1 Thessalonians

Chapter 5

vs 1

...but we will anyway.

vs 2

ie sneakily, without warning, and in ways you wouldn't expect.

vs 3

Labour pains is a good analogy. I mean, you know you're pregnant, but you never know exactly when the labour's going to start. Then again, anyone who stands around saying "Peace and safety" deserves what they get.

vs 4

In broad daylight, when you see the guy in black with the mask and the big bag with "SWAG" on the side, you should get the hint.

vs 5

One of the many biblical references to light being good and darkness being bad. I guess we have to remember that in pre-electricity societies, when the sun goes down, it suddenly gets really dark. And if you're out really late at night, then you are probably scum trying to hide something. See, at night there's not enough light to work by - and most people had to work all day to get by - but there's enough light to drink by, or to steal by, or to do other things by.

vs 6

Not asleep as in the earlier term, meaning dead. PS&T really mean asleep here, althuogh it's metaphorical - Christians are allowed to sleep. But it's a good verse for anyone who interprets the Bible literalistically.

In the same way, then, our alertness is metaphorical, and that's why it's there with self-control. It's not like we don't get into heaven if we don't recognise Jesus the moment he comes back. We have to be alert to the fact of his return by how we live our lives. We don't need to have a 24 hour roving patrol of the sky - the archangel and trumpet and stuff should be enough to let us know he's back.

vs 7

This is what I was saying before. If you're on a picket duty, you can't be asleep or drunk. If you're asleep, the enemy'll sneak past you and you'll miss them. If you are drunk, you won't be able to shoot straight and might end up hurting your own guys. But if you're alert, you'll be ready for them, and if you're self-controlled, you can kneecap them, capture them, and torture out of them the location of their allies and who sent them. Woohoo!

vs 8

So we're meant to be the good sentry watch guy. Except we don't kneecap people with guns, it seems. We use faith, love, and the hope of salvation. Which might not seem like effective protection until you realise who your enemies are.

vs 9

We've got an appointment with the salvation doctor. It's the interesting classic paradox of Christianity that God has done something (appointed us not for wrath but salvation) so therefore we should do something (faith, love, hope).

vs 10

Now we're back to alive and dead. The purpose of Jesus' death was so that we can live together with him. It's always interesting to take verses like that and compare them to all the other verses that say "The reason Jesus died was..."

vs 11

Remember that all this stuff was written to the Thessalonians. And, in fact, they were already doing it. So PS&T are just giving them a joyful reminder to keep up the good work. Probably the worst thing about being a thriving, good church was getting only short letters from Paul. That and the persecution of course.

vs 12

These are all the same people. It's not creating a caste system or anything. He's talking about church leaders. The job is that much harder without respect, I can assure you.

vs 13

Being on the leadership of a church is the spiritual equivalent of being on the leadership of some large multinational corporation, or of being a high-ranking officer in the military (perhaps an enclosed system like a ship is the best example). But it's even harder to shepherd a flock of Christians than it is to get a bunch of workers to make you money. The modern church is in a double-bind: it's losing respect because of the lowest-common-denominator effect of post-modern relativist thinking, and its losing the ability to engage in church discipline because of a lack of fidelity to church institutions. It's like accountability without authority, and that basically equals scapegoat.

And live in peace with one another. Harder than it sounds, and what a pity for the church.

vs 14

I want you to read this list backwards. Be patient with everyone. Help the weak. Encourage the timid. Warn the idle. Then do them in that order. To me it looks like PS&T put them in order from easiest to hardest. Of course, we should be doing all of them all the time. But it's easy to focus on the easy ones. We have to be ready for the idle to also be the weak or the timid.