_Exhortation to Holiness of Life._ As in all his Epistles Paul at least concludes with a strenuous and full inculcation of moral duties, so here he reiterates to the Thessalonians those precepts and warnings which he had seen to be needful while he was himself among them. Not less than in other Gre... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:1. FURTHERMORE THEN. More literally, _as to what remains, or for the rest:_ ‘marking an approach towards the conclusion of the Epistle, though not necessarily a very near approach' (Vaughan). IN THE LORD. Only as the organ of the Lord does Paul presume to exhort them; and only as... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:2. FOR YE KNOW. I give you no new code of morals, but beseech you to live up to the instructions I formerly gave you. I refer you to my original teaching, ‘for ye know,' etc. BY THE LORD JESUS. It was the Lord Jesus who moved the apostle to deliver these commandments. Christ was... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:3. FOR THIS. The reason why the precepts had been given and were to be kept, was that God desired their sanctification. THE WILL OF GOD. It is this which God desires and intends when He calls you by the Gospel. What God wills and intends, He also makes provision for: hence the en... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:4. THAT EVERY ONE OF YOU SHOULD KNOW TO POSSESS HIMSELF OF HIS OWN VESSEL. This is a positive duty in the matter of sanctification, as the preceding clause declared the negative duty. They were to abstain from fornication; and, that they might do so, each was to possess a wife of h... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:5. NOT IN THE LOST OF CONCUPISCENCE. Marriage is to be contracted not for mere bodily gratification, but to gratify purer feelings and yearnings. Married people are so to live that they may be mutually conscious that with them marriage is an honourable estate, with nothing in it th... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:6. In this verse Paul continues the same subject, and does not pass to the sin of covetousness. ‘Another aspect is presented to us of sins of the flesh; the wrong done to our neighbour' (Jowett). This is at once manifest when the proper rendering is given to the words ‘in the matte... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:7. FOR GOD CALLED US NOT ONTO UNCLEANNESS. Paul returns to the idea of the third verse, the idea that such sins were antagonistic to God's purpose and work in Christians. If we profess to be responding to God's call, let us clearly understand what it is; what we must abandon, and w... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:8. HE THAT REJECTETH, _i.e._ he who contemptuously or negligently refuses to listen to these injunctions and warnings. NOT MAN. Not me, the apostle who conveys this message to you. I do not deliver these moral precepts on my own authority. They are the commandments of God. Freque... [ Continue Reading ]
_Exhortation to Brotherly Love and Industry_ The connection between the two subjects of this paragraph, brotherly love and quiet industry, is somewhat obscure. It may be that those who had abandoned their ordinary callings and were spending their time in idle expectation of the Lord's coming, or in... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:9. BROTHERLY LOVE is love to the ‘brethren,' _i.e._ to Christians, who had received the spirit of adoption and power to become the sons of God. As the great motive of Christ's coming was love for us, so the great object of His coming was to enable us to love God and one another; to... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:10. FOR INDEED YE DO IT. Proof of the preceding clause. ALL THE BRETHREN WHO ARE IN ALL MACEDONIA. ‘Which implies a lively intercourse with the Christians in Philippi, Berœa, and perhaps at small scattered stations, offshoots from the central churches.'... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:11. MAKE IT YOUR AMBITION TO BE QUIET. The Greeks were naturally restless and ambitious. Juvenal in a well-known passage (iii. 76) satirizes their unsteadiness, their flying from one pursuit to another, their readiness to engage in anything which promised remuneration without hard... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:12. THAT YE MAY MAKE WALK BECOMINGLY TOWARD THEM THAT ARE WITHOUT. This is ‘the regular designation of those who were _not_ Christians;' a designation which merely defines without passing any judgment on their condition. (See 1 Timothy 3:7; Colossians 4:5; 1 Corinthians 5:12-13.) I... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:13. WE WOULD NOT HAVE YOU TO BE IGNORANT. ‘A phrase by which St. Paul frequently introduces a new and important topic.' See references. THEM WHICH ARE ASLEEP. Death is called sleep by Pagan as well as by Christian writers, and it is therefore probable that the euphemism was first... [ Continue Reading ]
_Comfort for the Bereaved concerning the Prospects of the Departed._ Paul had preached to the Thessalonians the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ, and they had apparently taken up the impression that the Lord was very soon to return. When, therefore, one and another of the Christians who were... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:14. FOR IF WE BELIEVE. Paul goes on to explain the reason of the hope which should be entertained regarding departed Christians. It is founded on the universal and fundamental Christian belief that Jesus died but rose again. The argument is more fully drawn out in 1 Corinthians 15,... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:15. BY THE WORD OF THE LORD. The account of the Lord's Second Advent which follows is one of those revelations which human reasoning could not even help the apostle to predict. It must be revealed directly. Some spiritual truths Paul reached by the growth of his own experience; the... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:16. FOR. Things shall not happen as you fear, because the following is the order in which the last things are to take place. THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN. The emphatic ‘Himself' seems intended to dismiss from the minds of the Thessalonians the idea that the living co... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:17. THEN. Immediately after the dead in Christ have risen. SHALL BE CAUGHT UP TOGETHER WITH THEM IN THE CLOUDS. This Ascension of the Church to her Lord presupposes the ‘change' spoken of by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:52. The bodily ascent will be a token of the new conditions into... [ Continue Reading ]
1 Thessalonians 4:18. WHEREFORE. There being no ground for your supposing that your dead friends will suffer any disadvantage from dying before Christ comes. COMFORT ONE ANOTHER WITH THESE WORDS. Paul scarcely expects that mourners will themselves remember in their grief that which should alleviat... [ Continue Reading ]