Thank you for listening to the First Day podcast. I am Patrick Cooley. Visit the podcast website @ firstday.us to subscribe, listen to past episode, and share.

The Thessalonian church has probably had better days. Although we aren’t told precisely the nature of the trial or trials that they are facing, here are some things that we know to be true from history. We know that the city has spent several years facing food shortages. We know that there were many other religions and religious cults there, too. And we know that the cult of the emperor was quite strong there. In fact, the city enjoyed a strong relationship with Rome for many generations. So the Thessalonian Christians weren’t just thoroughly Greek, but they were also thoroughly Roman.

Since the church wasn’t cut-off from the rest of the city, and its members not isolated, Paul was concerned, it seems, that the temptation to go back to what they had always known would negatively impact the community’s faith, considering the social, religious, and cultural pressures that would be ever-present. Unlike in his letter to the Galatians where the church there has already begun to falter: Need I remind you that Paul uses the words, “You foolish Galatians”? We hear no such criticism of the Thessalonians. In fact, we hear the opposite.

Paul is kind to and supportive of the church. He seems to be trying to cut any trouble off before it even begins rather than manage any crisis. He reminds the church of its example of love and the positive impact it is having on the other Christians there in Macedonia and across Greece. Chapter four of his letter is spent encouraging the church’s members that, since they had already been sanctified by Christ, they were expected to live life differently than their pagan neighbors—differently than how they used to live.

They were to be intentional about life: about sex, about business, and about grief. And it is in his concern for how the Thessalonians are dealing with their grief that he invites Christians to think about what comes next. 1 Thessalonians 4 is the first, exclusively Christian scripture that deals with the subject of eschatology. Therefore, when Paul speaks in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 17 of the dead in Christ rising and those saints who are still alive being “snatched up” to meet Jesus, he does so in relationship to the Thessalonian’s grief over fellow Christians who have died.

Perhaps Paul has received word that the Thessalonians are worried dying before the second coming of Christ. This would explain their inordinate, almost despairing, grief. They are afraid that the people they love who have died will not be blessed with eternal life.

Chapter five begins as a continuation of this word of comfort to the Thessalonians concerning grief over those who have gone on before and of the future of all the faithful and the world.

“Now as to the periods and times, brothers and sisters, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord is coming just like a thief in the night. 3 While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction will come upon them like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

Paul begins this final part of his letter using two different Greek words concerning time—translated here as periods and times: They are chronos and kairos, “length of time” and “period of time”, respectively. This phrase, “periods and times,” is being used to point to the end-time and regards the divine timing of events. We see the same combination used later by Luke in Acts 1:7. When used, authors are directing their readers’ attention to the Day of Judgement.

Jeremiah 6, for example, speaks of the suddenness of the LORD’s Day of Judgement, with verse 15 reading, “At the time that I punish them, they will collapse,” says the LORD.
We see this reference to the God’s timetable again in Jeremiah 27:22, “’They will be brought to Babylon and will be there until the DAY I visit them,’ declares the LORD. ‘Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.’” We find the same implied in Daniel 8:17: “So he came near to where I was standing, and when he came I was frightened and fell on my face; and he said to me, ‘Son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.’”

Daniel 12:5-7 kicks this up a notch.

“5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others were standing, one on this bank of the stream and the other on that bank of the stream. 6 And someone said to the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long will it be until the end of these wonders?” 7 And I heard the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, as he raised his right hand and his left toward heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time; and as soon as they finish smashing the power of the holy people, all these events will be completed.”

Although John’s Revelation will not be authored for many decades, God’s promise to remake everything is inescapable in Israel’s faith, and these prophetic uses of the word “time” in the Old Testament make it clear that Paul’s use of chronos and kairos in these opening verses of chapter 15 are about those end-times and how they concern those Thessalonians who have died.

“For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord is coming just like a thief in the night.” The Thessalonians have already received teaching about the end-times, though we do not know the details. But Paul tells us here that “the day of the Lord” will come quickly. The prophets speaks of this day in Isaiah chapter 2 and in Malachi chapter 4 and go into detail about its events in Isaiah 24 and Micah 1, for example. There is no need to flee when floodgates are opened if it is done slowly, now is there? “The great day of the LORD is near, near and coming very quickly; listen, the day of the LORD!” (Zephaniah 1:14)

“While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction will come upon them like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

In Ezekiel 13, the LORD commands the prophet to speak “against the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy from their own inspiration, ‘Listen to the word of the LORD!’” (2) These prophets “are following their own spirit and have seen nothing” and are “like jackals among ruins.” (3) These false prophets are condemned, “because they have misled My people by saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace.” (10) And Ezekiel is then commanded by concerning these prophets, “And when anyone builds a wall, behold, their plaster over it with whitewash; so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall. A flooding rain will come, and you, hailstones, will fall, and a violent wind will break out.” (10b,11)

So, Paul isn’t speaking to the Thessalonians about something new, except for this, whereas the Day of the LORD was once only for Israel’s ultimate benefit, now it was for their as well.

“ 4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that the day would overtake you like a thief; 5 for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; 6 so then, let’s not sleep as others do, but let’s be alert and sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who are drunk, get drunk at night.”

Considering the Day of the LORD and all that God promises to those who remain faithful, Paul encourages the Thessalonians to continue to live in the new way that they already are. He has already said this to them in chapter four, when he reminded them that they had been sanctified—that they had been made holy—and because of this they must now practice a new kind of relationship with one another and others; they should live as “sons of the light and sons of the day,” rather than continue to live in sexual immorality and with selfish ambition and practices as they once did before Christ. They must strive to live a life that they would not be ashamed of on that Day when Christ Jesus returns.

“ 8 But since we are of the day, let’s be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. 11 Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you also are doing.”

Paul repeats what he says in verse 6 again here in verse 8. He uses the Greek word nepho which means “be sober” literally, but metaphorically or figuratively it means “self-controlled or balanced”. The word appears in Paul’s writing only in these two verses, so deciding if Paul means that the Thessalonians should be teetotalers or that they should be self-controlled in all aspects of their lives is a difficult decision to make. When translators happen across words that can multiple meanings, the typically practice is to see how it is used elsewhere in scripture. Well here, we can’t do that.

Personally, I don’t think Paul is advocating for the former—being teetotalers—because that would be too limiting. Instead, I think this passaged is about the Thessalonians’ need to live controlled, deliberate lives considering what is to come in God’s timetable—in their sexual, business, and cultural practices. This is the second time Paul instructs Christians to live so, as he has already done in his letter to the Galatians in chapter five where he instructs the church to “walk by the Spirit” and, thus, produce “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control.” (22, 23) This is a life worthy of the light and one that will bring no shame. And when one’s life produces these things, there is “salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (9) This is only possible through Jesus—as we have already learned in Galatians.

The difference here is that the Galatians were falling away, and Paul was trying to keep the Thessalonians from doing so. In the case of the former church, their deliberate walk would bring them back to the Way, and in the case of the latter church, its walk would keep it secure on the last day! Then we learn in 1 Thessalonians 5:10 that this salvation, which is only received in Christ, will keep the faithful secure, “whether we are awake of asleep,” alive or dead. And to quote Galatians, this is because we no longer live but Christ lives in us!

The Thessalonians who have already died physically, are alive in Christ. And the Thessalonians who remain alive, physically, are alive in Christ. “Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you also are doing.” (11)

Paul’s intent here is summarized in this last verse. This talk of the end is not to scare people into repentance. There is not “or else” here. The apostle’s words here is for a church that is afraid for its loved ones, worried that they will not receive the blessing of eternal life in Christ. But as we have already learned from Paul in Galatians, Christ is already here and alive in us—whether we are dead or alive in the flesh—for we have been crucified with Christ and now live because of faith.