meet unspecified troubles. After establishing new churches on his first missionary journey, he returned some months later “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). When he wrote to the young Thessalonian church, he expressed concern that they might have been shaken by their afflictions and said to them, “You yourselves know that we have been destined for this [that