Homily 5 — First Thessalonians 4, verses 1 to 8

“Finally, then, brothers and sisters, we beg and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, you abound more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus Christ. For this is the will of God, your holiness.” [a]

Now that he has dealt with what was pressing and what he had on his hands, and is about to move on to things that are permanent, things they ought to hear continually, he adds the word “finally,” that is, always and forever. “We beg and urge you in the Lord.” Remarkable! He does not even speak of himself as credible enough to urge them. And yet who was more worthy of belief than he? But he takes Christ along with him: we urge you, he says, by God. He said the same to the Corinthians: “God urges you through us” (Second Corinthians 5, verse 20).

“That as you received from us.” This word “received” refers not to words only but to actions as well — namely, “how you ought to walk” — and by it he means the whole conduct of life. “And to please God, that you abound more and more.” That is, that by abounding more you do not stop at the limit of the commandments, but even go beyond them. For this is what “that you abound more and more” means.

In what came before, he acknowledged the wonder of their firm faith; here he sets their life in order. For this is real progress: to go even beyond the commandments and the rules. For it is no longer the compulsion of a teacher, but their own free choice, that does it all. As the earth ought not to bear only what is sown in it, so the soul ought not to stop at what it has been taught, but to go beyond it. Do you see how rightly he has said “to go beyond”? For virtue is divided into these two things: turning away from evil, and doing good. [c]

Turning away from evil is not enough to arrive at virtue. It is a kind of path, a beginning that leads toward it; we still need great eagerness. So the things to be avoided he gives them in the form of commands. And rightly: these things, when they are done, bring punishment, but when they are not done, they still bring no praise. The acts of virtue, however, such as giving away our possessions and the like, are not given in the form of commands, he says. What then? “Let the one who is able to receive it receive it” (Matthew 19, verse 12). So it is useful that, since he had given them these commands with much fear and trembling, he should also remind them by this letter of that care of his. That is why he does not repeat the commands, but only reminds them of them.

“For you know,” he says, “what instructions we gave you through our Lord Jesus Christ. For this is the will of God, your holiness.” And notice how there is no other subject he presses so forcefully as this one. Elsewhere, too, he writes to the same effect: “Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12, verse 14). And why do you wonder that he writes to his disciples about this everywhere, when even in his letter to Timothy he said, “Keep yourself pure” (First Timothy 5, verse 22)? In his second letter to the Corinthians, too, he said, “In much endurance, in fastings, by purity” (Second Corinthians 6, verses 5 and 6). And one may find this in many places — in this letter, in the letter to the Romans, and everywhere, in all his letters. [d]

For truly this is an evil that ruins everyone. A pig loaded with mud fills every place it enters with its stench and chokes the senses with dung; so it is with sexual immorality. It is an evil not easily washed away. And when even some who have wives do this, how enormous the outrage is! “For this,” he says, “is the will of God, your holiness: that you abstain from all sexual immorality.” For there are many forms of disorderly conduct. The pleasures of loose living are many and various; it would be unbearable to name them. But by saying “from all sexual immorality,” he leaves them to those who know them.

Verses 4 and 5: “That each one of you know how to possess his own vessel in holiness and honor, not in the passion of craving, like the pagans who do not know God.” [e]

He says, “That each one of you know how to possess his own vessel.” So this is something to be learned, and learned with care: not to live loosely. We possess our vessel when it is pure; when it is impure, sin possesses it. And reasonably so, for then it does not do what we wish, but what sin commands. “Not in the passion of craving,” he says. Here he also shows the way in which one ought to be chaste: we should cut off the passions of craving. For luxury and wealth, idleness and laziness and ease, and all such things lead us on to disordered craving. “Like the pagans,” he says, “who do not know God.” For such are those who do not expect to suffer punishment.

Verse 6: “That no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter.”

He has put it well: “that no one transgress.” To each man God has assigned a wife. He has set bounds to nature: intercourse with one woman only. So intercourse with another is transgression, and taking more than belongs to you, and robbery. Or rather, it is crueler than any robbery, for we do not grieve so much when our riches are carried off as when our marriage is invaded. Do you call him brother, and wrong him — and in things that are unlawful at that?

Here he is speaking of adultery, but above he also spoke of “all sexual immorality.” For since he was about to say, “That no one transgress and wrong his brother,” he says: “Do not think I say this only where your brothers are concerned. You must not have other men’s wives at all, nor even women who have no husbands and belong to everyone.” You must abstain from “all sexual immorality.” “Because,” he says, “the Lord is an avenger in all these things.”

First he appealed to them; he shamed them by saying, “like the pagans.” Then, by reasoning, he showed how wrong it is to cheat a brother. After that he adds the main thing: “Because,” he says, “the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we also told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.” For we do not do these things and go unpunished; nor is the pleasure we enjoy anything like as great as the punishment we undergo.

Verse 7: “For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.”

He had said “his brother,” and had also added that God is the avenger. To show that even if it is an unbeliever who has suffered this wrong, the one who did it will be punished, he says: it is not to avenge that man that God punishes you, but because you have insulted God himself. He himself called you; you have insulted the one who called you. That is why he has added:

Verse 8: “Therefore whoever rejects, rejects not man, but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”

So, he says, even if you should defile the empress, or even your own slave woman who has a husband, the crime is the same. Why? Because he avenges not the persons who are wronged, but himself. You are equally defiled; you have equally insulted God. For the one and the other are both adultery, just as the one and the other are both marriage. And even if you do not commit adultery but sexual immorality, even though the prostitute has no husband, God still avenges it, for he avenges himself. When you do this, it is not man you despise so much as God. And this is plain from the fact that you do it hiding it from people, yet you act as though God does not see you.

Tell me: suppose someone had been thought worthy of the purple, and of boundless honor from the emperor, and had been commanded to live in a way that suited that honor. If he should go and defile himself with some woman, whom has he insulted — her, or the emperor who gave him everything?

She is insulted too, of course, but not equally. [f]

So I beg you, let us guard against this sin. For as we punish our wives when, married to us, they give themselves to others, so we too are punished — if not by the Roman laws, then by God. For this too is adultery. Adultery is committed in this way not only by a woman who is married to another, but also by a man who is yoked to a wife. Pay careful attention to what I say. Though what is said offends many, it must be said, to set the matter right for the future. It is not only adultery when we defile a woman who is married to a man. If we ourselves, married to a woman, defile one who is free and unattached, the thing is adultery.

“But what if the woman with whom the adultery is committed is not bound?” Yet you are bound. You have broken the law. You have wronged your own flesh. Tell me, why do you punish your wife if she commits sexual immorality with a man who is free and has no wife? Because it is adultery. Why? The man who defiled her has no wife; but she is bound to a husband. Well, then, you too are bound to a wife, so in the same way your offense also is adultery. For it is said, “Everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she has been divorced commits adultery” (Matthew 5, verse 32). If the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery, then the man who has a wife of his own and defiles himself with another woman as well — his case is plain to everyone.

But perhaps, to you who are grown men, enough has been said on this subject. For of people like that Christ says, “Their worm will not die, and the fire will not be quenched” (Mark 9, verse 44). But for the sake of the young I must speak to you — not so much to the young themselves as to you. For these things concern not them only, but you as well. How? I will tell you now. The one who has not learned sexual immorality will not know how to commit adultery either. But the one who wallows among prostitutes will quickly arrive at the other too, and will defile himself, if not with married women, then with unattached ones.

What, then, do I advise, to tear out the roots? All of you who have young sons and are bringing them up for life in the world, bring them quickly under the yoke of marriage. While a son is still young, desires trouble him; so for the time before marriage, hold those desires in check with warnings, threats, fears, promises, and countless other means. But when the time for marriage comes, let no one put it off. [g]

Look, I am speaking like a matchmaker, telling you to let your sons marry! But I am not ashamed to speak this way, since not even Paul was ashamed to say, “Do not deprive one another” (First Corinthians 7, verse 5), which seems more shameful than what I have said. Yet he was not ashamed, for he paid attention not to words, but to the conduct that the words set right.

When your son is grown, before he enters military service or any other career, think about his marriage. If he sees that you will soon find him a bride, and that the time in between will be short, he will be able to bear the flame patiently. But if he sees that you are slack and slow, and are waiting until he has gained a large income before you arrange a marriage for him, he will lose heart at the length of the wait and fall readily into sexual immorality. But alas! Here too the root of the evils is the love of money. Since no one cares how self-controlled and modest his son will be, but all are mad for gold, no one makes this his concern.

So I urge you first to set their souls in good order. If he finds his bride chaste, and knows that body alone, then his desire will be strong and his fear of God greater, and the marriage truly honorable, receiving bodies pure and undefiled. The children will be filled with blessing, and bride and groom will be ready to give way to each other; for since neither has any experience of the ways of others, they will yield to one another.

But the man who begins in his youth to live loosely and gains experience of the ways of prostitutes will praise his own wife for the first evening and the second. After that he will soon fall back into that loose living, looking for that dissolute and unruly laughter, the words full of vile meaning, the shameless manner, and all the other indecency that it is unbearable for us even to mention. But a freeborn woman would not put up with making such displays, or with sullying herself. She was married to her husband to be his partner in life and to bear children, not for indecency and laughter; to keep the house, and to teach him too to be serious — not to supply him with the fuel of sexual immorality.

But a prostitute’s gestures seem pleasant to you. I know it. For the Scripture says, “The lips of a woman who belongs to another man drip honey” (Proverbs 5, verse 3). That is exactly why I take all this trouble: so that you may have no experience of that honey, for it quickly turns to gall. The Scripture says this too: “For a time she is smooth to your throat, but afterward you will find her more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword” (Proverbs 5, verses 3 and 4, in the Greek Old Testament). [h]

What’s that you say? Bear with me if I speak somewhat impurely, so to speak, and express myself like a shameless man who does not blush. I do not submit to this willingly; I am forced to use words of this kind because of those who are shameless in their actions. And we see many such things even in the Scriptures. Ezekiel, for example, reproaching Jerusalem, says many such things and is not ashamed. And rightly so. He did not say them from his own inclination but out of his concern. Though the words seem indecent, his aim is not indecent; it is entirely fitting for one who wants to drive uncleanness out of the soul. For if the shameless soul does not hear the very words, it is not moved.

A physician who wants to remove a festering sore first thrusts his fingers into the wound; if he does not first soil his healing hands, he will not be able to cure it. So it is with me. Unless I first soil my mouth, which heals your passions, I will not be able to heal you. Or rather, neither is my mouth defiled, nor his hands. Why? Because the uncleanness does not come from nature, nor from our own body — just as in his case it does not come from his hands — but from what belongs to another. But if, where the body is another’s, he does not refuse to dip his own hands in, tell me, shall we refuse, when it is our own body? For you are our body — sickly, indeed, and impure, but ours all the same.

What, then, is this point I am making, for which I have made so long a digression? A garment your slave wears you would never choose to wear. Disgusted by its filth, you would rather go naked than put it on. But a body that is unclean and filthy, used not only by your slave but by countless others — that you will make use of, and not be disgusted? Are you ashamed to hear this? Then be ashamed of the actions, not of the words. [j]

I pass over all the other things: the coarseness, the corruption of their manners, the servile and base character of the rest of their life. Tell me, should you and your slave go to the same woman? And I wish it were only your slave, and not perhaps the executioner! And yet you could not bear to take the executioner by the hand; yet the woman who has been made one body with him you kiss and embrace, and you do not shudder or fear! Are you not ashamed? Are you not abashed? Are you not pierced with anguish?

I did tell your fathers that they ought to lead you to marriage early. But even so, you are not free from liability to punishment. If there were not other young men too, more numerous than you, living in chastity, both in the past and now, there might perhaps be some excuse for you. But if there are, how can you say, “We could not hold back the flame of craving”? Those who have been able to are your accusers, since they share the same nature. Listen to Paul saying, “Pursue peace, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12, verse 14). Is this threat not enough to terrify you? Do you see others living their whole lives in chastity and seriousness, and you cannot master yourself even for the length of your youth? Do you see others overcoming pleasure ten thousand times, and you cannot hold back once? [k]

With your permission, I will tell you the cause. Youth is not the cause; otherwise all young men would be dissolute. No, we thrust ourselves into the fire. When you go up to the theater and sit feasting your eyes on the naked limbs of women, you are delighted for the moment, but afterward you have fed a raging fever from it. You see women put on show, as it were, in the very shape of their bodies, and spectacles and songs that contain nothing but disordered loves: such-and-such a woman, it is said, loved such-and-such a man, and when she could not have him, she hanged herself; and unlawful loves whose object is a mother. You take these things in through your ears as well, and through women, and through figures — yes, and even through old men, for many there put masks on their faces and play the parts of women. Tell me, then: how will you be able to stay chaste afterward, when these stories, these spectacles, these songs fill your soul, and dreams of that kind follow from then on? For it is the soul’s nature, for the most part, to call up images of the things it wishes for and desires in the daytime.

So when you both see shameful actions there and hear more shameful words, and receive the wounds but apply no remedies, how will the sore not naturally grow worse? How will the disease not become more intense — and far more so than in our bodies? For if we were willing, our will is more easily corrected than our bodies. There, drugs and physicians and time are needed; here, the will alone is enough to become either good or bad. So it is you rather who have let the disease in. When, then, we gather to ourselves the things that injure us and pay no attention to the things that help us, how can there ever be any health?

That is why Paul said, “like the pagans who do not know God.” Let us be ashamed, let us be afraid, if the pagans, who do not know God, are often chaste. Let us blush for shame when we are worse than they are. It is easy to achieve chastity if we want to, if we withdraw ourselves from the things that harm us; just as, if we do not want to, it is not easy even to keep away from sexual immorality. [l]

For what is easier than walking in the marketplace? Yet through too much laziness it has become difficult, not only for women but sometimes even for men. What is easier than sleep? Yet we have made even this difficult. Many of the rich toss and turn a whole night, because they do not wait until they need sleep before they sleep. In short, nothing is difficult when people are willing, just as nothing is easy when they are unwilling; for we are masters of all these things. That is why the Scripture says, “If you are willing and listen to me” (Isaiah 1, verse 19, in the Greek Old Testament); and again, “If you are unwilling and do not listen” (Isaiah 1, verse 20).

So everything depends on being willing or unwilling. That is why we are both punished and praised. But may it be ours to be among those who are praised, and to obtain the promised blessings, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.