For from you has sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth; so that we need not to say anything.
your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; meaning the grace of faith bestowed on them, by which they received the Gospel in the love of it, assented to it, and professed it, and which has God for its object, and is very valuable, since such public notice is taken of it; and which shows that it was not kept to themselves, and lay hid in their own breasts; but they declared it both by words and by deeds, by making a profession of it, and by walking agreeably to it: