1 Thess 4:

• v.1-8 Please God by living pure lives
• v.9-12 Let your love increase
• v.13-18 Those who have died

[Chapter Synopsis: Pleasing, pure lives, with love ever increasing, and assurance about those who have already passed away.]

v.1-8 Please God by living pure lives

[Passage Synopsis: Follow what we taught you, live holy, pure lives that please God.]

v.1 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.

v.2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

v.3-6 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. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.

v.7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.

v.8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.

[Note: As we taught you how to please God, do it even more; just remember what we taught. God wants you separated off to Him, living pure lives free from sexual immorality for God called us to holy living. If you reject this, you reject God.]

v.9-12 Let your love increase

[Passage Synopsis: So let love abound as you’ve been taught, and because you do, do it even more, so you will win the world around you.]

v.9 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.

v.10-12 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.

[Note: You’ve been taught how to love, and so you do, so do it even more, living productively at peace.]

v.13-18 Those who have died

[Passage Synopsis: If you worry about those who have already died, don’t, they will rise when Christ returns, and we’ll all be caught up together.]

v.13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.

v.14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

v.15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

v.16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

v.17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord for ever.

v.18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

[Note: We also want you to understand about death so you won’t grieve in the way the rest of the world do. As Jesus died & rose, so the dead will rise and come with Christ. If he comes while we’re still alive, we’ll all rise together, for when he comes the dead will rise and then we’ll be caught up with him as well, all together, so be encouraged.]

For those who may wish to make a study of this chapter, to perhaps think some more about what you have been reading, use the link below: