Thessalonica had been named “Therma”, because of its bountiful hot springs. Paul was fond of using this figure of speech in varying degrees. When he prayed or preached, he was like a hot spring, bubbling over with warmth and love — and so he wanted his converts to be. Likewise, Paul preached of God Himself overflowing with love and mercy, just as the springs overflowed with warm, healing waters.
Paul uses the same or similar words several times in his letters. As Paul explains it, a number of things overflow or overflow abundantly and even super-abundantly, exceeding all bounds:
(a) We have seen how, in 1 Thessalonians 3:10, Paul’s prayers overflowed, “night and day”, that he would see the Thessalonian brethren soon and again, for he yearned so very much to help them further in advancing their faith and mending their deficiencies. How wonderful is this picture: his love overflowed in wishes to encourage them, to help them reconcile with one another, and to restore the wanderers.
(b) Then, just two verses further on, in 1 Thessalonians 3:12, Paul prayed that the Lord would make the love of the Thessalonians increase and overflow for each other and everyone else, just as Paul’s love overflowed for them.
Paul hints at love’s great reciprocity. As the apostle John said, “We love [God] because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19; cp John 3:16). God had shown great love to the sinner who was Saul of Tarsus, and that repentant sinner — now Paul the apostle — reciprocated that love by overflowing super-abundantly in love by words and deeds to others, teaching them about all the glory and beauty to be found in God’s love.
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(c) In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, Paul “urges” (“parakaleo”: exhorts, encourages) the Thessalonians to live worthy lives of moral excellence, so as to please God — or as he put it specifically, that their lives of service to God and others would overflow more and more.
What an extraordinary chain reaction: God first loved Saul; then Paul loved all men and women; and the converted believers whom he loved continued forward to love others yet, overflowing superabundantly in their imitation of the man who led them to Christ, and showed them how to live.
(d) Paul repeats the same idea in verses 9, 10: “Now as to the love of the brethren…indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more.”
Surely he echoes the words of his Savior, who exhorted his followers to love their enemies, do good to them, and expect nothing in return; to “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”, and finally to give in good measure words of love and kindness to others — and then “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:35-38).
If we are generous and let our love overflow toward others, then our heavenly Father will smile in benevolence upon us, and His love will know no bounds in turn — like the overflowing hot springs of Thessalonica bringing warmth, healing and refreshing.
(e) Paul uses the same Greek word “hyper-ekperissou” in Ephesians 3:20, where he refers to God as “him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”.
This verse in its context expresses much of what we have been considering: In verses 18, 19 Paul urges the Ephesians to grasp “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”, and to know this “love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”.
Then he summarizes:
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
(f) Finally, there comes the great assurance more or less hidden in Romans 5:20: Here the negative side of things is stated first, but then it is paired with, and offset by, the positive: Among men, “sin” has increased, but with God — who can bless more abundantly than “sin” can condemn! — “grace (mercy and forgiveness of sins) has increased all the more!”
Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.” (2 Cor 9:15)