1st Thessalonians Chapter 3 verse 8 Holy Bible
for now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.
read chapter 3 in ASV
For it is life to us if you keep your faith in the Lord unchanged.
read chapter 3 in BBE
because now we live if *ye* stand firm in [the] Lord.
read chapter 3 in DARBY
For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.
read chapter 3 in KJV
read chapter 3 in WBT
For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.
read chapter 3 in WEB
because now we live, if ye may stand fast in the Lord;
read chapter 3 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. - For now we live. Not to be referred to the eternal and future life (Chrysostom); or to be weakened as if it merely signified, "We relish and enjoy life notwithstanding our affliction and distress" (Pelt); but the meaning is the good tidings which Timothy has brought have imparted new life unto us; "we are in the full strength and freshness of life, we do not feel the sorrows and tribulations which the outer world prepares for us" (Lunemann). The apostle considers his condition of affliction and distress as a kind of death: so, elsewhere he says, "I die daily" (1 Corinthians 15:31); and from which death he was now again raised to life. If; provided - a hypothetical assumption. Ye stand fast; continue firm in the faith of the gospel. In the Lord; the element of true life.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) Now we live, if.--"Now" contrasts the new life and vigour which the "gospel of their faith and charity" had infused into the Apostle, with the deadly sinking he had felt at the thought of their possible apostacy. At the same time the "if" has the half-future sense, as though St. Paul meant that the continuance of this "life" was contingent upon their continued steadfastness. Another interpretation has been suggested, according to which both the "we" and "ye" are perfectly general, and therefore interchangeable, and the sense is made to be a vague proposition, "for standing fast in the Lord is a sine qua non of life"--life in the theological sense: and parts of Romans 7, 8 are compared. This interpretation, however, suits the Greek as little as the context.
