Winter Bible Study: Hope – Living for the Future Now

The last two chapters of First Thessalonians are concerned with how Christians should live in the light of Christ’s certain return. This passage is bracketed by a call to sanctification (4:3, 5:23). Justification happens once and for all, but sanctification is progressive. The word Paul uses to describe this continual growth in Christlikeness is mallon, “more and more” (4:1, 10). We are to rejoice always, pray constantly, and give thanks to God in all circumstances (5:16–18). In this way we will be sanctified “through and through” (5:23), mad ready to meet Christ at His coming.

Based on the report he has received from Timothy, Paul addresses several pastoral problems in Thessalonica. Specifically, he admonishes them in four areas:

• Honor One Another: Avoid Sexual Impurity (4:3–8). Paul is writing to Christians who live in a sexually promiscuous world. Some of these believers had come to Christ from the cult of Dionysus, a sensual religion that used the male sex organ as its primary symbol. In the midst of this MTV/Howard stern-like culture, Paul reminds believers god has called them out of such a lifestyle. We should honor one another by leading lives that are sexually pure before God.
• Love One Another: Keep your Witness Bright (4:9–12). Paul commends the Thessalonians for the presence of brotherly love in their community, and he links this word about loving one another with leading a quiet, responsible life. He wants their daily life to win “the respect of outsiders.”
• Comfort One Another: Do not Despair at Death (4:13–18). This is one of the great passages in the New Testament on the second coming of Christ. The second coming, as Paul describes it, has four parts: (a) The Return. The Lord Himself will come down from heaven accompanied by a loud shut, louder than any sonic boom, and the cry of Michael the archangel indicating the Devil’s doom is near. Heaven’s trumpets will signal the advent of the great king. (b) The Resurrection. Those who have died as believers in Christ will come forth from their graves in new, glorified bodies. (c) The Rapture. Those believers who are alive at that time will be “caught up.” The rapture is God’s own doing, and it will be sudden and unexpected. (d) The Reunion. We shall be reunited with our Christian loved ones who have preceded us in death, and we shall meet the saints of all the ages. Most of all, we shall see the Lord face to face and be with Him forever.

Paul gives this teaching so Christians may comfort and encourage one another in times of grief. We should not grieve as those who have no hope. For we serve a living Lord who has tasted the dregs of death and who has come back to tell us death is not a wall, but a door — an open door into a wonderful, unimaginable future which God will certainly bring to pass.

• Build Up One Another: Stay Alert in the Night (5:1–11). Having dealt with the question of the individual believer who dies in Christ, Paul now turns to the wider issue of the timing of Christ’s return. When will this great event take place? Paul has no timetable or prophecy chart. But he does take two images from Jesus’ own teaching concerning the Second Coming. First, he says that day will be like a thief in the night (Matt. 24:43). It will come suddenly, without warning which means that Christians must stay alert and be on watch. Some believers have used the doctrine of Christ’s Second coming as an excuse to escape from the world, to sit and do nothing.

The second image Paul uses is that of a woman in the pains of labor ready to deliver a child (Matt. 24:19). This image speaks of the certainty and inevitability of Christ’s return and the pouring out of god’s judgment it will bring.

In the light of this teaching, how then should we live? Paul’s final instructions in 1 Thessalonians 5:12–28 give us a series of pithy answers to this question. We are to lead responsible lives; live in peace with one another; avoid evil of every kind while developing a walk with God marked by joy, prayer, thanksgiving, discernment and the filling of the Holy Spirit.

Paul told the Thessalonian Christians to seal their love with a holy kiss (5:26). This was a mark of affection within the community of faith. But it also had eschatological overtones. The kiss of peace we exchange with one another here on earth is a sign, a foretaste of that heavenly embrace the Bride will receive from the Bridegroom at the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6–9). Even so, come Lord Jesus!