What Does 1 Thessalonians 1:4 Mean?
God loved the Thessalonian Christians for they were His "elect". They had been selected by God to belong to Him, and His gift of eternal life to the "elect" is clearly taught in the Bible. Some choose to ignore, question, dismiss or challenge our "election", because they consider it conflicts with the doctrine of human responsibility and man's volition, while others reject the doctrine of man's freewill choice in salvation, and teach that salvation depends on God's sovereign will alone, without any free-will option for man, but the Bible teaches both - God's sovereign will AND man's free-will choice.