1 Thessalonians 5:15 - How Do We Repay Evil?

15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

Target Date: Sunday, 7 May 2023

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

See – ὁράω hŏraō – Second person, plural. See to it, make sure. Literally – stare at.

Repay - ἀποδίδωμι apŏdidōmi – Third person subjunctive aorist. Give back, pay back.

Evil - κακός kakŏs – This is a general word used to describe the entire REALM of evil, not just a particular manifestation of it.

It represents harm, malice, pain, wickedness, and all the tools of the enemy.

Always - πάντοτε pantŏtĕ – at all times.

Seek - διώκω diōkō – to pursue, run after.

This is not just a wish to do something, but the diligent pursuit of it.

This word is often translated “persecute”, so note the nuance of the statement: persecute them with kindness…

Good - ἀγαθός agathŏs – good things, beneficial

One another - ἀλλήλων allēlōn – reciprocal pronoun – mutually, each other

Everyone – literally “all”. Because this is used in many different ways throughout Scripture, it must be interpreted in the context of the statement, so it does mean “everyone else who is not ‘each other’” – that is, everyone.

Thoughts on the Passage:

There were many ways the apostles could have phrased this exhortation, but the way they did is remarkable, even funny.

They were talking about how the church should be responding to those who were pursuing them, persecuting them, to do them evil.

Their reply is to persecute their opponents with goodness.

Persecute the persecutors – not with evil, malice, harm, humiliation, hatred or anything worldly of that sort – but with kindness, goodness, gentleness, love.

Pursue them, give them no rest from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Do not say, “I will repay evil”; Wait for the Lord, and He will save you. – Proverbs 20:22

Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. – Romans 12:17-21

Obedience to this has little to do with the outcome of that kindness, whether as a testimony to the evil person that will bring them to salvation or not. Nothing is said of the outcome here. Indeed, in other places the final judgment of the evil people is assured and is used to comfort the disciples.

If the goal is not the ultimate salvation of the evil persecutor, then is it the good reputation of the church in the community? Certainly, there are places where that might be thought (1 Peter 3:16) to be the point, but even in this passage that may not be the point.

keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. 17 For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong. – 1 Peter 3:16-17

The goal in all this is primarily to not allow yourself or your brother in Christ to be converted, turned into, the image of the world’s warrior. The greatest disgrace for a believer is to win the fight, but to do so in an ungodly, unworthy, or ignoble manner, becoming the image of the very thing they are opposing.

It is no victory for a believer who wins by fighting in the world’s way.

The only victory for the child of God is to win the battle in God’s way.

To reply to evil with good requires more faith than a natural person generally has. It requires faith that God is in control, and that His approval is more important than any worldly title, acknowledgement, or battle.

It is certain of the fact that even if we win the conflict here on earth, if we do not win it by God’s means, we will be found lacking on that Great Day of judgment.

The battle belongs to the Lord.

that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.” – 1 Samuel 17:47

This scene, the meeting of David with Goliath on the battlefield, may seem to contradict the point of this lesson. After all, the giant was felled and killed by the hand of David.

But we have to recall that the events of the Old Testament are often pictures in flesh and blood, types and shadows to lead us to the truth of Jesus Christ.

David didn’t overcome the giant with strength, with skill, or with any of his own courage. The giant was overcome by the obedience of David acting in faith – nothing more.

Even the most skilled slinger would not put a single stone in the target that small – we make too much of David’s innate skill and training.

Even he did not declare the battle was his, or that his skill would carry the day. He trusted God to fight the battle in His way.

This could be said of Moses, of Gideon, of Joshua, of any of the other battles of the Old Testament – each stands not as a triumph of the Israelite armies or leadership, but of the fact that God was fighting for them.

So when we come to Matthew, we find the Messiah, the Anointed Son of God, Son of David, saying this:

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41 Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven - Matthew 5:38-45

We are simply NOT called in our day, in the light of the Messiah of God, to fight as we see Israel fight in the Old Testament. Our arms are not carnal; our armor is spiritual; our enemy is not in the flesh, but is spiritual.

The world has no respect for the meek, the lowly, the loving, or the poor in spirit. They are a laughing-stock to those of the world who would flex their fleshly muscles and declare that God has made them strong.

Samson was strong, but he squandered that very strength by trusting in it. Every Philistine he killed was simply an inconvenience to that enemy, not a rout or a real win. The Philistines were only defeated by Samson at the end, when, stripped of his strength and deprived of his eyes, he stood among those mockers of God and repented – then the Philistine army was dealt with.

God does not require your demonstrations of your strength. What He commands are your demonstrations of trust in Him, of obedience to Him, and faithfulness to His will, even if it means you lay aside your strength, wit, or fleshly advantages for the sake of others and His gospel.

The sinner’s biggest problem is not his sin; it is his position as estranged from God, an enemy.

It is the height of folly and Christian malpractice to try to “teach unbelievers a lesson” or to urge them simply to abandon their sins on the basis of law or conscience.

Unbelievers MUST be brought to Christ, where the Spirit can regenerate and convert them from sinners into saints.

The church is not called to convict the world of their sins – that is the work of the Holy Spirit:

And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; - John 16:8

The church preaches and teaches the Law of God so that we who are IN the church can be more obedient, more pleasing to God. For those outside of Christ, we preach the gospel that God sent His Son to free them from their slavery to their sin.

Sermon Text:

We continue to look at these final instructions in this letter to the Thessalonians.

Each sentence, which is generally each verse, in the remainder of the letter really stands on its own – the thoughts are not tightly connected to each other.

They do not proceed from one to another in a linked chain;

One thought does not really grow out of the one before.

There are some I have seen that do try to link them in some sort of chain of thought, but be careful introducing that kind of artifice to the Scripture.

Because, in every case I have seen, the artificial links have done nothing but WEAKEN the commands of the apostles, making their exhortations easier to follow, perhaps even easier to stomach.

For example, some have tried with this very verse to weaken the message being given.

They do it in this way:

We see the positive instruction in the last part of the verse:

Always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.

And they try to link it to the end of verse 14:

be patient with everyone.

See the word “everyone” used in both instructions?

Those that would illegitimately link these two verses then take a look at the context of verse 14.

As we saw last week, that verse is instructing the church in how to bring along “weaker” brothers in the faith – gently nurturing, training, and helping them to full obedience to Jesus Christ.

And so those who would link them then declare, with no other support, that verse 15 is speaking ONLY of our obligations WITHIN the church.

Because the people represented by “everyone” in verse 15 are the same people represented by “everyone” in verse 14.

And so, for them, the more distasteful idea of “turning the other cheek” toward those who do real evil to us is removed from the verse, making it both easier to obey and easier to believe.

After all, if this is just talking about the evil done to us by fellow Christians, that is quite different than talking about the evil done to us by the enemies of Christ.

You see how methods like this can be used to weaken the instructions of God to us?

Do you REALLY believe that the teachings of the Scriptures are there to show you how good you already are, or do they exist to continue bringing you into closer and closer obedience to Him?

Christian, please understand this rule of thumb: if you find any command of Scripture easy to obey, you do not yet fully understand it.

To look at a Scripture and think, “Oh, good. I already do this naturally” is nothing more than to declare that you are, in that area, complete and fully acceptable to God.

I refer you, in your own private study, to read Matthew 5-7 again this week.

See how even “easy” commandments like “You shall not murder” or “You shall not commit adultery” contain within themselves those sinful heart states that bring condemnation to us all but for the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

For those people who would weaken this passage, I declare to you from the TEXT of the word of God that this is just wishful thinking.

1. The scope of the commandment has changed.

In the prior verse, the apostles spoke to the “brothers and sisters” as a group, and in particular, those who were stronger in the faith than those being shepherded along.

But here, the scope is personal: no one.

That is literally “NOT ANY ONE OF YOU.”

This is not about the general conduct of the church, but the personal conduct of each believer.

2. Both the parties are individuals.

Not any one to anyone evil for evil repays – that is another way to translate it.

For ANY two people, the Christian brother or sister must not return evil where evil is offered.

This is undoubtedly personal, and there is no relationship this would not cover.

3. The “all” at the end is in addition to the “one another” that would include all within the church.

Seek to do good to one another AND

Seek to do good TO EVERYONE.

There is simply no reason to have both recipients listed if all the apostles intended was for a harmonious church.

If one MUST find a link between verses 14 and 15, this is at least a better one.

Where “seek to do good to one another” summarizes verse 14 and “to everyone (else)” summarizes the first part of verse 15.

I still would argue that is no good link, though, because it introduces other weaknesses I will not take time to demonstrate.

So having established the scope of this commandment to repay evil with only good to everyone, we need to make sure we understand what that means.

And I will tell you from the outset that the meaning is more radical than we will like, more deep than we are comfortable, and more beautiful than we have likely considered.

Remember who that “everyone” was:

These were the people who were persecuting the church.

The Jews who had bought thugs from the market to riot in the city.

The Greeks and pagans, particularly those in positions of authority, who preferred their peace on earth to peace with God.

It is that “everyone” who had delivered the evil riots, the evil trial, the evil verdict, and the evil expulsion of the apostles from the city.

And that evil had a REAL chance of endangering the faithfulness of that young church.

We have seen throughout this study of this epistle the places where these believers had been partially untrained, uninstructed.

Incidentally, we have also seen where the faithfulness of God through the Holy Spirit had led them rightly through these difficulties because they faithfully held to Him.

And it is to those people that the apostles are now telling EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the church to repay with good.

But someone might say “The apostles only said to ‘seek’ to do good”, and that is entirely true.

And we might miss the great point of that here if we think of “seek” as a synonym of “try”.

If somehow we read this as “try to do good”.

Children often play the game “hide and seek”, which for us means “hide and try to find”.

But the word “seek” here means not so much a friendly game as a grave pursuit.

The seek here should not conjure the image of a bunch of children squealing in play so much as someone being pursued by bloodhounds hot on their scent.

Someone being sought as a manhunt, bringing resources and people to bear on the quarry.

Someone being relentlessly stalked as a quarry or prey.

When you think about it, the apostles could have said this in a LOT of different ways:

They could have used the word “try” – try to do good.

They could have simply said “do good”.

But they chose this word “seek” to do good, and it is NOT an accident or merely a figure of speech.

Because this word we read as “seek” is only translated that way about half the time in the New Testament. Any guess on how it is translated the other times?

Persecute.

As in (read with the “seek” put in):

Matthew 5:10 – Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:44-45 - But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven

How it must have delighted the apostles to write this, and delighted the church to read this:

“Persecute those who give you evil with good”.

Pursue those who consider themselves your enemies with good.

Not “turn their arms against them”.

Not “beat the devil at his own game”.

Not “use their weapons to defeat them”.

None of that.

Does you opponent lie?

You tell the truth.

Does you opponent hate you?

Love them, truly love them, in return.

Does you opponent persecute you with malice, harm, humiliation, or any other worldly evil?

Persecute him through greater measures of kindness, goodness, gentleness, and love.

Does your opponent use the means of this world to deprive you of things?

Demonstrate through your patience that life is about more than what we wear, eat, or live.

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41 Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven - Matthew 5:38-45

Pursue them: give them no rest from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ.

Now, if you still have your Bible open, take a look at our verse for the day. And look for the REASON the apostles give for this command.

Why are we to repay every evil only with good?

Do they say that it will cause the persecution to go away?

No.

Do they say that it will lead to the salvation of the evil persecutor?

No.

Are they concerned with the reputation of the church as a whole?

No.

The truth is that the only outcome that is of importance here is what the persecution, the evil that is given to you, does to you.

The reason we repay evil with good is so that we may not be converted into the image of the world’s warrior.

I can think of few greater tragedies than to be the winner of a conflict, but to be disqualified by God because we have fought with the wrong weapons in the wrong way.

The defense of God does not ever require the weapons of men.

But you may be thinking: “In the Old Testament, Israel used weapons by God’s direction”.

Yes, they did. But their exploits were pictures in flesh and blood, types and shadows of the truth to be revealed in the Last Days with the advent of Jesus Christ.

Consider perhaps the most famous example: David’s fight with Goliath.

Hear the warning of the shepherd to the giant:

“You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.” – 1 Samuel 17:45-47

David’s sling was not an equal weapon to the giant’s sword or javelin.

David’s training as a shepherd had not prepared him more than the giant’s training. That would be preposterous.

The stone he slung toward the giant’s head was not a shot of skill, but a shot the Lord used to honor His name, as a result of the faith of the slinger.

Even David did not declare the battle was his – it belonged to the Lord.

The giant was overcome by the obedience of David acting in faith – nothing more.

Look at all the battles: Moses, Joshua, Gideon, or any other.

Those fought by God’s rules were successful; those fought against His rules were failures.

We are simply NOT called in our day, in the light of the Messiah of God, to fight as we see Israel fight in the Old Testament. Our arms are not carnal; our armor is spiritual; our enemy is not in the flesh, but is spiritual.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:12

We are not at war with people or governments, but with those spiritual powers that patrol the gates of hell.

Our weapons are not guns nor rhetoric, but the Name of our Lord and His gospel.

There are many preachers out there who will poo-poo this so-called “weak” response of good in return for evil.

They declare that God calls us to be victorious in Him, so we will win our battles.

They predict the supremacy of the church by political power or the strength of numbers.

The world has no respect for the meek, the lowly, the loving, or the poor in spirit.

They are a laughing-stock to those who would flex their fleshly muscles and declare that God has made them strong for a reason – His conquest.

Samson was strong, but he squandered that very strength by trusting in it.

Every Philistine he killed was simply an inconvenience to that enemy, not a rout or a real win.

The Philistines were only defeated by Samson at the end, when, stripped of his strength and deprived of his eyes, he stood among those mockers of God and repented –

Only then the Philistine army was dealt with.

God does not require your demonstrations of your strength.

What He commands are your demonstrations of trust in Him, of obedience to Him, and faithfulness to His will, even if it means you lay aside your strength, wit, or fleshly advantages for the sake of others and His gospel.

Will YOU be triumphant? Who cares?

The point is that God will be found triumphant and that you be found IN HIM.

Perhaps every day, people will give you evil.

They will hate or despise you; they will cheat you.

They will oppose you because you love Jesus Christ and exhibit His love to them.

They will try to elevate themselves above you simply because that is the way the world works – the strong lord it over the weak.

The rich steal from the poor.

The smart swindle the unwise.

And every time this happens, you will be tempted to respond with evil – meaning that you will respond with anything but the love of Jesus Christ.

You will be tempted to convince yourself that you are helping them by showing them their sin.

That if they can be led from that one sin, they will be better for it.

Brothers and sisters, please hear this: The sinner’s biggest problem is not his sin; it is his position as estranged from God, God’s enemy.

It is the height of folly and Christian malpractice to try to “teach unbelievers a lesson” or to urge them simply to abandon their sins on the basis of law or conscience.

Unbelievers MUST be brought to Christ, where the Spirit can regenerate and convert them from sinners into saints.

The church is not called to convict the world of their sins – that is the work of the Holy Spirit:

And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; - John 16:8

The church preaches and teaches the Law of God so that we who are IN the church can be more obedient, more pleasing to God.

For those outside of Christ, we preach the gospel that God sent His Son to free them from their slavery to their sin.

No one, by following every single point of the Ten Commandments, will be one step closer to God if it is born in them out of faith in God to begin with.