Christian behaviour or How the church must live according to the gospel

1 Thessalonians 4:1–12

Stott:

    We have reached the watershed of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. There is an abrupt change of topic between chapter 3 and chapter 4. So far (in chapters 1 to 3) Paul has been looking back to his visit and the events which followed it, and has been defending himself against his critics’ accusations. Now (in chapters 4 and 5) he looks to the present and future of the Thessalonian church, and addresses himself to certain practical problems of Christian conduct which were evidently troubling them. In so doing he turns from narrative to exhortation, from his apologia to his appeal, from explanations regarding his own behaviour to instructions regarding theirs. This change of subject is indicated by the opening words loipon oun. They do not introduce Paul’s conclusion (he is still two chapters away from this), but only his transition to a new topic, and should therefore be translated not ‘Finally’ (NIV) but simply ‘And now’ (REB).

    Paul’s sudden shift of theme does not mean, however, that there are no links between chapters 3 and 4. For one thing, his prayer that the Lord would cause them to grow in love and holiness (3:12–13) paves the way for his teaching about both (4:3, 9). For another, Timothy must have been the source of Paul’s information both about the slanders which he has countered in chapters 1 to 3 and about the deficiencies in the Thessalonians’ discipleship (3:10) which he proceeds to remedy in chapters 4 to 5. It seems likely that Timothy brought with him to Corinth not only his own impressions [1 & 2 Thessalonians, Page 76] of the Thessalonian church but also some questions from them, whether oral or written. At least the formula ‘Now about’ (peri de), which introduces three sections (4:9, 13; 5:1), is reminiscent of its use in 1 Corinthians where we know that the apostle is responding to questions.1

Introduction: the teaching of ethics

One of the great weaknesses of contemporary evangelical Christianity is our comparative neglect of Christian ethics, in both our teaching and our practice. In consequence, we have become known rather as people who preach the gospel than as those who live and adorn it. We are not always conspicuous in the community, as we should be, for our respect for the sanctity and the quality of human life, our commitment to social justice, our personal honesty and integrity in business, our simplicity of lifestyle and happy contentment in contrast to the greed of the consumer society, or for the stability of our homes in which unfaithfulness and divorce are practically unknown and children grow up in the secure love of their parents. At least in the statistics of marriage and family life, Jewish performance is higher than that of Christians. One of the main reasons for this is that our churches do not (on the whole) teach ethics. We are so busy preaching the gospel that we seldom teach the law. We are also afraid of being branded ‘legalists’. ‘We are not under the law’, we say piously, as if we were free to ignore and even disobey it. Whereas what Paul meant is that our acceptance before God is not due to our observance of the law. But Christians are still under obligation to keep God’s moral law and commandments. Indeed, the purpose of Christ’s death was that ‘the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us’,2 and the purpose of the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in our heart is that he might write God’s law there.3
    To our current neglect of ethics the apostle Paul presents a striking contrast. It is not just that his letters are usually divided into two halves, the first concentrating on doctrine and the second on ethics, but also that he gives detailed instruction in Christian moral behaviour, even to very young [1 & 2 Thessalonians, Page 77] converts. The paradosis (apostolic ‘tradition’) which he ‘passed on’ to them, and which they ‘received’ (2 Thes. 2:15; 3:6), included both the truth of the gospel (1 Thes. 1:5–6; 2:2, 8, 13) and also moral instruction on ‘how to live in order to please God’ (4:1–2).
    In fact, one of the distinctive features of the two Thessalonian letters is the frequency with which the apostle refers back to what he taught them when he was with them. Tell-tale phrases like ‘we instructed you how to live’ (4:1), ‘you know what instructions we gave you’ (4:2), ‘as we have already told you and warned you’ (4:6), and ‘just as we told you’ (4:11), enable us to reconstruct the content of the apostle’s ethical teaching while he was in Thessalonica. He emphasized that Christians must live a life that is ‘worthy of God’ (2:12) and pleasing to God (4:1); that such a life will be one of moral righteousness; that God’s commandments include such mundane matters as our daily work (4:11–12; cf. 2:6–9; 2 Thes. 3:7ff.) and penetrate even into the personal privacies of sex and marriage (4:3–6); that God judges those who are sexually selfish (4:6); that uprightness only exempts us from judgment, but not from persecution, since suffering is part of our ‘destiny’ (3:3–4: as ‘we kept telling you’); and that the great stimulus to both holiness and endurance is our expectation of the Lord’s return (1:3, 10; 2:12; 5:2–8). Thus, exhortations to holiness, warnings of suffering and promises of the Parousia belonged together in Paul’s teaching. Within a few weeks or months he had taught the young Thessalonian converts not only the essence of the good news but also the essence of the good life, not only about faith in Jesus, but also about the necessity of good works by which saving faith is authenticated and without which it is dead (e.g. 1:3).

    There is an urgent need for us, as pluralism and relativism spread world-wide, to follow Paul’s example and give people plain, practical, ethical teaching. Christian parents must teach God’s moral law to their children at home. Sunday school and day school teachers must ensure that their pupils know at least the Ten Commandments. Pastors must not be afraid to expound biblical standards of behaviour from the pulpit, so that the congregation grasps the relationship between the gospel and the law. And right from the beginning converts must be told that the new life in Christ is a holy life, a life bent on pleasing God by obeying his commandments.

    After this introduction about the importance of Paul’s theme, we are ready to study his text. It is divided into three sections in which he urges the Thessalonians (1) to please God (4:1–2), (2) to control themselves (4:3–8) and (3) to love one another (4:9–10), not least in the matter of earning their own living (4:11–12). His instruction applies equally to us.