1 Thessalonians 4 - Strings Attached
God's grace is unconditional, but there are strings attached.
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1 Thessalonians 4 (ESV)
1 Finally, then, brothers,
we ask and urge you
in the Lord Jesus,
that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God,
just as you are doing,
that you do so more and more.
2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
that you abstain from sexual immorality;
4 that each one of you know how to control his own body
in holiness and honor,
5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter,
because the Lord is an avenger in all these things,
as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.
7 For God has not called us
for impurity,
but in holiness.
8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards
not man
but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you,
for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another,
10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia.
But we urge you, brothers,
to do this more and more,
11 and to aspire
to live quietly,
and to mind your own affairs,
and to work with your hands,
as we instructed you,
12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders
and be dependent on no one.
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep,
that you may not grieve
as others do
who have no hope.
14 For since we believe
that Jesus
died
and rose again,
even so,
through Jesus,
God will bring
with him
those who have fallen asleep.
15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord,
that we
who are alive,
who are left until the coming of the Lord,
will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself
will descend
from heaven
with a cry of command,
with the voice of an archangel,
and with the sound of the trumpet of God.
And the dead in Christ will rise first.
7 Then we
who are alive,
who are left,
will be caught up
together with them
in the clouds
to meet the Lord
in the air,
and so we will always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
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1 Thessalonians 4 Summary
This short chapter has two parts. In the first half, Paul calls his readers to a life of holy living, following the pattern set by our Lord Jesus Christ. The lifestyle Christians must pursue is modeled on Jesus' summary of the commandments: Love God and love your neighbor.
The way you are to show your love for God is in how you control your body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God (v4-5).
Paul echoes Jesus' words that we are to love one another (v9), but he adds an interesting twist. Certainly there's lots of ways to love your neighbor, but Paul's command here is to just simply live quietly, and mind your own affairs, and work with your hands (v11).
Dig Deeper
In our high school catechism class, we've been learning that Christians are unconditionally elected by God. This means that God's choosing you for salvation was not based on any conditions you had met.
But this does not mean that salvation itself is unconditional. It's not that your salvation depends upon you doing certain things, rather there are expectations for how you live subsequent to your salvation because of God's grace in your life. In other words, God has placed these conditions in your life not so you can be saved, but because you are saved.
In theology, we call this idea sanctification. The root word sanct means 'holy' (think of how the word 'sanctuary' often means 'holy place'). Thus, becoming sanctified means looki