Hey guys,
Sorry I fell behind on this last week. Things were pretty nuts with research. So today we're going to repeat 1 Thessalonians 4 since there were very few posts on it and finish the book with Chapter 5 tomorrow.
If you have any ideas for the next book, please let me know.
"Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more."
ReplyDelete1 Thessalonians 4:1
I think this is an interesting bit of scripture. The members of the church of Thessalonica have wholeheartedly received the gospel from Paul and are doing all they can to follow Christ, yet Paul still urges them to do so more and more. This shows how we can always be improving in our faith and character. Even if we live in a way that we deem "acceptable" to God, we are not perfect, and can always be striving to become more like Christ. I definitely think this will help me in avoiding complacency in my faith, and just trying to become closer to God.
REPEAT:
ReplyDelete"This is the will of God, your holiness: that you refrain from immorality, that each of you know how to acquire a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion as do the Gentiles who do not know God"
1 Thessalonians 4: 3-5
"Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not a human being but God, who [also] gives his holy Spirit to you."
1 Thessalonians 4: 8
We read earlier in Ephesians that it is the will of God for us to enter into heaven as perfect humans: pure, blameless, and holy. We attain holiness by refraining from immorality.
Here we can read in the letter that it is the will of God also that each of us would know how to acquire a wife in holiness and honor; specifically stating that we should not find a wife in lustful passion. I think a lot of individuals look at marriage lustfully. People desire someone to hold them. People desire sex. People desire security. People desire acceptance and guidance. People want to love and be loved.
These are all things that can only be fully accomplished through God, yet people strive to have these desires filled by other people. The result being that men are using women, women are using men, men are using men, and women are using women. Individuals are using each other for their own personal gain. Men and women are treating each other like objects and NOT like the chalices of God that we are. In doing so, like we are warned in the 8th verse, we as a society are not disregarding each other by using each other; we are in fact, disregarding God.