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Bible - NT - Thessalonians: Disobedient brothers

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2 Thessalonians 3:13-15: But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

Paul exhorts the Thessalonians not to “associate” with disobedient brothers. What does he mean? The verb “associate” means “to mix together,” as ingredients in a recipe. It can have sexual connotations, and Hosea uses the word to describe Ephraim’s unfaithful “mixture” with Gentiles (Hosea 7:8).

The literal meaning of the verb is a clue to Paul’s exhortation.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, June 20, 2010 at 6:47 am

Bible - NT - Thessalonians: Exhortation

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For both parents and children, sexual purity is essential to Christian living and to Christian family life. Paul tells the Thessalonians that God wants His people to be holy. This means avoiding adultery, pornography, sodomy, pre-marital sex, lust and all other forms of sexual sin (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8). Lust characterizes Gentiles who do not know God. Christians, by contrast, should know how to possess the “vessels” of our bodies in sanctification and honor.

Paul reinforces this exhortation with stern warnings. Christians are temples of the Spirit. Sexual impurity defiles God’s temple, and God defends His house. Whoever rejects God’s demands for sexual purity is not rejecting human custom, but God Himself.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 5:49 am

Bible - NT - Thessalonians: Blameless in holiness

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Paul alludes to Zechariah 14:5 in 1 Thessalonians 3:13. Both passages speak of the coming of the Lord with “holy ones.”

There may also be another allusion. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to establish their hearts in love and faith, so that they will be “umblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.” Earl J. Richard (Sacra Pagina commentary) argues that the rare word “holiness” (hagiosyne) refers not to personal conduct but to a “sphere of holiness.” It is another way of speaking of the holy presence of God who comes with His holy ones. That coming establishes a sphere of holiness, and the Thessalonians will be able to stand within that sphere if they “increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men” (3:12).

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 6:32 am

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