Readings
- Leviticus 19:1–18
- 1 Thessalonians 5:12–28
- Matthew 6:19–24
- Psalms: 72; 119:73–96
1 Thessalonians 5:12–28
But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.
And we urge you, brothers and sisters, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.
Brothers and sisters, pray for us. Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss. I solemnly command you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brothers and sisters.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Notes
The end of the letter. Paul lands in a flurry of short imperatives, every line worth its own sermon, and closes with one a beautiful benediction.
Verses 12–13. "Respect those who labor among you and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work."
Two things to notice. First, the verb behind labor is kopiaō, to work hard, to grow weary in work. The implication is that leaders in the Thessalonian community are not figureheads or status-holders. They labor. They are tired. The community owes them respect because of their work, not because of their office. Leadership in Paul's churches is earned by exertion, not bestowed by title.
Second, the verb behind have charge of you is proistēmi, literally to stand before or to stand in front of. It is one of the few unambiguous leadership words in the New Testament, and it carries the connotation of standing in front of the community, caring for it, protecting it, going first into the weather.
A few things worth knowing about proistēmi: it is never used in the New Testament for men leading women, and it is not gender-restricted. Women lead with this verb in Paul's churches as readily as men do.
Verses 14–15. Then a list of imperatives.
Admonish the idlers, though idlers (ataktous) is a slightly soft translation. The word is more like disorderly, a military term for soldiers out of formation. The point is not laziness in the modern sense; it is being out of step with the rhythm of the community. Encourage the fainthearted. Help the weak. Be patient with all of them. And then a hinge line: "See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all."
Notice that the list does not divide the church into the strong who help and the weak who get helped. It cycles through everyone. All are owed patience. All are owed the refusal of retribution. The community is constituted by this kind of mutual care, distributed evenly.
Verses 16–18. Three imperatives that have become Christian shorthand: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.
Each one resists easy interpretation. Rejoice always is not a demand to be cheerful, and it is certainly not a denial of grief. Paul has just spent a chapter and a half naming the proper place of grief. Joy in Paul's vocabulary is closer to durable orientation toward God than to mood.
Pray without ceasing is not a demand to be in constant verbal exchange with God; it is an invitation into a sustained posture of openness.
And give thanks in all circumstances. Note the careful preposition. In all circumstances, not for all circumstances. We are not asked to pretend that suffering is good. We are asked to bring thanksgiving even into rooms where there is plenty to grieve.
Verses 19–22. Don't quench the Spirit. Don't despise prophecies. Paul will not let his churches harden into anti-charismatic skepticism.
But test everything. And he will not let his churches be gullible, either.
Hold fast to what is good. The community is supposed to be open and discerning. Both. Spirit and judgment. The combination is harder than either alone. Which is, of course, why people keep collapsing into one or the other.
Verses 23–24. Paul prays for them. "May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this."
A few things worth pausing on.
The God of peace. Ho theos tēs eirēnēs. What a name for God. It gathers up the whole letter. Paul has been writing to a community under pressure, dealing with persecution and grief, and the God of peace is who he leaves them with. Not the god of conquest. Not the god of vindication. The God whose deepest character is peace. God's deepest character is peace. That is who God is, at Her heart.
Spirit and soul and body — this triad has produced some bad theology over the centuries (the doctrine of trichotomy, which treats the human person as three separable components). The healthier read is that Paul is not enumerating discrete parts; he is naming three angles on the whole person, all of which Paul wants kept. The whole you, body included, is what God is sanctifying. Christianity has never been a religion of body-escape.
And then verse 24: "The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this." Sanctification is God's work. Paul is not handing the Thessalonians a checklist to complete on their own but a promise: the God of peace will see this through.
And that ends 1 Thessalonians. An early letter, written to a young church under pressure, addressing a pastoral problem and grounding the community in the triad that opened the letter (faith, love, hope) and the threefold ethic that closes it (rejoice, pray, give thanks).
Questions for reflection
Paul names the God of peace as the one who is sanctifying you, a God whose deepest character is peace, not conquest or vindication. Where in your spiritual imagination has another picture of God been doing the work this name should be doing instead?
"Test everything; hold fast to what is good." Where have you been quenching the Spirit out of an over-developed skepticism, and where have you been refusing to test what claims to be from God?
