Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
From you hath sounded forth (af umwn echxhtai). Perfect passive indicative of echxew, late compound verb (ec, hxos, hxw, hxh, our echo) to sound out of a trumpet or of thunder, to reverberate like our echo. Nowhere else in the N.T. So "from you" as a sounding board or radio transmitting station (to use a modern figure). It marks forcibly "both the clear and the persuasive nature of the logov tou Kuriou" (Ellicott). This phrase, the word of the Lord, may be subjective with the Lord as its author or objective with the Lord as the object. It is both. It is a graphic picture with a pardonable touch of hyperbole (Moffatt) for Thessalonica was a great commercial and political centre for disseminating the news of salvation (on the Egnation Way).
But in every place (all en panti topw). In contrast to Macedonia and Achaia. The sentence would naturally stop here, but Paul is dictating rapidly and earnestly and goes on.
Your faith to God-ward (h pistiv umwn h prov ton qeon). Literally,
the faith of you that toward the God. The repeated article makes clear that their faith is now directed toward the true God and not toward the idols from which they had turned (verse I Thessalonians 1:10).
Is gone forth (ecelhluqen). Second perfect active indicative of old verb ecerxomai, to go out, state of completion like echxhtai above.
So that we need not to speak anything (wste mh xreian exein hmav lalein ti). wste with the infinitive for actual result as in verse I Thessalonians 1:7. No vital distinction between lalein (originally to chatter as of birds) and legein, both being used in the Koin‚ for speaking and preaching (in the N.T.).
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing 1 Thessalonians 1:8:
Luke 1:4
Acts 17:1
Acts 17:2
Romans 15:14
Colossians 3:16
2 Thessalonians 3:1
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