Ii. Supplying What Is Lacking (4:1-5:11)

II. SUPPLYING WHAT IS LACKING (4:1-5:11)

With the narrative of their past relationships concluded by way of the preceding prayer report, Paul now turns to “supply what is lacking” (3:10) by way of letter, since he is unsure as to how soon “the Lord will clear the way for us to come to you” (3:11). In so doing, he shifts from using features common to letters of friendship to those common to letters of moral exhortation. Paul is almost certainly now addressing matters that Timothy has reported back to him. The instructions come in four clear parts. The first two (4:3-8 and 9-12) are basically behavioral matters: how believers in Christ are to live in the world and in relationship with one another. The third one, having to do with believers who have died before the coming of Christ (4:13-18), is the only new instruction in the letter; it is followed by the final, closely related question of the day of the Lord (5:1-11), in which the previous three items are brought together.

Thus, starting with verse 3, Paul begins a series of exhortations, which, apart from 4:13-18, are basically reminders, reinforcing (a) what they had previously been told, and (b) what most of them are in fact doing. Various reminders are thus found throughout the passage, beginning with the introduction in 4:1-2.⁴²⁶

4:1 (a) Just as you received from us (b) Just as you are also walking (b) that you do so all the more
4:2 (a) For you know what commandments we gave you
4:6 (a) Even as we told you before
4:9 (a) You have no need for us to write to you (a) For you yourselves are “God taught”
4:10 (b) For you are doing this very thing (b) Abound in it all the more (a) Even as we have commanded you
[[4:13-18 “We do not want you not to know”]]
5:1 (a) You have no need for us to write to you
5:2 (a) For you yourselves know these things
5:11 (b) Even as you are also doing

On certain points, therefore, where they have been previously instructed, Paul apparently senses a degree of wavering (4:3-8; 4:9-12); on another point they need instruction as such (4:13-18), almost certainly because it has arisen in the interim; and on a further related point (5:1-11) they need former instruction reemphasized in a new way. He then concludes the letter with some more “general” paraenesis (5:12-24), which begins (vv. 12 and 14) with the same verbs as in 4:1.

The most noticeable difference between what has preceded (chs. 1-3) and these final sections can be found in our own level of certainty/uncertainty regarding “what’s going on.” That is, even though in chapters 1-3 Paul also reminds them of what “you know,” the whole is held together by a narrative that also lets us in on what they know. But here we are much more in the dark. The first matter addressed (4:3-8) is especially obscure in terms of specifics, as is 4:9-12; and the two eschatological sections, which have a degree of related-ness, are not at all easy regarding many specifics. Our problem is that to the degree that an author and his recipients share knowledge in common, the lesser our degree of certainty, since an author does not often spell out details known in common. The net result is that we have a great deal more tentative-ness here, and thus a good deal more historical guessing (speculation?).

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