1 Thessalonians 4

Background

EPISTLES TO THE CHURCHES

Paul’s letters are another way he continued his care for his churches. They were written in his stead and delivered by people commissioned not only to read the letter aloud but to explain its contents. The letters deal with pastoral issues including:

1. False teaching: Over half of Paul’s letters deal with the problem of false teachers. The whole of Galatians is devoted to the problem of Judaizers..

2. Disunity: Paul deals with divisions and their causes.

3. Specific concerns: Other matters punctuate the letters, for example, the death of Christians (1 Thess 4–5), ethics (Rom 12–15; Gal 4–6; Col 3; Eph 4–5), travel plans (e.g., Rom 1, 15; 1 Thess 3; Phil 2), and the return of the runaway slave, Onesimus (Philemon).

1 Thessalonians 4:1–18 (NLT)

1 Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live in a way that pleases God, as we have taught you. You live this way already, and we encourage you to do so even more.

2 For you remember what we taught you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

He’s saying “Keep Going. Continue on. grow even more in your faith you haven’t arrived yet. If you think you have it figured out—think again. “

these believers are very young in their faith. They need frequent reminders to stay in faith especially when there were Judiazers and pagans who wanted to lure them away from their new-found faith.

3 God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin.

4 Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor—

5 not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways.

6 Never harm or cheat a fellow believer in this matter by violating his wife, for the Lord avenges all such sins, as we have solemnly warned you before.

7 God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives.

In chapter 4, Paul deals with the issue of love. “Your love is to be not lustful, sensual, or immoral—but pure,” he says. Considering how young in the faith the church at Thessalonica was, it is easy to understand why they needed to be reminded not to fall into the immorality of the world that surrounded them.

christians live differently than the world when we abstain from sexual immorality. The ancient Greek word translated sexual immorality (porneia) referring to any sexual relationship outside of the marriage covenant.

8 Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching but is rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

4 reasons for the command

a. Because the Lord is the avenger of sexual sin: This is the first of four reasons for sexual purity. We can trust that God will punish sexual immorality, and that no one gets away with this sin—even if it is undiscovered.

b.“If you refuse this word,” Paul says, “you’re not rejecting us, but God.”

c. Anyone who says they are a Christian and is sexually immoral, is playing with a potentially deadly situation that will wreck their faith if they don’t repent of it.

d. God has given us His Holy Spirit: This is the fourth of four reasons for sexual purity given in this passage. We have been given the Holy Spirit, who empowers the willing, trusting Christian to overcome sexual sin. By His Spirit, God has given us the resources for victory; we are responsible to use those resources.

9 But we don’t need to write to you about the importance of loving each other, for God himself has taught you to love one another.

10 Indeed, you already show your love for all the believers throughout Macedonia. Even so, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you to love them even more.

1. We should live a life of increasing love (9–10)

a. But concerning brotherly love you had no need that I should write to you: These principles are basic The Thessalonians were taught by God about the importance of love, yet we must all be reminded.

b. And indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in Macedonia: It wasn’t that the Thessalonians were without love; their love toward all the brethren was well known, but they had to increase more and more in their love.

11 Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before.

Most of us have difficulty following the admonition to be quiet.

Winston Churchill told the story of a man who was always chattering.

“Sir Winston,” he chirped, “I haven’t told you about my grandchildren yet.”

“And for that,” Churchill answered, “I am deeply grateful.”

We can be conversationalists, but we shouldn’t be chatty.

a. That you also aspire to lead a quiet life: This means that we should have an aspiration or ambition in life, and that we should aspire to lead a quiet life.

ii. The quiet life contradicts the hugely successful modern attraction to entertainment and excitement. This addiction to entertainment and excitement is damaging both spiritually and culturally. We might say that excitement and entertainment are like a religion for many people today.

• This religion has a god: The self.

• This religion has priests: Celebrities.

• This religion has a prophet: Perpetual enternainment.

• This religion has scriptures: Tabloids and entertainment, news, and informational programs.

• This religion has places of worship: Amusement parks, theaters, concert halls, sports arenas; and we could say that every television and internet connection is a little chapel.

iii. The religion of excitement and entertainment seduces people into living their lives for one thing—the thrill of the moment. But these thrills are quickly over and forgotten, and all that is important is the next fun thing. This religion conditions its followers to only ask one question: “Is it fun?” It never wants us to ask more important questions such as, “Is it true?” “Is it right?” “Is it good?” “Is it godly?”

iv. We need to live the quiet life so that we can really take the time and give the attention to listen to God. When we live the quiet life, we can listen to God and get to know Him better.

b. To mind your own business: This means that the Christian must focus on his or her own life and matters, instead of meddling in the lives of others. “Mind your own business” is a Biblical idea.

i. “There is a great difference between the Christian duty of putting the interests of others first and the busybody’s compulsive itch to put other people right.”

ii. “Paul, however, does not mean that every individual is to mind his own business in such a way that all are to live apart from one another and have no concern for others, but simply wants to correct the idle triviality which makes men open disturbers of the peace, when they ought to lead a quiet life at home.”

We Should Live a Life of Work (11))

c. Work with your own hands: We must recognize the dignity and honor of work. Work is God’s plan for the progress of society and the church. We fall into Satan’ snare when we expect things to always come easily, or regard God’s blessing as an opportunity for laziness.

i. Manual labor was despised by ancient Greek culture. They thought that the better a man was, the less he should work. In contrast, God gave us a carpenter King, fisherman apostles, and tent-making missionaries.

ii. “There is nothing more disgraceful than an idle good-for-nothing who is of no use either to himself or to others, and seems to have been born merely to eat and drink.”

12 Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.

. We should live a life that is an example, lacking nothing (12)

We should walk properly toward those who are outside: When we combine the love of our brothers with work, we walk properly. People who are not yet Christians (those who are outside) will see our example and be influenced to become followers of Jesus.

13 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. .

The believing dead are thought of as being “asleep” (13)

a. But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep: In the few weeks Paul was with the Thessalonians, he emphasized the soon return of Jesus, and the Thessalonians believed it earnestly. This was part of the reason that they were the kind of church Paul complimented so highly. Yet after Paul left, they wondered about those Christians who died before Jesus came back. They were troubled by the idea that these Christians might miss out on that great future event and that they might miss the victory and blessing of Jesus’ coming.

i. It is with some interest we note that four times in his letters, Paul asked Christians to not be ignorant about something:

• Don’t be ignorant about God’s plan for Israel ( Romans 11:25).

• Don’t be ignorant about spiritual gifts ( 1 Corinthians 12:1).

• Don’t be ignorant about suffering and trials in the Christian life ( 2 Corinthians 1:8).

• Don’t be ignorant about the rapture and the second coming of Jesus ( 1 Thessalonians 4:13).

ii. Remarkably, these are areas where ignorance is still common in the Christian world.

b. Who have fallen asleep: Sleep was a common way to express death in the ancient world, but among pagans, it was almost always seen as an eternal sleep.

ii. Christians called death sleep, but they emphasized the idea of rest. Early Christians began to call their burial places “cemeteries,” which means, “dormitories” or “sleeping places.” Yet the Bible never describes the death of the unbeliever as sleep, for there is no rest, peace, or comfort for them in death.

iii. Though Paul, using idioms common in his day, referred to death as sleep, it does not prove the erroneous idea of soul sleep, that the present dead in Christ are in a state of suspended animation, waiting for a resurrection to consciousness. “Since to depart from this world in death to ‘be with Christ’ is described by Paul as ‘very far better’ ( Philippians 1:23) than the present state of blessed communion with the Lord and blessed activity in His service, it is evident that ‘sleep’ as applied to believers cannot be intended to teach that the soul is unconscious.”

c. Lest you sorrow as others who have no hope: For the Christian death is dead, and leaving this body is like laying down for a nap and waking in glory. It is moving, not dying. For these reasons, Christians should not sorrow as others who have no hope when their believing loved ones die.

i. As Christians, we may mourn the death of other Christians; but not as others who have no hope. Our sorrow is like the sadness of seeing someone off on a long trip, knowing you will see them again, but not for a long time.

14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died. (fallen asleep)

2. There is full assurance that Christians who have died yet live (14)

i. For the Thessalonian Christians, their troubled minds were answered by the statement “God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.” “It is best to understand the words to mean that Jesus will bring the faithful departed with Him when He comes back. Their death does not mean that they will miss anything

b. Jesus died: When Paul wrote about the death of believers, he called it sleep. But in his description of Jesus’ death, he did not soften it by calling it sleep, because there was nothing soft or peaceful about His death.

i. “He endured the worst that death can possibly be … It is because there was no softening of the horror of death for Him that there is no horror of death for His people. For them it is but sleep.”

c. We believe that Jesus died and rose again: This was the confident belief of the Apostle Paul and the early Christians. We will certainly live, because Jesus lives and our union with Him is stronger than death. This is why we do not sorrow as those who have no hope and why we have more than a wishful hope.

i. When a sinner dies, we mourn for them. When a believer dies, we only mourn for ourselves, because they are with the Lord.

Or one can visit the murky catacombs and read glorious inscriptions. One of the most common Christian epitaphs from the catacombs was IN PEACE, quoting Psalm 4:8:” I will both lie down in peace and sleep; for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” We should look at death the same way those early Christians did.

iii. Sadly, not all Christians are at this place of confidence and peace. Even Christians have, in unbelief, had the same fear and hopelessness about death. The author once read an inscription reflecting this un-Christian despair on an Irish tombstone in a Christian cemetery on the Hill of Slane, outside of Dublin:

O cruel Death you well may boast

Of all Tyrants thou art the most

As you all mortals can control

The Lord have mercy on my soul

(1782)

15 We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves.

Jon Courson’s Application Commentary (Chapter 4)

There are those who contend that the trump of God mentioned here refers to the seventh trumpet of Revelation, which signals the Rapture (Revelation 11:15). Thus, they reason the church will be present on earth during the Tribulation.

Such is not the case. The trumpets of Revelation 8–11 are blown by angels, whereas the trump of 1 Thessalonians 4 is the trump of God—the trump Paul refers to as “the last trump” ( 1 Corinthians 15:52). God sounded the first trump when He gathered the Jews at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16). He will sound the last trump before He gathers those who become believers during the Tribulation.

17 Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever.

18 So encourage each other with these words.

Jon Courson’s Application Commentary (Chapter 4)

“In this world you will have tribulation,” declared Jesus ( John 16:33)—from Satan, from the flesh, from the world. The Tribulation of Revelation 6–19 is the time when God pours out His wrath and judgment on a Christ-rejecting, sinful world. Certainly the Father is not saying, “Throughout your life, you’ll face tribulation from Satan, the flesh, and the world—and then you’ll experience Tribulation from Me.” That’s just not it. As believers, we will not go through the Tribulation. And that is a comforting word, indeed.