1 Thessalonians 5:11

Διὸ παρακαλεῖτε�, a repetition of 1 Thessalonians 4:18, showing that the matter of this section is closely bound up with that of the last; their misgiving about the lot of Christians dying prematurely before the Lord’s return, and their uncertainty about the precise time of the return, were troubling the Thessalonian believers in the same way. Διό however (cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:1) replaces ὥστε: the former throws the reader back upon the ground of encouragement just given (1 Thessalonians 5:9 f.); the latter particle carried him onward to the encouragement to be gathered from the previous words.

καὶ οἰκοδομεῖτε εἶς τὸν ἕνα, and edify each the other—lit. “one the one.” Εἶς τὸν ἕνα (= ἀλλήλους) is “a rather late, though not unclassical expression”: so Lightfoot, who finds the idiom in Theocritus xxii:65, εἶς ἑνὶ χεῖρας ἄειρον; 1 Corinthians 4:6 affords the only N.T. parallel, where, however, the addition of κατὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου makes the phrase εἶς ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἑνός run more smoothly. In later Epp. ἑαυτούς serves as the variant for ἀλλήλους: see Colossians 3:13; Ephesians 4:31 f.; Philippians 2:3; cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:13 below. There is no occasion to refer the repetition of the numeral to Syriac (Aramaic) idiom; still less to turn εἶς into εἰς τὸν ἕνα, making the prepositional phrase equal to ἕως ἑνός, Romans 3:12 (“to the last man”—a harsh and unsuitable expression here), or rendering, as in Ephesians 2:15, “into the one” (the new Christian man, in whom all differences are reconciled)—which again is incongruous and far-fetched.

This is the first appearance of the Christian figure οἰκοδομέω (οἰκοδομή), which plays so large a part in St Paul’s writings (cf. however Matthew 7:24 ff.), and contains implicitly his great conception of the Church as the οῖκος or ναὸς θεοῦ: see 1 Corinthians 3:9-17; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:20 ff.; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 2:19 ff.

καθὼς καὶ ποιεῖτε. Cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:9 f., and notes; also 2 Thessalonians 3:4; and similar expressions in Romans 15:14; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Peter 1:12.