Chapter:4 & 5:
(Chap. 1-3) contain personal messages of commendation for the Thessalonians and explanations of the missionaries’ activities and motives, (chap. 4-5) Paul looks to the present and future of the Thessalonians’ church and addresses certain practical problems of Christian conduct which were evidently troubling them.
- Pleasing the Father: (chap.4)
Paul’s sudden shift from appreciation to the ethical teaching of Christianity is due to feedback of Timothy. What Paul teaches is here is very relevant to us as our present contemporary evangelical churches do not teach about ethics in both our teaching and our practice. We have become the people who preach the gospel than as those who live and adorn it. We must show our reservation to greed of our consumer society but at the same time sensible for the respect for the sanctity and quality of human life, commitment to social justice, our personal honesty and integrity. So here Paul is dividing his letter first concentrating on doctrines and the later half on ethics and values.
Please God: (4:1-2):
Everyone lives to please someone: himself, his spouse, his parents, his child, his God, or someone else. Paul focused motivation for correct living on love for God. Many people regard the Christian life as a set of rules to be obeyed, or a list of prohibitions to avoid; but Paul regarded it as the outworking of a loving desire to please God who had chosen him (1:4).
Enoch walked and talked with God, before God called him to heaven. Enoch “had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Heb.11:5). Jesus said, I do always those things that please Him” (Jn. 8:29).
Pleasing God means much more than simply doing God’s will. It is possible to obey God and yet not please Him. Jonah is a fit case. He obeyed God and did what he was commanded, but his heart was not in it. God blessed His Word but He could not bless His servant. So Jonah sat outside the city of Nineveh angry with everybody, including the Lord! Our obedience should be “not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart” (Eph. 6:6).
How do we know what pleases God? How do we know what pleases an earthly father? By listening to him and living with him. Read the word of God, worship Him and serve Him.
Control ourselves: (4:3-8):
Paul looking at the background of Corinth and Thessalonica cities which were associated with the worship of deities called Cabiri where gross immorality was promoted under the name of religion. The early period of Roman Empire too had such sexual license. But a Christian must recognize that sex is the good gift of the Creator, but now-a-days it has distorted. So Paul lays the fundamental practical principles to guide us in such aspects.
- Sex has a God given context: Marriage (4:4a): Paul reminds the new believers that sexual immorality did not please God. God created sex, and He has the authority to govern its use. From the beginning He established marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman. God created sex both for the continuance of the race and for the pleasure of the marriage partners. “Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed must be kept pure” (Heb.13:4). God’s commandments concerning sex are not for the purpose of robbing people of joy, but rather of protecting them that they might not lose their joy. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” builds a wall around marriage that makes the relationship not a prison, but a safe and beautiful garden.
We never have to seek to know the will of God in this matter; He has told us clearly. “Abstain from fornication” is His commandment, and no amount of liberal theology or modern philosophy can alter it. Throughout the Bible, God warns against sexual sin; and these warnings must be heeded. God’s purpose is our sanctification, that we might live separated lives in purity of mind and body.
- Sex has a God given style: Honour one another: (4:4b-8): The Christian who commits sexual sin is sinning against his own body (1 Cor.6:19-20), and he is robbing God of the glory He should receive through a believer’s way of life.
While it is true that the Christian is not under condemnation (Jn. 5:24; Rom 8:1), but he is not free from consequences of sin when he sins (Gal.6:7-8). When King David committed adultery, he tried to cover up His sin, but God chastened him severely (Ps.32; 51). When David confessed his sins, God forgave him, but God could not change the consequences. David reaped what he sowed, and it was a painful experience for him.
“But I am one of God’s elect!” a Christian may argue. “I belong to Him, and He can never cast me out.” Election is not an excuse for sin. It is an encouragement for holiness. “For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness” (1 Thes.4:7).” The privilege of election also involves responsibilities of obedience (Deut.7:6,11).