In our passage today Paul gives practical instructions for Christian living. From the text we gather that he gave these same instructions while he lived and worked among the Thessalonians, but in an immoral world it never hurts to bring up this subject again. He knows that every day the believers are bombarded by temptations from the pagan society around them, by temptations sent from Satan, and by temptations of the human bodies that they live in. Because Christ has done so much for them, they owe Him the honor of holy living, As Paul said in his letter to the believers at Rome, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God---this is your true and proper worship." (Romans 12:1)
He calls to their mind the instructions he previously gave them when he was with them. "As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you on the authority of the Lord Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 4:1-2) Timothy has just returned from Thessalonica with good news. The believers there are standing firm for the faith. They are doing what they've been told to do. Paul says, "You're doing what you ought to do. Good! Keep on doing it."
He's going to deal with two subjects today: sexual immorality and laziness. Neither of these things honors the Lord, so the one who follows the Lord must avoid them. He deals first with the subject of sexual immorality. "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister." (1 Thessalonians 4:3-6a) The Greek word Paul uses for "sexual immorality" is "porneia", from which we get the word "pornography". In Paul's day this word was used in a broader sense than it is today; it covered the whole range of sexual immorality. The people of his era didn't have magazines and websites where people could view dirty pictures, but they did have written pornography and artistic pornography. In addition, the pagan people of Paul's day had the attitude that "anything goes" when it came to sex. He's preaching in territories that are under the control of the Roman Empire, and ancient Roman was one of the most sexually immoral cultures of all time. Paul knows it can be hard to say no to sexual sins when "everybody else is doing it". He knows that when a person is surrounded by immorality it's possible to become so used to seeing it and hearing about it that nothing shocks him anymore. And when a person gets to the point that he finds nothing shocking or distasteful, the danger exists that he might be drawn into some of this behavior himself.
Paul knows what the people of Thessalonica are faced with in their daily lives, so he warns them that God's judgment is coming on those who live immorally. "The Lord will punish all who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you His Holy Spirit." (1 Thessalonians 4:6b-8) No sin that we commit affects only ourselves. When we engage in sexual immorality, we are sinning against our own bodies (see 1 Corinthians 6:18), but since "no man is an island", as the saying goes, our actions affect others. We are sinning against the person with whom we are having immoral relations. If we and/or this person are married to someone else, then we're sinning against the spouses. We're sinning against any children who are involved. We're sinning against the institution of marriage, family, and society as a whole. Paul says, "When you disobey these instructions, it's not me or any of the other apostles you're disobeying. It's God whose laws you are breaking, and it's God who will judge the breaking of His laws."
Next he moves on into the subject of being lazy, which results in idleness, which results in becoming busybodies and troublemakers. "Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God's family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12)
It's interesting that Paul equates love with work. I think he's making a great point. Are we behaving toward our fellow man in an attitude of love when we refuse to take care of ourselves when we are able to do so? Aren't we making ourselves a burden on others when we don't take responsibility for ourselves? I'm not talking about people who have genuine disabilities, and neither is Paul. He and the other apostles had compassion on the sick and disabled and they healed those who asked them for healing. Jesus did the same thing for those who came to Him for help. Paul is obviously talking about those who could work but don't want to, for they are healthy enough to busy themselves by meddling and gossiping during the many hours of free time they have on their hands. King Solomon said quite a few stern words against laziness and idleness in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. He thought laziness was a terrible quality for a person to have. Paul will speak out against laziness several times in his second letter to the Thessalonians. When our time is not filled with honorable pursuits, we are in danger of filling our time with ungodly activities. If we don't have good honest work to keep us busy, we might find ourselves meddling in the business of others so that we can live vicariously through them. Not having meaningful things to do causes us to feel dissatisfied with our lives and that can lead us to feeling resentful of those who are leading busy lives, and in turn this could cause us to start gossiping about them. None of these behaviors honor the Lord.
We show our love to God and to our fellow man by obeying God's laws regarding sexual purity and by obeying God's laws about working to provide for ourselves and our families. We hurt not only ourselves but also those around us when we reject God's instructions for living. If we want to live lives that please God, we must do what He tells us to do. Then we can help others come to the Lord, for they will be impressed by our dedication to godliness. Does anyone want to hear the gospel message from a sexually immoral person or from a person who is too lazy to take care of his family? No, but they might want to hear the gospel message from a person who faithfully obeys the Lord. By living godly lives we have a chance at winning others to the Lord, and that is serious business. Souls are at stake! Do we want to miss an opportunity to help someone? Do we want to have to face the Lord someday and admit that we were such a bad example that our testimony for Christ was useless?
No comments:
Post a Comment