Our world and our society today is obsessed with sex. Practically every facet of life today involves sex in some way. Sex sells. “Sexual rights” are championed. What is called “sexual freedom” is promoted at every turn.
Are we alone in this? Is this new? Have Christians ever had to deal with culture and environment like this before? We may think it’s hardly possible, but in the gentile world of the first century society was more consumed with sex than our world today is.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3, Paul writes to abstain from sexual immorality, then in 1 Thessalonians 4:5, he warns Christians against lustful passion and being like the gentiles who do not know God.
The word in verse 3 translated “sexual immorality” is one that, as it’s used here, encompasses all sorts of sexual conduct for the married or unmarried — it is “every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse” — including adultery, fornication, homosexuality, or prostitution. Similar wording is used in Acts 15:20, 29 telling gentiles to abstain from fornication.
The words in verse 5 usually now translated as something like “lustful passion” involve a longing, especially for something that is forbidden, and a desire or affection so strong that it creates a burning, suffering feeling. The words describe someone who has given themself over to their lusts and someone who is carried away by their passion to which their desire eagerly consents. Paul warns of similar feelings in Romans 1:24 and Colossians 3:5.
Consider the sort of background and society these converts would have come from: “Far from prohibiting sexual immorality, the [cults of pagan gods] promoted sexual license. The gentile members of the Thessalonian church would have found it difficult to understand how their conversion to the living God necessitated abandoning those pleasures that their previous religious alliances had approved or ignored.” (Green). Even the more condemned practice of having sexual relations with the wife of another man was not unusual. Additionally, Thessalonica was a seaport for “sailors’ sport”.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, Paul requests and exhorts them in the Lord Jesus. The first word is one originally used for asking a question, then became used to make urgent requests. The second word is a stronger word, some would say with military coloring.
It’s not that he’s commanding them to do something they’re not doing: they are walking that way already. Paul’s encouraging them to keep on, to keep growing, to abound more and more, to excel still more. We need this too: the encouragement to keep on doing what we should, to not slow down, but to grow even more.
Then, in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, Paul gets to a more specific point: what God’s will is and how to be sanctified, or holy, with regard to sex. They must abstain from all that sexual immorality surrounding them. In verse 7, they are told God didn’t call them to be impure, but to be sanctified and holy.
Sexual immorality and impurity were characteristics of the world that surrounded them and they are characteristics of the world that surrounds us. He has called His people to be separate from the world and separated to God.
Again, in 1 Thessalonians 4:7, Paul reminds them about what God wants. God has not called His people for impurity. He sent His Son so you could be pure! God called His people for the purpose of sanctification and holiness. He sent Christ to die so we — so you — could be clean and set apart to and for Him.
— Stefan Richardson