Paul urges the church to continue growing in the life they received through apostolic instruction in the Lord Jesus.
1 Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more.
2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
Paul defines sanctification in concrete bodily terms, calling believers away from sexual immorality and toward holiness and honor.
3 For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality,
4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in sanctification and honor,
5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God,
6 that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.
7 For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification.
8 Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.
Because God has taught them brotherly love, the Thessalonians must continue expanding and deepening that love.
9 But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that one write to you. For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another,
10 for indeed you do it toward all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we exhort you, brothers, that you abound more and more;
The church's ordinary daily life must display responsible conduct before outsiders.
11 and that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you;
12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing.
Paul comforts the church concerning believers who have died by grounding hope in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
13 But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
At the Lord's coming, the dead in Christ will rise, living believers will be gathered with them, and all will be with the Lord forever.
15 For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,
17 then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.
Paul commands the church to use resurrection hope as mutual encouragement.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.