1 Thessalonians 5:12-22

Sundry Counsels and Exhortations.

1 Thessalonians 5:12. Christians are urged to respect their leaders. No officers and ministers are mentioned in this epistle, but this verse implies that the Church had leaders. The ministry at Thessalonica was a ministry of service. Those who laboured most were naturally regarded as being over the Church. They are entitled to esteem and love, not by reason of any official position but for their work's sake.

1 Thessalonians 5:14. admonish the disorderly: an insistence upon the maintenance of discipline. The disorderly are probably those who had abandoned their regular business under the excitement of the expected Parousia.

1 Thessalonians 5:17. Rejoice always. give thanks. These injunctions receive illumination when read in the light of the condition of the Thessalonian Church. There was persecution they had lost their leader death had been active in their ranks yet they are told to rejoice and give thanks.

1 Thessalonians 5:19. Quench not: the apostle is referring to those manifestations of the Spirit which were seen in preaching, speaking with tongues, healings, etc., in the early Church (1 Corinthians 12:8 *).

1 Thessalonians 5:20. prove all things: i.e. discriminate between the true and the false. One of the difficulties of the early Church was to find some criterion to distinguish the genuine and spurious expressions of the spiritual life (1 Corinthians 12:3 *, 1 John 4:1, Revelation 22; cf. Didache, xi.ff.).