1. Some commentators argue that the Thessalonians had indeed fallen into the sort of sin that Paul here rejects: “Paul now turns to the first of the two matters where their ‘faith’ is ‘deficient’ (3:10),” see Fee, Thessalonians, 143. Also Green, Thessalonians, 181–84, 187 (“certain members” were living in sexual sin); also Robert Jewett, The Thessalonian Correspondence, 105–6.
2. MM, 380 states that λοιπόν is used “sometimes simply to mark transition to a new subject like an emphatic οὖν.” Cf. also 2 Thess 3:1. In Phil 3:1 λοιπόν signals a transition, but is not even close to the end of the letter. In the case of Philippians, a proper understanding of λοιπόν weakens the theory that the letter as it now stands is a clumsy redaction of two or more shorter letters.
3. See similarly Rom 12:1, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters.”
4. See also Prov 15:21.
5. See BDF §442(16).
6. O. Schmitz, “παραγγέλλω, παραγγελία,” TDNT, 5:764.
7. Mentioned but not accepted by Best, Thessalonians, 158; in the same way Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 105.
8. Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 149; Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 79.
9. Best, Thessalonians, 158.
10. See, e.g., Green, Thessalonians, 190.
11. O. Proksch, “ἁγιασμός,” TDNT, 1:113, appears to be saying that in the New Testament letters, this term is used “preponderantly in the field of Gentile Christianity,” that is, in letters addressed to Gentiles. This proposal is moot, since most NT letters are written to predominantly Gentile churches. He further disproves his case by noting that the letter to the Hebrews uses the term.
12. Plato, Republic (trans. Jowett), 378–80.
13. Charles H. Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount: Character Formation and Ethical Decision Making in Matthew 5–7 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 96.
14. Schmithals, Paul & the Gnostics, 156–57.
15. See Donfried, “The Cults of Thessalonica,” 336–56.
16. Vom Brocke, Thessaloniki, 117–21.
17. The rendering of πορνεία in Acts 15:29 NJB as “illicit marriages” is unacceptable. That translation agrees with the view espoused by Ernst Haenchen (The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary [trans. R. McL. Wilson; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971], 449), who takes πορνεία as the prohibited degrees of marriage (incest) found in Lev 18:6–18; the case for this depends on the hypothesis that the Apostolic Decree was based on that passage of Leviticus.
18. There are a mere eight extant classical references to πορνεία: five from Aeschines and Demosthenes (fifth century BC, both of which deal with an exchange about the same situation of possible homosexual prostitution), a possible use in a fragment from Aristophanes (fifth to fourth century), and two fragments from Theopompus (fourth century). MM, 529, also states that πορνεία “originally meant ‘prostitution.’ ” Nevertheless, because of Theopompus’s references to orgies and because of the paucity of evidence, it is not possible to link it strictly to prostitution with its implied economic transaction, despite the word’s etymological relationship with πορνή.
19. Josephus, Ant. 19.9.1 (§357).
20. See m. ʾAbot 2:7.
21. James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1990), 61. See the brief but useful development of the theme by G. P. Carras, “Jewish Ethics and Gentile Converts: Remarks on 1 Thess 4,3–8,” in The Thessalonian Correspondence (ed. Raymond F. Collins; BETL 87; Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press, 1990), 312, who argues that Paul means by porneia what the Hellenistic Jews meant, a rejection of all hetero- and homosexual sexual activity that is not between a husband and wife, including “incest, homosexuality, prostitution, and adultery.”
22. See J. Edward Ellis, Paul and Ancient Views of Sexual Desire: Paul’s Sexual Ethic in 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 7 and Romans 1 (LNTS; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2007), 108–11; also “The Sex Ethics of Stoicism” under the article “πόρνη,” TDNT, 6:583–84; Musonius Rufus, frag. 12 (found in Beverly Roberts Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians [Interpretation; Louisville: John Knox, 1998], 52–53).
23. See D. F. Wright, “Sexuality, Sexual Ethics,” DPL, 871–75.
24. A century later, the Roman Christian Hermas was described as one who “abstains from every evil desire” (Herm. Vis. 1.2.4), a statement that seems to allude to this letter.
25. BDAG, οἶδα 3; George Milligan, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Thessalonians (London: MacMillan, 1908), 49.
26. MM, 362. Commentators have tended to focus on literary Greek, not on the papyri, and deduced that “possess” is the meaning only in the perfect tense and that “acquire” is to be preferred here. Thus Milligan adds as a corrective, “to judge from the papyri it would seem as if at least in the popular language this meaning [possess] was no longer confined to the perf[ect tense]. See Milligan, Thessalonians, 49.
27. This is the view of Augustine, Marriage and Concupiscence 1.8.9; see Peter Gorday, ed., Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (ACCS, New Testament 9; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 80. See esp. Witherington, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 114–16; Burke, Family Matters, 185–93; Malherbe, Letters to the Thessalonians, 226–28. C. Maurer (“σκεῦος,” TDNT, 7:365) states that “either the unmarried in Thessalonica are being urged to marry as a remedy against fornication (ingressive sense) or those who are married are being told to hold their own wives in esteem (durative sense).” O. Larry Yarbrough, Not Like the Gentiles: Marriage Rules in the Letters of Paul (SBLDS 80; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985), 65–87, points to the language of Tob 4:12 and T. Levi 9:9–10, which both speak of “obtaining a wife” and keeping oneself from fornication. Because those passages also warn against intermarrying with Gentiles, Yarbrough suggests that Paul wrote to urge the community to keep itself apart from the Gentile world. Yarbrough does not explain why Paul would use such a remote metaphor as “obtain a vessel” when he could just as easily have said “obtain a wife” or “know how to respect and honor your wife” (CEV; see GNB). There are two further variations of the interpretation that “vessel” means “wife.” Jouette Bassler proposes that Paul is suggesting that they acquire a “spiritual wife,” that is, that a couple agree to live together without “passion,” that is, any sex at all. See “Σκεῦος: A Modest Proposal for Illuminating Paul’s Use of Metaphor in 1 Thessalonians 4:4,” in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks (ed. L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 53–66. This viewpoint runs counter to Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor 7:3–6. D. Fredrickson, “Passionless Sex in 1 Thessalonians 4:4–5,” WW 23 (2003): 23–30, says that “vessel” (σκεῦος) means the receptacle for semen, that is, the woman, and that Paul is in favor of sex within marriage, but only if the sex carried out without desire. There is an excellent rebuttal of this viewpoint in the full study by J. E. Ellis, Paul and Ancient Views of Sexual Desire; also by Robert W. Yarbrough in his very useful “Sexual Gratification in 1 Thess 4:1–8,” TJ 20 NS (1999): 215–32.
28. For this viewpoint, see BDAG, σκεῦος 3; Donfried, “The Cults of Thessalonica,” 342. Some commentaries tactfully use the Latin equivalent, membrum virilis, “male member.”
29. So Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 152–53.
30. Fee, Thessalonians, 146–50. See also Torleif Elgvin, “ ‘To Master His Own Vessel.’ 1 Thess 4.4 in Light of New Qumran Evidence,” NTS 43 (1997): 604–19; Jay E. Smith, “Another Look at 4Q416 2 ii.21, a Critical Parallel to First Thessalonians 4:4,” CBQ 63 (2001): 499–504. Both argue based on the Qumran text that “vessel” means male member, as also in 1 Sam 21. Both succeed in demonstrating only that the Qumran text is open to a great many interpretations and that the key proof text 4Q416 is murkier in meaning than 1 Sam 21 and 1 Thess 4.
31. This is the view of Robert W. Yarbrough, “Sexual Gratification in 1 Thess 4:1–8,” 220–21. Yarbrough gives a careful analysis of the data. Nevertheless, he seems to make a leap of logic from: (a) “vessel” was a common metaphor of the male member; to (b) by extension, Paul means to include the female genitalia as well. It is difficult to prove (a), and (b) would be even more of a strained application even if (a) were really the case.
32. So ESV, NIV, NJB, NLT, NRSV, REB. See the excellent analysis by Rigaux, Thessaloniciens, 503–7, who regards these verses as parallels with statements within 1 Cor 4–6. The “body” interpretation is the view of Tertullian, Res. 16 (ANF 3:556); see Gorday, Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (ACCS), 80; also John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Thessalonians 5 (NPNF1 13:344); Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 83; Calvin, Thessalonians, 274.
33. C. Maurer, “σκεῦος,” TDNT, 7:361, 365–67.
34. In the first part of David’s statement, kelî in the Hebrew has no corresponding word in the LXX; he merely says that “we have kept ourselves from woman.” Therefore, in the LXX, reading kelî as “body” or “person” is at least as likely as “male member.” David goes on to use the word “vessel” at the end of the verse, but again it hardly seems to refer to sexual organs in the Hebrew; in the Greek, David says that his journey “shall be consecrated today through my implements [from σκεῦος]” (NETS). In this phrase, “implements” seems to refer to weapons, another meaning of that noun.
35. See Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1995), 219–28.
36. See Peterman, “Marriage and Sexual Fidelity,” 168 n. 21.
37. See 1 Cor 7:2–40; we take 1 Cor 7:1 (“It is well for a man not to touch a woman,” NRSV) to be a slogan of superspiritual Corinthians that Paul takes up and modifies to his own purposes.
38. For example, G. Delling, “πλεονεκτέω,” TDNT, 6:271.
39. Best, Thessalonians, 166; Fee, Thessalonians, 150–51; Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 154–56.
40. J. Schneider, “ὑπερβαίνω,”TDNT, 5:744.
41. See BDAG, πράγμα 3. The noun is used to refer to the homosexual relationship of Aristogeiton and his boy lover Marmodius. Their pederastic arrangement was consensual and was held up by some to be an ideal.
42. Of course, Paul would emphasize that fornication is first of all an offense against God, a theme that is even more strikingly put in 1 Cor 6:18–20, along with the truth that it is sin against one’s own body.
43. Did the Corinthians exaggerate this doctrine (1 Cor 7:1), insisting that couples live together as brother and sister, a practice that would gain popularity in the second century? This was never Paul’s intention, as can be shown from 1 Thessalonians and 1 Cor 7:3–6.
44. BDAG, διαμαρτύρομαι 2.
45. An emphatic marker of result, “often associated with exhortation” (L&N, 89.47), in the NT only here and in Heb 12:1.
46. See Green, Thessalonians, 200–201. Schmithals, Paul & the Gnostics, 140–41, predictably, pinpoints this opponent of Paul as a Gnostic, who was supposedly accusing Paul of not possessing the Spirit.
47. Since this is a participle, the time of the action is not indicated; in fact, many manuscripts read an aorist participle instead of the present διδόντα. T. F. Deidun, New Covenant Morality in Paul (AnBib 89; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1981), 56, argues that it speaks to a continuous work of the Spirit in the heart, but this is an overinterpretation of the present participle.
48. So MM, 668.
49. See similar references in Philo, Joseph 215; Embassy 87; Josephus, Ant. 4.2.4 (§26), speaking of the brothers Moses and Aaron; J.W. 1.14.1 (§275); 1.24.6 (§485) of Herod the Great.
50. Contra Burke, Family Matters, 169, who regards 2 Macc 15:14 as a metaphorical, not extended-biological, usage of the term. Wayne A. Meeks points to a scattered few groups that used “brother” language, particularly the Qumran sect. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that the Qumran Jews regarded themselves as kin precisely because they were the remnant of the Jewish family and thus biologically related. See Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (2nd ed.; New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2003). Some Roman clubs used fraternal language, but only rarely.
51. Paul uses the noun here and in Rom 12:10; in other NT authors, see Heb 13:1; 1 Pet 1:22; 2 Pet 1:7; see also φιλάδελφος in 1 Pet 3:8.
52. See P. H. Towner, “Households and Household Codes,”DPL, 417–21; also “4.3 The Household,” in P. T. O’Brien, “The Church,”DPL, 128.
53. Green, Thessalonians, 203.
54. Contra Green, Thessalonians, 202–3, who thinks that the Thessalonians were not as loving as they could have been.
55. Barn. 21.6: “Be instructed by God, seeking out what the Lord seeks from you, and then do it, in order that you may be found in the day of judgment.”
56. See Stephen E. Witmer, “θεοδίδακτοί in 1 Thessalonians 4.9: A Pauline Neologism,” NTS 52/2 (2006): 239–50.
57. Stephen E. Witmer, Divine Instruction in Early Christianity (WUNT 2/246; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 162–64.
58. This is the view of Clement of Alexandria, who alludes to 1 Thess 4 when he writes that mere human instruction cannot bring about radical inner change. He goes through a list of Greek and Persian leaders and shows how their tutors gave them military training. Nevertheless, their human nature remained fundamentally unaltered; the leaders have innumerable sexual partners, they are “practised in intercourse like the wild boars.” On the other hand, “our Instructor is the holy God Jesus, the Word, who is the guide of all humanity. The loving God Himself is our Instructor.” Paed. 1.7 (ANF 2.223). Clement thus makes a strong statement of the deity of Christ.
59. Wallace, Grammar, 351.
60. Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, 58; also Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 161.
61. See Wallace, Grammar, 603–5, for material on “indirect discourse.”
62. Herod the Great was a master of ostentation, “indeed was very ambitious to leave great monuments of his government to posterity; whence it was that he was so zealous in building such fine cities, and spent such vast sums of money upon them” (Josephus, Ant. 15.9.5 [§330]).
63. See also Rom 15:20; 2 Cor 5:9; Josephus, Ant. 3.8.6 (§207) uses it of zeal for God’s service, likewise Ant. 10.2.1 (§25) with φιλοτιμία.
64. See the useful analysis by Spicq, “ἡσυχάζω, ἡσυχία, ἡσύχιος,” TLNT, 2:179–82.
65. See also 2 Thess 3:12, where he uses the cognate ἡσυχία. Paul may have resonated with Philo in Abraham 27, apart from the latter’s speculation over the etymology of “Noah,” which he supposes means “rest”: “the appellation ‘rest’ is likewise appropriate, since the opposite quality to rest is unnatural agitation, the cause of confusion, and tumults, and seditions, and wars, which the wicked pursue; while those who pay due honour to excellence cultivate a tranquil, and quiet, and stable, and peaceful life.” In 1 Clem. 63.1, the verb is used when Corinthians are told to submit to their leaders, cease from dissension, and live in godly peace.
66. See Aristotle, Eth. nic. 1.10.13 (trans. Rackham): “the truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.”
67. Rom 13:8–10; 1 Cor 9:19–23; 2 Cor 8:21; Gal 6:10; see also Matt 5:16; 1 Pet 4:15.
68. See Bruce W. Winter, Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (First-Century Christians in the Graeco-Roman World; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 51. Winter theorizes that 4:11 does not mean “lacking for nothing” but rather “dependent on nobody”; in this viewpoint, Paul was already rejecting the dependence on patronage that would arise in the second letter. Winter develops the idea further (53–57) with regard to 2 Thess 3:6–18. Winter’s explanation, though popular among some commentators, fails to explain why people sought patronage after Paul’s departure from the city or why Paul does not specifically mention patronage in either letter.
69. Joseph Jensen, “Does Porneia Mean Fornication? A Critique of Bruce Malina,” NovT 20 (1978): 161–62.
70. See also 2 Chr 6:27; Isa 54:13: “All your children will be taught by the Lord.”
71. Deidun looks over the (later) rabbinic literature and notes that “the combination of these two prophetic texts [from the Ezekiel and Jeremiah] is widely attested in Jewish tradition in contexts concerning messianic times, with particular reference to the immediacy of God’s teaching.” See Deidun, New Covenant Morality in Paul, 20.
72. Again, see Deidun, New Covenant Morality in Paul, 33–41. Although a few recent works take his volume into account (e.g., Malherbe, Letters to the Thessalonians; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle), Deidun’s contributions are generally underappreciated.
73. F. Thielman, “Law,” DPL, 534–35.
74. See G. Strecker, Theology of the New Testament (trans. M. E. Boring; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 46; Weima, “1 and 2 Thessalonians,” 878–79.
75. Gary Steven Shogren, Running in Circles: How to Find Freedom from Addictive Behavior (Strategic Christian Living Series; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995).
76. See Brent Edward McNamara, No More Hiding, No More Shame: Finding Freedom from Pornography Addiction (Mustang, OK: Tate, 2011). It is available as a digital download, see www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61739-268-9.