Peter Barnes: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-5
SERMON NOTES: SANCTIFIED SEX Part 1 (1 Thessalonians 4:1-5)
– Paul deals with sanctification in sexual ethics in verses 1-8, then brotherly love in verses 9-12.
- God commands us to be sanctified.
– 4:1-3a. The tone here is friendly but it is also authoritative. Paul knows the mind of Christ on this issue. Here he speaks generally about their ‘walk’ in this world (32 times in Paul’s epistles).
– in verse 3a he says ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification’. See 1 Cor.6:9-10. The gospel acquits and the gospel transforms.
- We are to exercise self-control.
– 4:3b. Porneiva is the Greek word. We get ‘pornography’ from it. John Stott, a life-long bachelor: ‘It is possible for human sexual energy to be redirected’.
– 4:4. The word is actually ‘vessel’ (as in 1 Peter 3:7), and is obviously figurative. William Hendriksen and the RSV understand it as ‘wife’ (acquiring a wife), but Calvin, the ESV and the NIV understand it as ‘body’, which seems better. Either way, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit – Gal.5:22-23.
- We are to be unlike the world.
– 4:5. The ancient Greco-Roman world was riddled with this kind of sin. Cicero (106-43 B.C.) thought it ‘very strict’ to prohibit sexual relations with prostitutes.
– the world: ‘Everybody is doing it’; Paul: ‘That is precisely the problem’. People who take the world as their authority show that they do not know God. God wants us to be holy, including in our sexual behaviour and thought; He wants us to be exercising self-control; and He wants us to be different from the unbelieving world.