Scripture Daily

Context No. 2099 of 4322 · 1 Thessalonians

Context · Reflection

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8: in context

1Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more. 2For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, 5not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God, 6that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. 7For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. 8Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.

Paul instructs the Thessalonians how to live in a way that pleases God, and he speaks plainly about purity. This is the will of God, he says, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like those who do not know God. For God has called us not to impurity but to holiness. Sexual purity is not a minor matter but part of the sanctified life to which God calls his people, a way of honoring God with the body.

Paul states plainly that God's will includes our sexual purity, and he frames it not as an arbitrary restriction but as part of our sanctification, our being made holy. To control one's body in holiness and honor, rather than being ruled by lustful passion, is part of what it means to belong to God and to live in a way that pleases him. Paul does not treat this as a small matter or a private preference; it is God's will, part of the holiness to which we are called, and to reject it, he says, is to reject not merely human teaching but God himself, who gives his Holy Spirit. This is a needed word, for the surrounding culture then and now treats sexual matters as areas of personal freedom disconnected from holiness. Paul locates them squarely within the call to holiness: God has called us not to impurity but to holiness, and that call includes the body and its desires. To be sanctified is to learn self-control, to honor God with our bodies rather than being ruled by lust, to live differently from those who do not know God. The body is not exempt from the call to holiness; it is included in it. Your body, Paul says elsewhere, is a temple of the Holy Spirit; glorify God therefore in your body. This searches how we regard purity in this area of life. Do we treat sexual matters as a realm of personal freedom disconnected from our life with God, or do we recognize, as Paul teaches, that God's will includes our purity, that controlling the body in holiness is part of the sanctified life? The call is not to impurity but to holiness, and it reaches the body and its desires. This is not a call to shame about the body, which God made, but to honor: to control the body in holiness and honor, to master rather than be mastered by desire, to live as those set apart for God even in this. God called us not for uncleanness, Paul says, but in sanctification. To honor God with our bodies, to pursue purity as part of our holiness rather than treating it as a matter of mere personal freedom, is part of the life that pleases God to which we are called.

Do I treat sexual matters as a realm of personal freedom disconnected from my life with God, or do I recognize, as Paul teaches, that God's will includes my purity, that controlling the body in holiness and honor rather than being ruled by lust is part of the sanctified life, and can this move me to pursue purity as part of honoring God with my body, mastering rather than being mastered by desire, as one called not to impurity but to holiness?

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