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1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonianschapter 4

18 verses · BSB1 Thessalonians book hub →

Speaks with:1 Thessalonians 5×4Romans 12×31 John 3×31 Corinthians 15×31 Peter 2×22 Thessalonians 1×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Paul exhorts them to abound more and more in pleasing God. This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication. Study to be quiet, and to do your own business. Concerning them which are asleep. Sorrow not as others who have no hope. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. Calvin reads the chapter as the early church's hope sharpened.

Context

Epistle · Paul — 1 Thessalonians overview

  • A. 1–8 This Is God's Will: Your Sanctification
  • B. 9–12 Mind Your Own Business and Work With Your Hands
  • C. 13–18 The Dead in Christ Rise First

The outline

  1. A.This Is God's Will: Your Sanctificationvv. 1 to 8

    Read vv. 1 to 8 →

  2. B.Mind Your Own Business and Work With Your Handsvv. 9 to 12

    Read vv. 9 to 12 →

  3. C.The Dead in Christ Rise Firstvv. 13 to 18

    Read vv. 13 to 18 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The coming of the Lord closes every chapter

Pattern

Every chapter of 1 Thessalonians ends on the coming of the Lord: waiting for his Son from heaven, the crown of rejoicing at his coming, hearts stablished unblameable at his coming, the dead raised and the living caught up, and the whole person preserved blameless unto the coming.

A church a few weeks old was taught to live with this horizon. The letter's frame makes the coming of the Lord the ordinary hope of ordinary believers, and 4:15-17 gives the fullest account of the catching up in Scripture.

  1. 1 Thessalonians 1:10

    To wait for his Son from heaven

    The model church turned to God from idols to serve, and to wait for his Son from heaven.

  2. 1 Thessalonians 2:19

    The crown of rejoicing at his coming

    Paul's hope and joy is the Thessalonians themselves, in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming.

  3. 1 Thessalonians 3:13

    Unblameable in holiness at the coming

    Hearts stablished unblameable in holiness at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

  4. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 you are here

    Caught up together to meet the Lord

    The Lord himself descends, the dead in Christ rise first, and the living are caught up together with them in the clouds.

  5. 1 Thessalonians 5:23

    Preserved blameless unto the coming

    Spirit and soul and body preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The world behind this chapter

1 Thessalonians 4
When
The second missionary journey · c. AD 50–51
Where
Instruction sent to Greek converts living inside an ordinary port-city culture
Who first heard it
Believers grieving members of their own group who had died before the Lord returned

The history

Sexual behavior that the church called sin was, in that city, simply normal. A married man's use of slaves, of paid women, and of the entertainment attached to festivals carried no shame at all. Telling a Greek convert to keep his own body under control was telling him to live differently from every man he knew.

Greek grief had little to work with. Tombstones from the period say things like 'I was not, I was, I am not, I do not care' — the honest voice of people who expected nothing after the grave. Funerals were loud, hired mourners were common, and the mourning period was regulated by custom.

The picture of the Lord's return is built out of a scene every citizen had watched. When an emperor or governor approached a city, the trumpet sounded, and the citizens went out through the gate to meet him on the road and escort him back in with honor. That formal welcome is the exact word behind 'to meet the Lord in the air.'

The instruction to work with their hands and mind their own affairs had a sharp local edge. Many poor citizens lived as clients, calling at a rich patron's house each morning for a handout, which bought loyalty and dependence. Paul wants a church that owes no man that kind of debt.

What it meant to them

The believers had assumed the Lord would come before any of them died, and then some died. This chapter tells them their dead have not missed anything — they go first.

The welcome-party picture would have landed instantly. They had all stood at the roadside for someone else's king. Paul tells them that one day the whole company, the dead raised and the living caught up, goes out to meet theirs.

Sources cited

  • Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
  • Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 1 Thessalonians 4. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 13 · Written to them

Sorrow not as those without hope

topics/grief→

MannaFest topical index

This page draws on James Denney, The Epistles to the Thessalonians (Expositor's Bible); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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