Advent Three 2023 — 1 Thessalonians 5:16-25
Christmas is near! Yet, before we get there, there is work to do. Paul’s admonitions form the epistle readings for the third Sunday of Advent, and boy do they focus hard upon our spiritual formations.
Below is my translation of the text, followed by some notes on the translation, then some hopefully helpful thoughts about meaning and application.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
16. You must always rejoice.*
17. You must pray constantly.
18. You must give thanks for all things; this is God’s will for you in Messiah Jesus.
19. You must not quench the Spirit.
20. You must not despise prophecy.
21. You must also test all things. You must hold on to what is good.
22. You must avoid all these kinds of evil things.
23. May the God of peace himself make you completely holy and keep you whole, faultless in spirit, soul, and body at the coming of our Lord Messiah Jesus.
24. The one who called** you is faithful, and he will do it.
*Each of the verbs from vv. 16-22 are imperative. One of the best way to translate an imperative is the English word ‘must’. An imperative is a command, not a recommendation or an ideal to be striven for. Likewise, all of these are plural verbs, not singular. Given the collective nature of the imperatives they are best taken as instructions to the collected church rather than to individuals. That does not mean individuals are off the hook, however, for obeying these teachings.
**Called is actually a present participle, so it would rightly be rendered as ‘who calls’ or ‘calling’. I have taken the past, though, as I believe it captures the essence of Paul’s teaching. He is not saying the Lord is calling them now and will do it, he is saying at some time in the past the Lord called them into salvation and he will complete their salvation in the future.
It is impossible to imagine a more diverse list of instructions delivered at such a staccato pace. In fact, the pace of it, and Paul does this a lot now that I think of it, is akin to an Aaron Sorkin dialogue where phrases and ideas come from characters mouths. Here, the brevity of the lines pushes the imperative even harder. Each one is a whole sermon, but for now I will hold my comments to one or two per.
Rejoice — it is impossible to rejoice until you have joyed. As with so many things, it is in the redoing of something that perfects it, corrects mistakes, or improves the quality. We joy, but it is in the rejoicing that we taste it all the more – we revisit the joys over and over again. In this, I think the older we get the sweeter our joy is, because because every ‘rejoice’ stands alongside a memory of a ‘resorrow’.
Prayer – constant prayer is not always praying with head bowed and eyes closed. That would be preposterous and useless. Constant prayer has at least two indications. First, it is a commitment to never given up on prayer. Second, it is an ideal that anything in our lives, or indeed our whole life, is an act of worship and petition to the Lord – walking, talking, working, learning – these are all a type of prayer.
Give Thanks – Even when it is not Thanksgiving. To do so constantly is to do so in the midst of hardship, pain, and troubles. When we learn to give thanks for being passed up on the promotion, or the flat tire, or in the midst of a cancer diagnosis then we will have turned a significant spiritual corner. There is a continuum here, a spiritual spectrum of rejoicing, prayer, and giving thanks that go together.
Quenching/Prophecies/Test/Hold – My my my – this is a troubling and problemsome little quartet of separate words that form one thought. Clearly quenching here should be taken with prophecies – don’t despise them but instead let them flourish. We are not God’s counselors, so don’t proceed to tell him how to reveal himself. Nevertheless, we must test these spirits, without prejudice (hence the not despising), and then hold on to that which we see as being positive and good. Quenching might be understood as ignoring, degrading, or rejecting prophetic oracles.
I do think, and this is the Baptist in me, we need to be careful in assuming Paul means only or necessarily mainly the prophetic utterances in congregations contemporary with himself and the early church. He may well mean the prophetic action of the Hebrew prophets (Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah)? He could also be referring to the commonly accepted prophetic work of the early church about the second coming of Jesus, which is one of the themes for 1 Thessalonians.
Avoid – Avoid what kinds of evil, Paul? A little clarity would have been nice, Paul. Why so vague, dear brother Apostle? He has been outlining imperatives for positive action, not evil. However, if we take it as a yet another connector to the quenching quartet, we can perceive that we are being told to avoid the evil of false spirits/teachings while holding on to good ones. Be warned, there are bad, bad, bad, bad preachers out there who are just waiting to deceive you.
Verses 23-24 are predicated on two other verb tenses – the optative which I render as a ‘may’ and it breeds optimism and hope. The final verb is future – God will do it. This helps those of us who are struggling with giving thanks in the midst of a bad Monday or who quenched the Spirit when he told us to go help our neighbor move her couch to know and appreciate God is forming us. He will do it. We cannot. He will. The actions are all hopeful and future. For a Christ-follower, hope must be present, for lost hope is really lost faith in the one who called us.
