1 Thessalonians 4–5: Exhortation & Comfort

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Read the Bible in 2023 ◊ Week 31: Sunday

Finally then, brothers, we ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more.
1 Thessalonians 4:1 LSB
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Sunday’s Bible reading is 1 Thessalonians 4–5. Paul opens chapter 4 with a general exhor­tation to excel still more in their lives as Christians. He goes on to remind them to abstain from sexual immorality and soberly warns them of its reality. In verses 9–12 he again urges them to excel, this time in their love for fellow Christians which they are already practicing.

But we urge you, brothers, to excel still more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will walk properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.
1 Thessalonians 4:10b–12 LSB
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You may have heard the last verses of chapter 4 read at funeral services. Paul wrote them to comfort Thessalonians who mourned Christians who had died. His words have continued to comfort Christians throughout the millennia since they were first read.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
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Therefore comfort one another with these words.
1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 LSB
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From there Paul’s train of thought goes on to the day of the Lord. He exhorts the Thessalonians to be ready and reminds them for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness. Faith, hope, and love have been repeated words throughout this letter, and in 1 Thessalonians 5:8, he again groups them together as he did in the first chapter in verse three.

But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.
1 Thessalonians 5:8–11 LSB
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Paul has some final instructions and help to give them on how they are to live as Christians. He prays for them one more time and encourages them in their tenuous circumstances with the promise of God’s faithfulness. He closes with personal requests and gives a final blessing for these new believers he loved so much who were such a joy to him.

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.
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Brothers, pray for us.
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Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.
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I implore you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
1 Thessalonians 5:23–28 LSB

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Silvesterzug Laterne: Bk muc. (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Cross at Sunset: FreeFoto.com (Site is now deleted).

I’m using Michael Coley’s Bible reading plan (one page PDF to print) to read through the Bible in 2023. Each day my posts are on different books because he divides Bible readings into seven categories, one for each day of the week: Epistles, The Law, History, Psalms, Poetry, Prophecy and Gospels. There’s more information on his plan and other ones at Read the Bible in 2023.

Copyright ©2011–2023 Iwana Carpenter

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