Peter Barnes: 1 Thessalonians 5:22-24
SERMON NOTES: GROWING IN GRACE (1 Thessalonians 5:22-24)
H. Auden was an atheist when he met the novelist Charles Williams, and he recorded that he felt ‘for the first time in my life … in the presence of personal sanctity’.
- We are to avoid all evil.
– 5:22. The KJV has ‘Abstain from all appearance of evil’, which is good advice (see for eating meat offered first to idols in 1 Cor.8-10). But in 1 Thessalonians 5:22, Paul is saying that we are to avoid every manifestation of evil.
– Calvin and Jeffrey Weima and others connect this very closely to the previous section on prophecy, and understand Paul to be saying that we should abstain from all forms of evil coming to us in prophecies, but it seems broader than that.
– Phil.3:14; ‘I press on’.
- God’s work of sanctification.
– 5:23; also 3:12-13; 4:3.
– ‘through and through’, says Luther. Paul is probably not saying that we are composed of three parts for elsewhere we seem to be composed of two parts – 2 Cor.7:1; James 2:26. ‘Spirit’ and ‘soul’ seem to be the same thing in Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-47). In Mark 12:30 Jesus is not saying that we are made up of four parts.
– Ps.19:12; 139:23-24.
- God’s faithfulness.
– 5:24. Note Isa.49:7. Salvation begins with His election of His people – 1 Thess.1:4. God finishes what He commences – Phil.1:6. He is what we are not – 2 Tim.2:13.
We are to aim at complete perfection, because that is what God is. But we will only achieve this when Christ comes again – 1 John 3:2.