Words for the Wise Therefore Encourage Each Other, 1 Thessalonians 4

1 Thessalonians 4

New International Version - UK (NIVUK)

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^[a]in a way that is holy and honourable, 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.^[b] 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 for ever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Footnotes:

a.  1 Thessalonians 4:4 Or learn to live with your own wife; or learn to acquire a wife

b.  1 Thessalonians 4:6 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family.

Dictionary of Bible Themes

8210 commitment, to God’s people

Commitment to God means a commitment to his people. Believers are meant to be nourished and supported by the church, and to work towards its edification.

Commitment to the church

Ac 2:42; Eph 4:3-4; Col 3:15 Paul uses the picture of the body to describe the interdependence of believers: Ro 12:4-10; 1Co 12:12-27

Commitment to other Christians is an expression of love made known in Christ

Jn 13:34-35; Col 3:13-14; 1Pe 1:22 See also Jn 15:12,17; Ro 12:10,16; Ro 13:8; Gal 5:13; Eph 4:32-5:2; 1Th 3:12; 1Th 4:9; 2Th 1:3; Heb 13:1; 1Pe 2:17; 1Jn 3:11,23; 1Jn 4:7,21; 1Jn 5:2

Such commitment is expressed in mutual responsibility and concern

Gal 6:2; Heb 10:24-25; 1Pe 3:8 See also Ro 14:13;Ro 15:7,14; 1Co 1:10 Paul’s concern for unity among believers; Eph 5:21; Col 3:13 the responsibility of believers to forgive one another; Col 3:16; 1Ti 5:11;Heb 3:13; Jas 4:11; 1Pe 4:9; 1Pe 5:5

For its leaders, commitment to the church may prove a joy and a burden

Ac 20:28 Paul speaking to the elders of the church at Ephesus; 2Co 11:28 See also Col 1:24; 1Th 2:8; 1Th 5:12-13; 1Ti 3:1; Heb 13:17; 1Pe 5:1-3

The Bible Panorama

1 Thessalonians 4

V 1–2: INCREASE AND INSTRUCTION Their spiritual lives should increase continually and abundantly. They should remember Christ’s commandments received through Paul and his Christian colleagues.

 V 3–8: SANCTIFICATION AND SEX God’s will is to have a holy people in contrast to the unregenerate Gentiles. This means that sexual immorality has no place whatsoever in the life of any believer. Adultery and lustful passion is out. To reject this clean and holy teaching is to reject God and His Holy Spirit.

 V 9–12: LOVE AND LIVING Heavenly love towards each other must predominate. As it increases, it will produce a quiet, industrious, ordered life. This will ensure that they have a good testimony to those outside and that their needs are met by their daily work.

 V 13–18: COMFORT AND COMING Some suggested to the Thessalonians that Christians who had died had missed the blessing of Christ’s second coming. Paul teaches them that, when Christ comes, those who have died physically will be raised with a resurrection body first and be reunited with Christ in the air. Christ will bring their redeemed souls with Him, so there will also be another reunion—that of the body and soul of the believer. Then those who are alive physically will join that blessed reunion with their returned Lord of glory. This is, of course, a great comfort. The Christian who has died and the Christian who is alive both have their future gloriously secured in Jesus Christ. Those who died trusting Christ only fell ‘asleep’ in death, and awoke immediately in His eternal presence. Now they will be given a resurrection body also when Christ brings them back with Him.

The Bible Panorama. Copyright © 2005 Day One Publications.