A Commentary in Simple English on 1 Thessalonians

Chapter 4

Verses 1-12: Holiness and love

‘Finally’ in verse 1 does not mean that Paul has almost come to the end. Rather he has finished the first part of the letter. There, he talked a good deal about himself and the church. Now there will be more teaching.
The Christian life is a way by which we live. The Book of Acts often simply calls the Christian religion ‘The Way‘. (Acts 9: 2; 19: 23; 22: 4; 24: 14, 22). In this verse, Paul twice speaks of living the Christian life as a ‘walk‘. In verses 1 and 2, Paul says four things: -

a) When he was at Salonika, Paul had taught the Christians how to live in such a way that they would please God.
b) The Christians do live now in that way.
c) In this letter Paul asks them to go further and to live like this still more.
d) Then in verse 2 he tells them again that his teaching and the rules which he gave them had the authority of the Lord Jesus.

So in verse 3 Paul states the main point. We all know what God's will for us is. It is that we should be holy. A child should not always have to be told by its father what to do. The child should know what its father expects. The child should know its father's mind. So it is with God. He is our Father in heaven. He should not have to keep on telling us what He wants. We should know, because we are His children. So God's will is for us to be holy.

God has put desires into men and women. One strong one is the desire for sex. Psalm 103: 5. tells us that God gives us all we want (satisfies us) with good things. It is the devil's lie that we must sin. The devil is lying when he tells us that our desires will still be there if we do not sin. It is good things which ‘satisfy‘: wrong, sinful things will never ‘satisfy’ us. So our sex desire can only be ‘satisfied’ by marriage. One man and one woman living together learn to know and love one another. They also learn to forgive one another. There is no better way. (verses 4 and 5)

We are to be pure in the matter of sex. Our sex life is given to us by God, and if we are faithful in marriage. Verse 4 goes beyond this. Even in marriage a Christian man or woman has to be pure. We must learn to control our own bodies. We must be the masters of our bodies. They must do only what is right. If we give way to every desire that we have, then sex will not be holy, even within marriage. The person who is not a Christian (verse 5) just gives way to strong desires. But the Christian knows God. He knows God can help us to control ourselves. God is holy, so we must be holy. God loves us with a love that is far purer than the love of a man and woman, and it is His love we want to share in.

In verse 6 most people think that Paul is still talking about being pure in our sex life. But some people think that this is to do with trade. In money matters and in trade we must be careful to be fair in what we do. It is a temptation to us to say: ‘He is a Christian. So although it is not quite fair, it is not really cheating and he will understand. I would not do this to anyone who was not a Christian!’ It is never as easy as you would think for Christians to buy and sell things to each other.

Verses 7 and 8 give more reasons why we should lead a holy life. God has called us to follow the Lord Jesus. It is not part of this call that our lives should be full of sin. It is a part of that call that we should be holy. For God is full of love and kindness when He calls us to follow Jesus. But there is even more than this. When He calls us, He puts His Spirit into us. We must always remember that His Spirit is the Holy Spirit. The place where the Holy Spirit is - our hearts! - must be holy too.

So in verse 11 Paul tells these Christians three things that they are to try to do. Each of them is to try to do better than the others in these things.

a) First, they are to lead a quiet life. This may mean that they are to keep away from excited religion. The heathen religions of the day had exciting holidays. Cheering crowds walked through the streets to the temples. There was plenty to eat and drink. Much of what happened was very sinful. Paul says: ‘Keep away from it all‘.

b) A problem in this church was that some of the people thought that there was no need for them to work.

We think that this church was mostly made up of working people but it seems they were not slaves. Notice that Paul does not warn them of the dangers of being rich. (See Proverbs 30 :8,9.) The Christian has to be holy in every day life with other people, not by going off somewhere on his own. ‘If we cannot be holy at work, it is not worth taking trouble to be holy at other times‘. ‘Nothing is worse for most people than to have nothing to do except to be religious‘. (See 2 Thessalonians 3 :6-13.) It is right for us to pray that we may earn more, because then we shall be able to give more. (Eph 4 :28)

c) Then Paul says (in verse 12) that the way that they live should be so good that people who did not believe in the Good News about Jesus would honour them.

Paul now turns (verses 9 and 10) to say more about love. Really holy people will have hearts full of love. These Christians had love between themselves and they also had love for the members of the other churches around. They were not to become slack in this.

Verses 13-18 Jesus will come again!

Paul has already spoken about the coming again of Jesus (1.: 10; 2 : 19; 3 : 13). Every book in the New Testament speaks about it. Now Paul speaks of it more fully. These Christians had a new hope in Christ, but this in turn raised a question. It was only a few weeks or at most months, since Paul had left Salonika. In that short time, several of the believers had died (verse 13.) They may have died violent deaths at the hands of the enemies of the church: we do not know. The Salonikans could not understand this when they had the hope that Jesus would come again. So Paul says that the Christians who die before Jesus comes will have just as much honour as those who are still alive when He comes. Paul says (verse.18) that we should comfort ourselves with ‘these words‘. We can find many comforting thoughts when faithful Christians ‘fall asleep’ [4.1]. None is better than what Paul says here (verse.13) that he wants us to know about.

(a) It is not wrong for us to be sad or ‘grieve’ when other Christians die; but because we have hope in Christ our sadness will be different from that of people around us who have no hope. We have hope : so we have joy too.

(b) We should think about Christians who die as only ‘falling asleep‘. They are ‘at home with the Lord‘. (2 Cor 5 : 8). When Jesus comes again, we shall all be clothed with a new body. That will be glory. (2 Cor 5 : 2).

(c) Jesus died for us; Paul does not say that He ‘fell asleep‘. He died and rose again. He died for us; and He rose again for us. He is now seated in glory with God, and He has gone there to prepare a place for us. He has opened up the way for His faithful people to follow Him to glory (verse.14).

(d) (Verses 15 and 16) Paul says that some Christians will live on until Jesus comes again. Yet they will not be better off than those who have ‘fallen asleep in Jesus‘. Those who, by faith, have been one with Christ in life and in death will rise from the dead. Those who live on until He comes will meet Him ‘in the air‘.

(e) Paul gives us a picture in verse 16 of the great things which will happen when our Saviour comes again. This is so that we will know that what will happen to us is only a part of what God will do then. Much is said about this all through the New Testament: but here Paul says:

1. That it will be Jesus Himself Who will come. He is now in heaven. He will come back from heaven to this earth.

2. He will come with a loud shout. Everyone will hear that. He will be like a general who shouts an order to his army. But this great shout will tell us that Jesus himself has won. The fight is over.

3. He will come with a great shout too from the chief of all the angels. This must mean that all the other angels are to come with him. (Matt 25 : 31). This will be heard all round the world.

4. There will be a loud call on a trumpet (or war horn) (Matt 24 : 31; 1 Cor 15 : 52; Rev 11: 15-18). This too will be heard. (See too what happened when the ‘last trumpet’ sounded at Jericho in Joshua 6 :16, 20, 21; Leviticus 25: 8-17 for the great year of Jubilee and the trumpet in verse 9.)

Remember that these things will happed when Jesus comes again. They have not yet happened. Jesus has not yet come again. So we must not listen to anyone who tries to tell us that Jesus has come. We shall know very well when He does come again! We shall not need anyone to tell us.

5. Then Paul says that the Christian dead, who are now in Christ's care, will rise from death first.

6. Then in verse 17, those Christians who are still alive at that time will meet with Jesus in the clouds.

(f) Best of all (verse 18) Paul tells us that we shall be together with those who love the Saviour. Not only shall we be with them but we shall all be with the Lord Himself. This will not be only for a short while: we shall live for ever, and be with Him forever.

The Bible does not tell us of any third way. Either we believe and all this joy will be ours - or we are lost. When people ask questions about what happens after death, it is often because they think there may be some other way. We should warn them that if they do not put their faith in Christ then they must expect punishment in hell (Heb 10.: 26-31)

This is one of the important passages of Scripture which we read at services when Christians have died. Others are John 11 : 25 and 26; 1 Corinthians 15 : 42-57; 2 Corinthians 5 : 1-9; and Job 19 : 25-27