Living to Please God
4 As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control your own body [Or learn to live with your own wife; or learn to acquire a wife] in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister.[The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family.] The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. 7 For God did not call us to be impure but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
9 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10 And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
Believers Who Have Died
13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord, himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
NOTES:
4:2 Instructions: these include specific guidelines on the
basis of the Lord’s authority, not necessarily sayings Jesus actually uttered.
More profoundly, as 1 Thes 4:8 implies, the instructions are practical
principles that Paul worked out in accordance with his understanding of the
role of the Spirit.
4:3–8 Many think that this passage deals with a variety of
moral regulations (fornication, adultery, sharp business practices). It can be
more specifically interpreted as bringing general norms to bear on a specific
problem, namely, marriage within degrees of consanguinity (as between uncle and
niece) forbidden in Jewish law but allowed according to a Greek heiress law,
which would insure retention of an inheritance within the family and perhaps
thereby occasion divorce. In that case, “immorality” (1 Thes 4:3) should be
rendered as “unlawful marriage” and “this matter” (1 Thes 4:6) as “a lawsuit.”
The phrase in 1 Thes 4:4, “acquire a wife for himself,” has often been
interpreted to mean “control one’s body.”
4:15 Coming of the Lord: Paul here assumes that the second
coming, or parousia, will occur within his own lifetime but insists that the
time or season is unknown (1 Thes 5:1–2). Nevertheless, the most important
aspect of the parousia for him was the fulfillment of union with Christ. His
pastoral exhortation focuses first on hope for the departed faithful, then (1
Thes 5:1–3) on the need of preparedness for those who have to achieve their
goal.
4:17 Will be caught up together: literally, snatched up,
carried off; cf. 2 Cor 12:2; Rev 12:5. From the Latin verb here used, rapiemur,
has come the idea of “the rapture,” when believers will be transported away
from the woes of the world; this construction combines this verse with Mt
24:40–41 (see note there) // Lk 17:34–35 and passages from Revelation in a
scheme of millennial dispensationalism.
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