c. Children of the day (5:4–11)
6. Problems associated with the parousia (4:13–5:11)
Paul had clearly spoken about the parousia (see on 2:19) to good effect, and the Thessalonians were in no doubt that it would take place. But he had not dealt with all the problems associated with it, some of which obviously came up after his departure. One of them has been dealt with in the preceding section, namely the importance of earning one’s living in the interval. Now Paul turns to other difficulties and treats them in a way that has left its mark on the life of the church. Rolston points out that almost every funeral service uses words from this passage.
a. Believers who died before the parousia (4:13–18)
Some of the Thessalonians had evidently understood Paul to say that all who believed would see the parousia. Some believers had died. Did this mean that they would be at a disadvantage when the Lord came? Had they forfeited their share in the wonderful happenings of the End? Some may even have felt that these deaths discredited the whole idea of the parousia. Incidentally, the fact that such a question could be asked shows that we are dealing with an early writing, for the question was bound to arise early in the church’s history.
13. Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant is a Pauline formula (always with the affectionate address brothers); it draws attention to something important and which may be new to the readers (cf. Rom. 1:13; 11:25; 1 Cor. 10:1; 12:1; 2 Cor. 1:8). Paul speaks of the departed as those who fall asleep, where his present participle (he uses the present of this verb again only in 1 Cor. 11:30) points to an existing situation and perhaps implies a future awakening more definitely than the usual perfect would have done. Jews and even pagans sometimes spoke of death as ‘sleep’, but this is particularly apt for Christians, since for them the whole concept of death has been transformed,21 a point JB misses with its ‘those who have died’.
That Christians should not grieve like others has sometimes been taken to mean that they may sorrow but only to a lesser degree than the heathen. This seems to be straining the Greek. We need not doubt that a certain sadness at parting is natural and inevitable; but Paul ‘states his precept broadly, without caring to enter into the qualifications which will suggest themselves at once to thinking men’ (Lightfoot). His contrast is not between one degree of sorrow and another, but between Christian hope and pagan despair. The rest of men, who have no hope is a general term for the whole non-Christian world, and the characterization is apt, for pagan literature reveals a hopelessness in the face of death which is matched by the inscriptions on tombs. The contrast is exemplified in two early statements cited by Frame. The first is a letter of the second century which reads:
Irene to Taonnophris and Philo, good comfort. I was as sorry and wept over the departed one as I wept for Didymas. And all things whatsoever were fitting, I did, and all mine, Epaphroditus and Thermuthion and Philion and Apollonius and Plantas. But, nevertheless, against such things one can do nothing. Therefore comfort ye one another.
Deissmann, from whom Frame takes this letter, speaks of Irene as experiencing ‘the difficulty of those whose business it is to console and who have no consolation to offer’ (LAE, p. 177). The second is from a Christian of about the same date, Aristides:
And if any righteous man among them passes from the world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God; and they escort the body as if he were setting out from one place to another near.
There are some noble pagan utterances on immortality; but they are by no means typical, and had probably not penetrated through to ordinary people, so that the contrast in the two passages quoted may fairly be taken as representative.
14. The reason for the Christian certainty is what God has done in Christ’s death and resurrection. Many hold that Paul is using traditional language here (he usually says ‘Christ’ rather than ‘Jesus’ and uses a different verb for rose again). Be that as it may, he is drawing attention to the central doctrines of the faith. God’s action leaves no room for doubts. It is significant that he does not speak of Jesus as ‘sleeping’, but says he died. Christ endured the full horror of that death that is the wages of sin and thus transformed death for his followers into sleep. In the New Testament Christians are never said to die; they fall asleep. But Christ is not said to fall asleep (though cf. 1 Cor. 15:20); he died for us.22
The end of this verse reads ‘them that sleep through Jesus God will bring with him’. There is dispute about the meaning of ‘through Jesus’ and whether it should be taken with the preceding or following words. Moffatt and RSV take it with will bring, a view that does not lack supporters. But the parallelism of the sentence is against it: this view does not face the need to show that not all the dead are meant; and in the context we read of ‘the dead in Christ’ (v. 16). It is moreover rather tame and even redundant to say, ‘God will bring through Jesus with Jesus …’. It is preferable to take ‘through Jesus’ with ‘them that sleep’, even though ‘sleeping through Jesus’ is not an easy idea (which is why some adopt the other view). Perhaps our best understanding of it is that death has been transformed into sleep through Jesus. This is more than ‘died as Christians’ (NEB). For the natural man death is the antagonist that no-one can defeat, but for the Christian it is completely without terrors (cf. 1 Cor. 15:54–57). It is no more than sleep, and the transformation is brought about ‘through Jesus’.
Some hold that those God brings with Jesus are being led to glory by Jesus (e.g. Lightfoot, Frame). But, true though this is, it does not seem to be the meaning here. Rather Paul is saying that Christ will bring them with him at his parousia. The Thessalonians do not seem to have doubted the reality of the resurrection (Paul says will bring, not ‘will raise’); but they needed reassurance of the place in the parousia of the faithful departed. Paul gives the conclusion a touch of certainty. After ‘if (omitted in NIV) we believe’ we expect ‘even so also we ought to believe’; but Paul states it simply as fact: ‘if we believe … so also God will bring’ (the Greek has no second ‘we believe’).
15. The most natural understanding of the Lord’s own word is that Paul is quoting a saying of Jesus; but there is no saying in the Gospels exactly like this (Matt. 24:31 is perhaps the closest). There is nothing improbable in the suggestion that Paul is quoting an otherwise unrecorded saying, for there is much that is not included in the canonical Gospels (John 20:30; 21:25). To the objection that such a saying must have been included in the Gospels if Jesus had said it, it is fair to retort that we do not know why the writers included some sayings and omitted others; it is not easy to think of a reason for omitting Acts 20:35, for example. Others think there was a direct revelation to Paul or some other prophet, or perhaps that this is the result of Paul’s pondering the problem in accordance with his claim to have ‘the mind of Christ’ (1 Cor. 2:16; cf. v. 13; 2 Cor. 3:17; Masson, ‘a revelation from the Spirit received by Paul’). Rigaux thinks it is a conclusion from the general drift of Jesus’ teaching; cf. GNB, ‘What we are teaching you now is the Lord’s teaching’.
Many take the words we are still alive to mean that Paul expected to be alive when the Lord returns. There is nothing unlikely in the idea, but it must be borne in mind that Paul consistently refused to commit himself to dates; indeed, in this very context he writes as though he did not know when it would be (5:1–2); further, he holds that both waking and sleeping are possibilities for him and his converts (5:10). While what he says here might fit in with the idea that he thought that he himself would be among those who would survive to that day, it does not establish it (cf. Moore, ‘the certainty of this idea arises more through its frequent assertion than its sound evidence’). The meaning may be given in Lightfoot’s paraphrase: ‘When I say “we,” I mean those who are living, those who survive to that day.’23 Paul has a little-noticed habit of classing himself with those of whom he is writing, even in activities in which no-one would expect him to take part, like eating in idol’s temples (1 Cor. 10:22; cf. Rom. 3:5; Gal. 5:26, etc.). ‘Paul did not teach that the Parousia was near; but, like every true Christian, he firmly hoped that it was so.’24 If the words used here be held to prove that Paul expected to be alive at the parousia, then equally other words of his ‘prove’ that he expected to be dead (1 Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:14; the possibility of his death appears in 2 Cor. 5:9; Phil. 1:21–22, etc.). Those alive when the Lord comes will certainly not (emphatic negative ou mē, found in Paul, outside quotations from LXX, only in 5:3; 1 Cor. 8:13; Gal. 5:16) precede those who have fallen asleep.
16. ‘One word of command, one shout from the archangel, one blast from the trumpet of God and the Lord himself will come down from Heaven!’ This translation of Phillips catches something of the vividness of Paul’s words. This is the fullest description of the parousia in the New Testament, and when we reflect on the little that is said here we are warned against undue dogmatism about what will then happen. Paul’s main point is that it is none other than the Lord himself who will come. The end of the age is not to be ushered in by some intermediary, but by God himself (cf. Mic. 1:3). It is awe-inspiring.
The loud command (keleusma) is used of the cry of the charioteer to his horses or the hunter to his hounds; it is the shout of the ship’s master to the rowers, or of the commander to his soldiers. Always there is the ring of authority and the note of urgency. It is not said who will utter the command, but it may well be the Lord (cf. John 5:25, 28). If not, then the command, the voice and the trumpet call may all be ways of referring to the same thing (Rev. 1:10 has ‘a loud voice like a trumpet’). Hendriksen and others hold that the Lord utters the command, while the voice and the trumpet call are identical. We should reject translations that might give the impression that the Lord responds to a command (e.g. JB, ‘At the trumpet of God, the voice of the archangel will call out the command and the Lord himself will come down’). He is in control.
Some have tried to identify the archangel, and Michael, the only archangel named in the New Testament (Jude 9), is usually favoured (Gabriel is simply an ‘angel’ in Luke 1:19; there are seven ‘holy angels’, usually regarded as archangels, in the Apocrypha: Tobit 12:15; 1 Enoch 20:1–8). But archangelou lacks the article and it seems that Paul has no particular archangel in mind. Similarly voice has no article, so that it means ‘a voice of an archangel’ or perhaps ‘a voice like an archangel’s’. The trumpet is associated with divine activity in the Old Testament (Exod. 19:16; Isa. 27:13; Joel 2:1; Zech. 9:14), and is linked elsewhere with the parousia (Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52).
The dead in Christ (even death does not break the union; we are still in him) are to rise first, i.e. before the events of the next verse. It is unlikely that Paul has in mind the ‘first resurrection’ (Rev. 20:5), or that he is thinking of the resurrection of all men. He is simply pointing out that, far from the faithful departed missing the parousia, they will have a prominent place.
17. After that, believers who remain alive on earth will be caught up with them in the clouds. The verb harpagēsometha combines the ideas of force and suddenness seen in the irresistible power of God. We should not overlook the fact that believers will be caught up with them. There will be a reunion with Christ, but there will also be a reunion with the friends who have gone before. Clouds are frequently associated with divine appearances and activity (cf. Dan. 7:13; Matt. 24:30; Mark 14:62; Rev. 1:7). They will meet the Lord in the air. The expression translated to meet is a kind of technical term ‘for the official welcome of a newly arrived dignitary’(MM), and is very suitable in this context (cf. Matt. 25:6; Acts 28:15). It is a measure of the Lord’s complete supremacy that he should meet his saints in such a region, for the air was held to be the abode of all manner of evil spirits (cf. Eph. 2:2). At the same time this is not anything more than a meeting-place. It seems that the Lord proceeds to the earth with his people (cf. 1 Cor. 6:2).
The climax comes with we will be with the Lord for ever. There are many points on which we should like further information. But when Paul comes to that great fact that makes everything else unimportant, he stops. There is no need (and no more) to add to that.
18. Paul calls on his readers not simply to take heart, but actively to encourage (see on 3:2) each other with what he has written. Whiteley sees this as very important. Paul’s words are a source of continual strengthening for the believer, not a spur to fascination with the future. They convey the assurance that the power of God will never be defeated. God is supreme, and when he sees that the time has come, he will draw this age to its close and usher in the new age with the parousia. Whether we live or whether we die, we do not go beyond his power. Even in the face of death, that antagonist that no human can tame, we can remain calm and triumphant, for we know that those who sleep sleep in Jesus and that they have their place in the final scheme of things. Well might Paul call on his friends to encourage each other with these words.
b. The time of the parousia (5:1–3)
It would seem that some of the Thessalonians had gone on from thinking of the place of the faithful departed at the parousia to wondering what their own position would be. If it was only the living who would have a part in the happenings of the great day, and if they were to die before it, they would fail to participate. How could they know when the end would be? The difficulty has been met already, for Paul has pointed out that the faithful departed will have an honoured place at the parousia. But he proceeds to give attention to the matter of date.
1. His first point is that they really need no instruction about the time. He had spoken of this when he was with them and he evidently counted on their having learned well what he was teaching, for he had no need to write on the topic. He uses two words for time, times and dates (cf. Acts 1:7), where the former (chronoi) strictly denotes time in its chronological aspect as mere succession, while the latter (kairoi) is used of the right time for a thing. Most scholars these days see little difference between them here, though Hendriksen refers to ‘duration periods’ and ‘appropriate seasons’ (NASB ‘the times and the epochs’, but there is no real justification for the last word). Paul is saying that there is no need for him to write on any aspect of the time of the parousia.
2. The emphatic opening ‘yourselves’ (which NIV omits) reminds the Thessalonians that the answer to this difficulty was within their grasp, if they but reflected on what they already knew. Findlay finds the word translated very well (akribōs) puzzling here; it is not a common Pauline word (elsewhere only Eph. 5:15) and Paul does not normally qualify the verb ‘to know’. In the end he concludes that Paul is taking up and repeating a word used by the Thessalonians in a letter to him, and he has been followed by others. Akribōs does refer to accuracy, but the correct explanation here seems to be that there was nothing to add to what they already knew on the subject. There may also be a hint that their information was based ultimately on some word of the Lord (such as Matt. 24:43; Luke 12:39; cf. 2 Pet. 3:10).
The day of the Lord is an Old Testament expression, going back to Amos 5:18. Amos, however, uses the term as already well known; he opposes the accepted understanding of it as a time of judgment for the heathen and emphasizes that Israel too will be judged. But the old idea seems to have lingered on, and many looked for the day when the enemies of Israel would be destroyed (it is always comforting to think that it is someone else that God will judge!). In the New Testament the day is associated with Christ as well as with the Father (Phil. 1:6, etc.), and it is referred to in a variety of ways. The idea of judgment remained (‘the day of judgment’ is one of the ways of referring to it, as in 2 Pet. 2:9), but the emphasis is on the judgment of the individual rather than on that of the nations. It is made clear that ‘each of us will give an account of himself to God’ (Rom. 14:12).
Paul makes his reference to its arrival more vivid with his use of the present tense ‘comes’ (NIV has will come). The comparison to the coming of a thief indicates its total unexpectedness, and this is heightened with in the night (only here in the New Testament do we have reference to a thief in the night). Leith Samuel remarks, ‘if there is one thing certain about the timing of the Lord’s return it is this, that we cannot be certain of the timing’ (cf. LB, ‘you know perfectly well that no one knows’). It is inevitable, but unpredictable.
3. To the generality of mankind (people) the parousia will be unexpected. They will be saying ‘Peace and safety’ when destruction overtakes them (note the present tense, are saying; right at the time of the parousia they will be saying this). The idea of an imagined peace is found elsewhere (Jer. 6:14; 8:11; Ezek. 13:10; Mic. 3:5). When people are in this fancied security, while they are actually saying peace, there will come on them destruction. Again the present tense (‘comes’) gives greater vividness. There are some coincidences of language with Luke 21:34 (e.g. the unusual word aiphnidios, ‘sudden’, found in these two places only in the New Testament). This kind of coincidence with Luke, where that evangelist differs from the others, perhaps indicates a connection between Paul and his friend.
We should understand destruction primarily in terms of separation from God (cf. 2 Thess. 1:9, where the same word is used), rather than of annihilation. Milligan takes it to convey ‘the thought of utter and hopeless ruin, the loss of all that gives worth to existence’. The comparison with child-birth can be paralleled from the Old Testament (Isa. 13:6–8; Jer. 4:31, etc.), and from the teaching of Jesus (Mark 13:8). Sometimes the point of the comparison is the pain, but here it is rather a combination of suddenness and inevitability. This latter point is underlined with the following they will not escape, where Paul uses the emphatic double negative ou mē (see on 4:15), ‘they shall by no means escape’ (Amp.).
c. Children of the day (5:4–11)
In strong contrast with the fate of these unbelievers is the situation of those in Christ (in v. 4 you is emphatic). The apostle makes use of a wordplay: the day of the Lord passes over into the day (or light) in which Christians live. Paul develops the thought of living as children of the day.
4. He expresses his confidence that the Thessalonians will not find themselves in the calamitous situation he has just outlined. You, brothers (note the affectionate address as in v. 1), are not in darkness, which means more than ‘you are not ignorant’. The present world is a place of darkness (2 Cor. 6:14; Eph. 6:12), out of which Christ has saved the believer (Col. 1:13); God has made the light shine in our hearts and given us knowledge of his glory ‘in the face of Christ’ (2 Cor. 4:6). Since the Thessalonian Christians have come into the light of Christ they have passed from the possibility of destruction. Paul seems to be carrying on the metaphor of the thief coming suddenly in the night, though we should notice that some MSS have the reading ‘as day overtakes thieves’ (kleptas as against kleptēs), a reading accepted by Lightfoot, Milligan, Frame and others, largely on the grounds that scribes would not alter the accepted reading to this one, but they would be greatly tempted to conform this one to the other. Most textual critics, however, accept the reading behind NIV; the attestation of the variant is limited and it seems to be a mechanical corruption, the ending of kleptēs being conformed to that of the nearby hymas.
5. There are both positive and negative reasons why the day should not surprise them. Positively they are all sons of the light (cf. Luke 16:8). In the Semitic idiom to be a ‘son’ of something is to be characterized by that thing (e.g. ‘a son of strength’ means ‘a strong man’); ‘light’ is the distinguishing characteristic of believers. This means more than being ‘in light’ and points to the transformation that Christ has made in them. Sons of the day (here only in the New Testament) is similar to sons of the light, for day is the region of light; but it is not a simple repetition, for it looks back to ‘the day of the Lord’ (v. 2). They will participate in the triumph of that great day; they belong to that great day; they will have the fulfilment of their being when that great day comes.
There is a significant change from you to we as Paul associates himself with his converts in the need to live uprightly, as those who will share in the blessings of the parousia. We (i.e. ‘we who believe’), he says, do not belong to the sphere of night or darkness. Night stands over against day and perhaps points to the period (they belong not to the night of the present age, but to ‘the day of the Lord’), while darkness (over against light) is the condition of opposition to God.
6. So then (ara oun; used only by Paul in the New Testament) is a strong expression for a necessary logical inference, and introduces an inescapable conclusion. Paul uses a different word for asleep (katheudō) from that in 4:13–15 (koimaō), and, while there is not a great deal of difference between the two, it may not be without significance that the one used here is sometimes used of moral indifference (Mark 13:36; Eph. 5:14). It is the condition natural to the enemies of Christ, for they belong to the night. They are here referred to as others (hoi loipoi, ‘the rest’), i.e. all non-Christians.
By contrast, Christians are exhorted, let us be alert and self-controlled. The first verb is concerned with mental alertness, being watchful for the parousia (cf. Matt. 24:42–43; 25:13; Mark 13:34–37, etc.), while the second has a moral emphasis and is used to condemn all kinds of excess. It can be used of the avoidance of alcoholic intoxication, but it seems to be used metaphorically here (as with asleep, etc.), for there is no indication that the Thessalonians were addicted to drunkenness and thus in need of an exhortation to sobriety in the literal sense. Rather Paul is saying that Christians must live temperately, avoiding excess of all kinds; they must live balanced lives.
7. The kind of conduct Paul is opposing belongs to the night, not the day, and he has already pointed out that his readers are ‘sons of day’. The expressions used here are not metaphorical; Paul is simply saying that night is the time when people sleep and night is the time when they get drunk (cf. Acts 2:15). He uses two different verbs in connection with the latter, the first of which means literally ‘to get drunk’ (in the passive, used here; the active means ‘to make drunk’), and the second ‘to be drunk’. But there is no stress on the difference; Paul is using them virtually as synonyms, the variation being purely stylistic.
8. But (in contrast with such people) since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled. We is the emphatic hēmeis; it is not mankind in general but ‘we Christians’, we who belong to the day, of whom he writes. He repeats his injunction to sobriety, and this forms a transition to the idea of the armour of the Christian soldier. The connection of thought is not obvious, but there is a similar sequence in Romans 13:12–13. Perhaps ‘the mention of vigilance suggested the idea of a sentry armed and on duty’ (Lightfoot). Paul has an aorist participle (putting on), which suggests the taking of a decisive, once-for-all step. The metaphor of the Christian’s armour attracted Paul and he uses it a number of times (Rom. 13:12–13; 2 Cor. 6:7; 10:4; Eph. 6:13–17). The details are not always the same, which is a warning against pressing the metaphor too closely. Thus in Ephesians the breastplate is righteousness and faith is the shield, while neither hope nor love is mentioned. The idea probably goes back to Isaiah 59:17, where Yahweh is depicted as a warrior armed.
Once again we meet the great triad of faith, hope and love (see on 1:3), and again hope comes last with a certain emphasis, which is natural in a letter that puts such stress on hope. In each case there is an appositional genitive, so that faith and love are the breastplate, and the hope of salvation is the helmet. Whiteley remarks that hope ‘is not “mere” hope, as often in modern speech, but a sure and certain expectation’. We should not miss the note of certainty.
Salvation is the general and inclusive term for the whole great work of Christ for us, of which redemption and the like are aspects. The link with hope shows that here the future, eschatological consummation of all things is especially in mind. The hope that rests on what Christ has done and reaches forward to the final unfolding of all that salvation means is indeed a helmet for the Christian, warding off the world’s hard knocks.
9. The reason for our ‘hope of salvation’ is that God has appointed (etheto) it. The verb is ‘somewhat vague’ (Milligan), being not nearly as precise, for example, as ‘predestined’ (Rom. 8:29–30); but it clearly rests our salvation on the divine initiative. It is due to God that believers are brought into salvation.
God did not appoint us to wrath (again some translations come short of the meaning, as JB, ‘the Retribution’; NEB ‘the terrors of judgement’; but Paul sees God as personally active in opposing evil; see on 1:10). Salvation is salvation from as well as salvation unto. As Heinrich Vogel puts it, ‘whoever thinks he can smile at God’s wrath will never praise him eternally for his grace’.25 One of the things that gave salvation so full a meaning for New Testament Christians was that they were sure of the wrath of God and had a deep gratitude to Christ for saving them from it. In modern times some take Christianity lightly because they have emptied the wrath of its content. To banish the wrath of God from the scene is to rob life of a good deal of its serious purpose.
The expression to receive salvation (eis peripoiēsin sotērias) may mean ‘for the acquiring of salvation’ (JB ‘to win salvation’), or, taking the former word passively, ‘for the adoption of salvation’ (Lightfoot). Passages may be found to support either (the active sense: 2 Thess. 2:14; Heb. 10:39; the passive: Eph. 1:14; 1 Pet. 2:9). The former meaning seems natural, but it is objected that to some extent it makes our salvation a matter of human activity, whereas Paul consistently sees God as bringing us salvation. Bruce, however, finds the second meaning ‘strained’ and it is difficult to disagree. Paul is here speaking of salvation in its eschatological aspect and the point is that that is yet to be ‘acquired’ (cf. Rom. 13:11). This does not mean that it is obtained by human effort, and Paul immediately goes on to say that it is obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever activity be ascribed to the believer, salvation is God’s gift through Christ (for the divine and the human in salvation cf. Eph. 2:8–10; Phil. 2:12–13).
10. The way salvation was accomplished comes out in the words He died for us. This is the only place in the Thessalonian letters where Christ’s death is explicitly said to be for us. It cannot be inferred that Paul was feeling his way to a theology, for at the very time that he wrote this letter he was preaching a gospel where the cross was central (1 Cor. 1:23–24; 2:1–2; 15:3–7). Indeed, it is difficult to think that he could have alluded to Christ’s death in this fashion unless it was already a familiar, non-controversial topic for the Thessalonians (cf. 2:15; 4:14). In these letters Paul is occupied primarily with other matters, and accordingly does not deal at length with doctrines accepted by all. Lightfoot finds it important that, though Paul’s concern is with other matters, he yet mentions this topic. It shows that it was present to his mind even when he was busied with other things. And this within twenty years of Jesus’ death.
The purpose of Christ’s death for us is our union with him, and it is significant that this central Pauline concept is present thus early in his ministry. Union with Christ means entering a new relationship so enduring in its effects that even death cannot affect it. Whether we are awake or asleep means ‘whether we live or die’ (cf. Rom. 14:8); it is physical life and physical death that are in mind, not the ethical use as in verse 6 (though Thomas thinks of the ethical use here also). The words are a further reassurance for those experiencing the difficulty treated in 4:13–18. Whatever be our state when Christ comes again, we will live with him.
11. Paul’s words about the parousia come to a close with an exhortation to help one another (cf. 4:18). Therefore (dio) means ‘on account of the things laid down in the preceding passage’; it is probable that everything from 4:13 onwards is included. The concept of edification (building up) is one that Paul uses often. The verb oikodomeō is not uncommon in the New Testament in its usual sense of building (e.g. Matt. 7:24, 26). Jesus used it of building his church (Matt. 16:18), and it is applied to the growth of the church (Acts 9:31). But in Paul’s hands both the verb and the cognate nouns are in frequent use in the sense ‘edify’, and this in both his early and later writings. It perhaps reaches its climax with the thought of believers being built up into a temple of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 3:9–17, Eph. 2:21–22).
Paul rounds off the section with a tactful just as in fact you are doing. He is always ready to give credit where credit is due. His purpose here is to exhort and encourage the brothers in the right way, not to rebuke them.