Comfort One Another

1Th 5:11 “Wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also ye do.”

The encouragement here is not for us to “take” comfort, but to “give” comfort.  In other words, if all Christians had a heart to comfort others then all would be comforted.  The idea is that a church should be full of active participants and not passive spectators.  Hiebert says, “It is clear that in the early church that the care of souls was not delegated to an individual, but it was the work in which every believer shared.”  Paul’s encouragement wasn’t to scold them for not doing it, but to encourage them to continue doing it.