1 Thessalonians 5:15

For αποδῳ, αποδοι in א*DbG; in D*, αποδοιη: these latter are not optatives, but subjunctives of the κοινή; see Winer-Moulton’s Grammar, p. 95, note3.

και before εις αλληλους given by BאcKLP, &c. (so WH margin): omitted in א*ADG, 17, 37, 67**; 1 Thessalonians 3:12 may have prompted the omission.

15. ὁρᾶτε μή τις κακὸν�. See (to it) that none pay back evil in return for evil to any one. This further direction seems to be addressed, in keeping with the last, to the προϊστάμενοι: it is their duty to check and prevent every act of retaliation; they are responsible for the conduct of their brethren. On the other hand, the wide bearing of the antithetical (ἀλλά) clause which follows suggests the same comprehensive reference here. Had the writers, however, intended to warn individual members of the Church about their own conduct, they would, presumably, have used the 2nd person, ὁρᾶτε μὴ� (cf. Matthew 8:4; Matthew 18:10; Matthew 24:6; Matthew 9:30 resembles this passage), or written τις ὑμῶν instead of the bare τις. For κακόν, see note on πονηρόν, 1 Thessalonians 5:22. The same command, in general terms, is given in Romans 12:17 and 1 Peter 3:9; it echoes the teaching of our Lord in Matthew 5:43 ff.

ἀλλὰ πάντοτε τὸ� [καὶ] εἰς�, but always pursue that which is good, [both] toward one another and toward all men. This last injunction is not, by its nature, specific to Church-officers: if the five previous imperatives have been addressed to these, we must suppose the writers to turn here by a kind of mental gesture, dispensing with any particle of transition, to their readers at large, who were virtually (if not directly) admonished in μή τις κακὸν … ἀποδῷ. For διώκειν in the sense of practising, pursuing a line of conduct, cf. Romans 12:13; Romans 14:19; 1 Corinthians 14:1; 1 Timothy 6:11; 2 Timothy 2:22 : it implies persistence in good—not only in the way of reciprocity (by antithesis to κακὸν�), but in all other respects and contingencies. Τὸ� is “the beneficial”; while denoting the morally good in chief, the term is not limited to this: cf. Romans 2:10; Romans 13:3 f.; Galatians 6:10; Ephesians 4:28; Philemon 1:14; Luke 6:35, ἀγαθοποιεῖτε καὶ δανίζετε. For εἰς�.τ.λ., see 1 Thessalonians 3:12 and note; also note on πρὸς πάντας, 1 Thessalonians 5:14.

Πάντοτε—occurring six times in this Letter, oftener than anywhere else in St Paul—means “on every occasion” (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:2); while ἀεί means “perpetually” (2 Corinthians 6:10): ἀδιαλείπτως in 1 Thessalonians 5:17; 1 Thessalonians 1:3, &c., is the negative equivalent of either.