1 Tessalonicenses 4:4

Should know. — The clause is simply parallel to the last, and, with it, explains the word “sanctification.” The Bulgarian Father, Theophylact, says pointedly in reference to the word “to know” or “understand,” “He indicates that chastity is a matter that requires self-discipline and study.” (Comp. Efésios 5:17.)

To possess his vessel. — The word rendered “to possess” should rather be translated, to procure, win, gain possession of. The word “vessel” here has been interpreted in two ways: (1) “his wife;” (2) “his body.” In favour of (1) it is argued that (while “gaining possession of one’s own body” is unintelligible), “acquiring a wife of one’s own” is an ordinary Greek expression; that in this context, “a vessel,” or “instrument,” is an expressive and natural metaphor; that the word was familiar to Hebrew speakers in that sense (e.g., Ahasuerus says of Vashti, in one of the Targums, “My vessel which I use is neither Median nor Persian, but Chaldee”); that St. Peter (1 Pedro 3:7) uses the word of the wife. But it may be answered that this interpretation does not suit our context; first, because it would be laying an emphatic and binding veto upon celibacy, if “each one” is “to acquire a wife of his own;” secondly, because of the verb “to know,” it certainly being no part of a religious man’s duty “to know how to procure a wife;” thirdly, because the Greek cannot be translated “a vessel (or wife) of his own,” but “his own vessel” (or wife) — literally, the vessel of himself — and to speak of “procuring” the wife who is already one’s own seems unmeaning. Furthermore, although the quotations from the Targums are certainly to the point, that from St. Peter distinctly points the other way, inasmuch as the wife is called “the weaker vessel of the two,” evidently meaning that the husband is also “a vessel.” Thus we are driven to suppose that (2) the “vessel” is the man’s own self. This usage also is well supported. In 1 Samuel 21:5, it is used in precisely this sense, and in the same context, as well as in 1 Pedro 3:7. The passages, however, usually quoted in support of this interpretation from 2 Coríntios 4:7, Philo, Barnabas, Lucretius, &c, do not seem quite parallel; for there the word signifies a “vessel,” in the sense of a receptacle for containing something; here it is rather “an instrument” or “implement “for doing something. Hence it approaches more nearly to the use in such phrases as Atos 9:15, “a vessel of choice,” or even (though the Greek word is different) to Romanos 6:13. “The vessel of himself” (the “himself” being in the Greek strongly emphasised) means, not “the vessel which is his own,” but “the vessel or instrument which consists of himself.” Thus the body, which of course is chiefly meant here, is not dissociated from the man’s personality, as in the fanciful Platonism of Philo, but almost identified with it: the Incarnation has taught us the true dignity of the body. Thus it becomes easy to understand what is meant by “knowing how to gain possession of” such an instrument as the body with its many faculties, rescuing it from its vile prostitution, and wielding it wisely for its proper uses. So the same Greek verb is used, and mistranslated in our version, in Lucas 21:19, “In your patience possess ye your souls.”

In sanctification and honour. — The circumstances in which — almost the means by which — the man may acquire and keep this skilful power over his instrument: — “in a course of self-purification and of self-reverence.” The reverence due to the instrument is brought out in a passage of St. Peter evidently modelled upon this (1 Pedro 3:7). (Comp. also 2 Timóteo 2:21, “an instrument for honourable purposes, and to be honourably treated, consecrated, and handy for its owner’s use.”)