A. Introduction (4:1-2)
A. INTRODUCTION (4:1-2)
Several features of these two sentences indicate that they serve to introduce the whole of this larger section, not just verses 3-8. First, the very complexity of Paul’s first sentence (all of v. 1) is best explained as his own (somewhat convoluted) attempt to make the transition from matters of friendship to those of moral exhortation. Second, the plural “instructions” in verse 2 rather demands that it anticipates more than the singular — and now repeated — instruction given earlier regarding sexual morality within marriage. Third, and especially telling, is the fact that much of the language of these two (Greek) sentences is repeated not in verses 3-8 but in verses 9-10, thus indicating that the concern expressed here carries over into the later material.
For the sake of commentary, and thus to help the reader see what Paul himself was doing, the comments on this verse will be based on the following “literal” rendering of Paul’s Greek into not very good English (although the latter, good English, should remain as the goal of all good translation430): “As for what is left then, brothers and sisters, we entreat you and urge in the Lord Jesus, that just as you received from us how you ought to walk and please God, just as you also are walking, that you might abound all the more.”
1 Paul begins this new section with a combination of another vocative (the seventh one) and the adverb loipon. Most modern English versions render the adverb as “finally,” and are thus the source of an untold number of sermonic quips about Paul’s use of such a word so far from the end of his letter. But it remains a singular mystery as to why so many later English translations have chosen to go this route,431 when it had been rendered more adequately by both the (1611) Protestant KJV (“furthermore”) and the (1610) Roman Catholic Rheims Version (“for the rest”). Paul uses it in this same way again in 2 Thessalonians 3:1, and in Philippians 3:1 and 4:8, where in each case it means simply, “as for what remains to be said.” Using the English adverb “finally” this far from the end of the letter simply fails to connote Paul’s intent. He is not here “wrapping up” anything; rather, this adverb is his way of moving on to what further needs to be said in the letter.432
Nonetheless, Paul at the same time shows considerable reluctance to get at “what remains to be said,” which serves as further evidence that friendship is still the primary thrust of the letter. Basically his appeal is that “we are about to repeat instructions that you have already received from us”; his reluctance to put it this way probably stems from Timothy’s report that for the most part the Thessalonian believers are living properly. But since it is not universally the case, Paul moves from friendship motifs to moments of exhortation by making sure they understand that he is aware that not all of them are involved in the errors that need correction. What follows, therefore, will be exhortation, to be sure, but it is exhortation aimed at so few of them that he feels the need to ease his way into speaking to a decided minority in the context of the gathered people of God.
Using a combination of verbs that had some currency in the ancient world,433 Paul thus begins gently, “we entreat you, indeed we appeal to you in the Lord Jesus.” The verb “entreat (ask)”434 is rare in Pauline exhortations, occurring only in letters of friendship (here; 5:12; 2 Thess 2:1; Phil 4:3). But since “entreat” might not be heard for the apostolic imperative that is needed, and in keeping with an apparently known idiom, he adds the more common, “we exhort/appeal.”435 The basis of the appeal is their common bond “in the Lord Jesus.”436 That is, the apostles make their appeal as those whose sphere of existence is “in the Lord Jesus,” the same (now reigning) Lord just mentioned in the preceding prayer, who will be coming in great glory with all the heavenly host. Though not said here, this usage likewise carries the assumption that this is also the sphere of the Thessalonians’ present existence. At the same time, it seems inherently also to be an appeal to the Lord’s authority with regard to the content of the exhortation.437
But having gotten that far into this introductory sentence, Paul chooses to back up momentarily and to commend these believers for their basically, and obviously predominantly, Christian behavior. Thus a sentence that could have been spoken simply — “we entreat you . . . to continue to live in a way that is pleasing to God” — ends up saying this in an almost apologetic way. In so doing, Paul emphasizes three intertwined realities: (a) their behavior, which (b) has to do with “pleasing God,” and (c) the apostolic source of their having learned about it.
Paul in this case fronts the fact that he and his companions were the source of the Thessalonians’ coming to know how believers are to live in the world. Repeating the verb he had already used in this regard in the thanksgiving in 3:13, he reminds them that they are to live (“walk”438) in conformity to that previous instruction. This is obviously the main point of everything, that Paul’s preaching among them was not just about their “faith,”439 and thus their relationship to God. Such “faith” included living/behaving in conformity to that faith; and only by so doing will they be living in such a way that their “faith” is thereby “pleasing to God.” This latter phrase also picks up language from earlier in the letter, positively in 2:4 with regard to how the apostolic company had preached while among them in Thessalonica and negatively in 2:15 with regard to how the Judean Jewish community had treated Paul. Passages like this should remind one that the motto sola fide (“by faith alone”), which has to do with how one is related to God, when it is not accompanied by “living” in keeping with that “faith,” becomes both non-Pauline and something of a mockery of the gospel he proclaimed.
That Christian behavior that is in keeping with the gospel is Paul’s present chief concern is made certain by what appears as a kind of semi-apologetic addendum:440 “just as you also are walking.” Thus what follows is not primarily new instruction; rather, it is former instruction now repeated with the ultimate goal that what the (probably) large majority of them are already doing, “you [all] might do so all the more.” With this language, therefore, Paul both praises the majority and introduces the much-needed reminders to the disobedient few.
2 But since Paul is about to zero in on a matter of morality that was not thought of as immoral in much of the Greco-Roman world, he concludes these introductory moments with the reminder that the ultimate source of his ethical instructions (commandments) is none other than “the Lord Jesus” himself. So with an explanatory “for,” he offers a final summarizing sentence which serves as something of an inclusio with the way the preceding sentence began. There it was “we urge you in the Lord Jesus,” where the Lord Jesus was the common sphere of the apostles’ and Thessalonians’ new, eschatological existence. Here he concludes by reminding them of “the instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus,” where the emphasis is on the source of the instructions.
The “instructions” that follow are basically two, having to do with “sexual immorality” and with some who are living “in a way that is both idle and disruptive.”441 The first of these was a pagan vice that was not considered so by the pagans themselves; the second is more tenuous as to both its source and its way of being expressed among them, but is significant enough to receive special attention in the next letter (2 Thess 3:6-13).442