1 Thessalonians 4:4

1 Thessalonians 4:4. That every one of you should know to possess himself of his own vessel. This is a positive duty in the matter of sanctification, as the preceding clause declared the negative duty. They were to abstain from fornication; and, that they might do so, each was to possess a wife of his own. As to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 7:2), Paul says, ‘To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife.' The word ‘vessel' is indeed susceptible of the meaning ‘body,' as well as that of ‘wife;' but that it here has the latter sense is clear 1st, from the meaning of the word translated in the Authorised Version ‘possess.' This word does not mean simply ‘possess,' but ‘acquire possession of,' and could, therefore, be used only for a wife (as in point of fact it is commonly so used, as in Ecclus. 36:29, in E. V. Sir 36:24), and not of a man's own body. 2d, From the emphasis which the apostle lays on the words ‘his own' (inadequately rendered in the Authorised Version)

an emphasis which is intended to contrast ‘his own vessel' with the public and indiscriminate concubinage referred to in the preceding clause; and also with the wrong inflicted on other men by adultery, against which he proceeds to warn them. Let every man get a wife of his own, that thus neither the public prostitute nor another man's spouse may be a temptation to him. If we suppose the apostle to mean ‘body' when he uses the word ‘vessel,' it is not easy or possible to account for the emphatic words ‘his own.'

In sanctification and honour. Let every man acquire and keep his own wife with motives and in a way of which he need not be ashamed. Impurity and shame are always connected with ill-regulated appetites and lawless passions; men are therefore to marry that they may be pure and without shame. Readers of the Apocrypha will find in the marriage, and especially in the nuptial prayer of Tobit, some illustration of this passage.