ACC ~ 1 Thessalonians 4 v1 - 12

OVERVIEW:

Paul emphasizes that faithful Christian discipleship is a matter of active love in which the believer goes beyond a mere avoidance of evil (CHRYSOSTOM). Paul now moves to instruction that will aid the Thessalonians in seeking the perfection of mature faith and practice, particularly in abstention from all forms of fornication (PSEUDO-CYPRIAN, AUGUSTINE, THEODORE). Though Paul has been careful to praise the Thessalonians, now he moves to warning and admonition lest they be led astray by false teaching (CHRYSOSTOM, AMBROSIASTER, JOHN CASSIAN). The Christian life is by its very nature a growth process analogous to the growth of the body; perfection in good habits ought to grow as faith grows (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, AMBROSE).

4:1 | How You Ought to Live and to Please God

ONE PROPER ANXIETY. CHRYSOSTOM: There is only one calamity for a Christian, this being disobedience to God. All the other things, such as loss of property, exile, peril of life, Paul does not even consider a grievance at all. And that which all dread, departure from this life to the other world—this is to him sweeter than life itself. For as when one has climbed to the top of a cliff and gazes on the sea and those who are sailing upon it, he sees some being washed by the waves, others running upon hidden rocks, some hurrying in one direction, others being driven in another, like prisoners, by the force of the gale. Many are actually in the water, some of them using their hands only in the place of a boat and a rudder, and many drifting along upon a single plank or some fragment of the vessel, others floating dead. He witnesses a scene of manifold and various disasters. Even so he who is engaged in the service of Christ draws himself out of the turmoil and stormy billows of life and takes his seat upon secure and lofty ground. For what position can be loftier or more secure than that in which a man has only one anxiety, “How he ought to please God”? Have you seen the shipwrecks, Theodore, of those who sail upon this sea? LETTERS TO THE FALLEN THEODORE 2.4.

4:3 | The Will of God, Your Sanctification

AN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: For the devil tempts us. He knows what we are but does not know if we will hold out. Wishing to dislodge us from the faith, he also attempts to bring us into subjection to himself. This tempting is all that God has allowed him to do, partly because it is God’s will to save us from ourselves. For indeed, by the opportunity afforded by the commandment we are truly sinners. But the other reason God so limits the devil is to disgrace him and show him up as a failure, thereby strengthening the church and the conscience of those who are awed at such constancy. … The Lord did not suffer by the will of the Father, nor are those who are persecuted persecuted by the will of God. Indeed, either of two things is the case: persecution in consequence of the will of God is a good thing, or, those who decree and inflict suffering are guiltless. But nothing is without the will of the Lord of the universe. It remains to say that such things happen without the prevention of God. Only this way of thinking about suffering saves both the providence and the goodness of God. We must not think therefore that he actively produces afflictions (far be it that we should think this!). . . Providence is a disciplinary art—in the case of others for each individual’s sins, and in the case of the Lord and his apostles for ours. To this point the divine apostle prays: “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” STROMATA 4.12.

THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE. PSEUDO-CYPRIAN: The cardinal principles of chastity, brothers, are ancient. How so? Because they were ordained at the same time as the human race itself. For both her own husband belongs to the woman, for the reason that she may know no other besides him, and because the woman is given to the man. This latter is in order that, when what is his own has been given to him, he should seek nothing belonging to another. … Christ gave this judgment when, having been questioned, he said that a wife must not be put away except because of adultery. Thus did he honor chastity. From this has come the levitical decree, “You shall not allow adulteresses to live.” Therefore, the apostle says, “This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from fornication.” ON THE DISCIPLINE AND ADVANTAGE OF CHASTITY 5-6.

PROPER HUMILITY. GREGORY THE GREAT: It is said through the voice of the prophet to the soul that grows proud, “You trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your renown.” For a soul to trust in its beauty is to presume within itself on its righteous works. It plays the harlot on the basis of its renown when in its righteous acts it seeks the glory of its own reputation rather than the spread of its Creator’s praise. … What then is to be done in this case but that, when the malignant spirit of pride enjoys the good things that we have done in order to exalt the mind, we should ever recall to memory our evil deeds. The goal is that we may acknowledge our sinful acts as our own and our avoidance of sin as the gift of Almighty God. And so Paul says, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you abstain from unchastity.” LETTERS 122.

LAWFUL MARRIAGE. AUGUSTINE: The disease of disordered desire is what the apostle refers to, when, speaking to married believers, he says, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication, that everyone of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the disease of desire, even as the Gentiles who do not know God.” The married believer, therefore, must not only not use another man’s vessel—which is what they do who lust after other men’s wives—but he must know that even his own vessel is not to be possessed in the disease of disordered sexual desire. Paul’s counsel is not to be understood as if the apostle prohibited conjugal—that is to say, lawful and honorable—cohabitation. ON MARRIAGE AND CONCUPISCENCE 1.8.9.

4:4 | A Wife for Himself in Holiness

THE HONORABLE VESSEL. TERTULLIAN: It is quite possible to pass decisive sentences on vessels and on instruments, to the extent that they participate in the merits of their proprietors and employers. … For every vessel or every instrument becomes useful by external manipulation, consisting as it does of material which is quite extraneous to the substance of the human owner or employer. However, the flesh, being conceived, formed and generated along with the soul from its earliest existence in the womb, is mixed up with the soul likewise in all of its operations. For, although it is called “a vessel” by the apostle, such as he commands to be treated “with honor,” yet it is designated by the same apostle as “the outward man.” This is the clay, of course, which at first was inscribed with the title of a man, not of a cup, or a sword or any common vessel. THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH 16.

GOOD CULTIVATION. AMBROSE: Warn the Lord’s people, therefore, and beg them to abound in good works, to renounce vice, not to enkindle the fires of passion—I shall not say on the sabbath, but in every season. Let them not destroy their bodies. Let there be no immorality and uncleanness in the servants of God, because we are the servants of the unblemished Son of God. Let each one know himself and possess his vessel, and when the soil of the body has been ploughed, let him wait for the fruit in due season. Let his hand not cultivate thorns and thistles. Rather let him, too, say, “Our earth has yielded her fruit,” and in the bodily passions that might once have been seen as being like thick and wild woods let there be seen the calm order of virtues that have been grafted onto each tree. LETTERS 15.

TEMPERATE USE THE KEY. CHRYSOSTOM: We must diligently learn to avoid sexual immorality. But we “possess” our vessel, when it is pure; when it is impure, sin possesses it. … For it does not do the things which we wish, but what sin commands. “Not in the passion of lust,” Paul says. Here he shows also the manner of moderation. By moderation we should channel the passions of lust. For luxury, wealth, idleness, sloth, ease and all similar things lead to irregularity of lust within us. HOMILIES ON 1 THESSALONIANS 5.

LUST AS DISORDERED WILL. AUGUSTINE: There are, then, many kinds of lusts for this or that, but when the word is used by itself without specification it suggests to most people the lust for sexual excitement. Such lust does not merely invade the whole body and outward members. It takes such complete and passionate possession of the whole man, both physically and emotionally, that what results is the keenest of all pleasures on the level of sensation. And at the crisis of excitement, it practically paralyzes all power of deliberate thought.

This is so true that it creates a problem for every lover of wisdom and holy joys, who is both committed to a married life and also conscious of the apostolic ideal, that every one should “learn how to possess his vessel in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.” Any such person would prefer, if this were possible, to beget his children without suffering disordered passion. He could wish that, just as all his other members obey his reason in the performance of their appointed tasks, so the genital organs, too, might function in obedience to the orders of will and not be inordinately excited by the ardors of lust. THE CITY OF GOD 14.16.

4:6-7 | The Lord Is an Avenger

WRONGING THE BROTHER. CHRYSOSTOM: To each man God has assigned a wife. He has set boundaries on nature and limits sexual intercourse to one person only. Therefore, intercourse with another is transgression, and taking more than belongs to one, and robbery. Or rather it is more cruel than any robbery; for we grieve less when robbed of our riches than when our marriage is invaded. Do you call him a brother and yet wrong him, and that in things which are unlawful?. . . Paul does not mean by the use of the word brother that we are free to sleep with the wife of an unbeliever. Paul shows God will avenge and punish such an act, not to avenge the unbeliever but to avenge himself. Why? You have insulted God. He himself called you, and you in turn have insulted him. Whether you sleep with the empress or your married handmaid, it makes no difference. The crime is the same. Why? Because he does not avenge the injured persons but himself. HOMILIES ON 1 THESSALONIANS 5.

4:8 | Disregarding God

GRIEVING THE SPIRIT. CHRYSOSTOM: “And don’t grieve,” he adds, “the Holy Spirit of God.” This is a terrible and startling matter, as he also says in the epistle to the Thessalonians. For there he uses an expression of this sort. “He that rejects, rejects not man, but God.” It is the same here. If you utter a reproachful word, if you strike your brother, you are not striking him; rather you are “grieving the Holy Spirit.” HOMILIES ON EPHESIANS 14.

4:9a | You Have No Need to Have Anyone Write to You

THE WOUND OF SPIRITUAL TORPOR. JOHN CASSIAN: The blessed apostle, like a true and spiritual physician, either seeing this disease which springs from the spirit of lethargy already creeping in, or foreseeing through the Holy Spirit that it would arise among monks, is quick to anticipate it by the healing medicines of his directions. For when he writes to the Thessalonians, he first sounds like a skillful and excellent physician, applying the soothing and gentle remedy of his words to the sickness of his patients. He begins with charity. . . that this deadly wound, having been treated with a milder remedy, might cease its angry festering and more easily bear severer treatment. He writes, “But concerning brotherly charity you have no need that I write to you, for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another. For this you do toward all the brothers in the whole of Macedonia.” He first began with the soothing application of praise and made their ears submissive and ready for the remedy of the healing words. … At last with difficulty he breaks out into that at which he was driving before. He gave the first aim. “Take pains to be quiet.” Then Paul adds a second: “Mind your own business.” And a third as well: “Work with your own hands, as we commanded you.”. . . [The upshot is] that one who does not dutifully and peacefully work for his daily food with his own hands is sure to view enviously another’s gifts and blessings. You see what conditions, serious and shameful, may spring solely from the malady of leisure. INSTITUTES 10.7.

4:9b | Taught by God

GRACE FIRST. AUGUSTINE: It is through grace that we not only discover what ought to be done but also that we do what we have discovered. That is, not only that we believe what ought to be loved but also that we love what we have believed. If this grace is to be called “teaching,” let it at any rate be called “teaching” in such a manner that God may be believed to infuse it, along with an ineffable sweetness, more deeply and more internally. This teaching, therefore, would be not only by their agency who plant and water from without but likewise by God also who ministers in secret his own increase. All this is in such a way that God not only exhibits truth but likewise imparts love. … Thus the apostle speaks to the Thessalonians, “As touching love of the brothers, you have no need that I write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.” ON THE GRACE OF CHRIST 12.13-13.14.

4:11 | Work with Your Hands

THE HUMILITY OF MANUAL LABOR. BASIL THE GREAT: The Christian should not make a display of dress or shoes, as this is indeed idle ostentation. He should use inexpensive clothing for his bodily needs. He should not spend anything beyond actual necessity or for mere extravagance. This is an abuse. He should not seek honor nor lay claim to the first place. Each one ought to prefer all others to himself. He ought not to be disobedient. He who is idle, although able to work, should not eat. Moreover, he who is occupied with some task which is rightly intended for the glory of Christ ought to limit himself to the pursuit of work within his ability. LETTERS 22.