he expressed his desire to see the Thessalonians. Furthermore, that aspiration was no ordinary wish. Great desire translates pollē epithumia, a general expression for any kind of dominant passion or compelling, controlling desire, and which was most often used in secular Greek to denote sexual passion. Such usage here indicates how dominant and compelling Paul’s desire was to see the collective face of the Thessalonians again soon. In its truest biblical context, “seeing one’s face” means to come