First Thessalonians 4:9-12 The worthy and pleasing walk part II and III
1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 · Andrew Molloy · May 9, 2021
Thessalonians, No. 15
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261922466107

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So we are in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 9 through 12. It's a worthy walk, a pleasing walk to the Lord. We're in part 2 and 3 of this outline. I don't know who did this outline. It could have been... it might have been... anyone know who did this Well, I didn't put the titles in there for each of them. I divided up the verses. Okay, it might be Macaulay or something. Yeah, and then Macaulay of course.

So anyway, we're looking at section 2 and 3 here for brotherly love, worthy walking, and for orderly living. Last week we did the sexual purity verses before this. So here's today's passage starting at verse 9 of chapter 4. Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another, for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still the more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you in verse 12, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

So, reviewing from the last few weeks, Paul has ended a really long section. It covers chapters 1, 2, and 3. He recapitulates the how in that how they came to receive the Word of God from Paul, Silas, and Timothy. And it's a very long section of his trials and tribulations endured to bring the gospel to the Thessalonians. Now finally in chapter 4, he leaves behind this narrative of how you receive the Word of God, and this is from Macaulay, and he goes on to focus to how we are to live the Word of God, the second part. Macaulay's grand outline of this epistle is in two parts, how you receive the word of God and then now we're finally in how you are to live the word of God, a very simple grand outline. In verse 1 of chapter 4 he tells the Thessalonian believers that they must walk or live in harmony with the word and instructions that came with the gospel of Christ that Paul brought them.

And that's crucial for two reasons. One, Paul says the commandments that he's giving the Thessalonians came from the authority of the Lord Jesus himself. And two, we studied that last week and the week before of Roy, it was the will of God. It was God's wishing that it be done. Moreover, by walking worthily and pleasing God, the Holy Spirit was able to set them apart, sanctify them progressively and completely to the moment they were taken up to be with them. As we know, Thessalonians were particularly waiting for the rapture any moment now.

1 Thessalonians 5.23, we'll get to in maybe a couple weeks. kind of wraps this thought up nicely. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, verse 9, now as to the love of the brethren You have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And I want to start out, spend a lot of time on this verse 9 this morning. That's mainly what I did over the week. I kind of got stuck on verse 9 because there's a lot to it even though it's a short verse. and I just kept thinking about thinking and turning it over in my mind so I'm going to turn it over in your guys' mind too like I did myself this week and then we'll get on to that next verses more quickly in verse 9 and this is my first point is the love of the brethren versus the love of one another and you see that Paul when he says the love of the brethren The word there, the Greek word, is Philadelphia. Philadelphia. So the Thessalonians have this brotherly love intrinsically in them from God. It was supplied by the Holy Spirit through their faith.

The phrase, for you yourselves are taught by God, taught by God, only appears once in Scripture, and that is Theodita. It's an adjective, and it breaks down, as you see I have in point C, θειά, which is God, and then διδάσκω, which is teach, so it means God-taught, or God-discoursed, or God-instructed. God instructed them personally. I like this good sub-definition. It's God-instilled.

God instills His doctrine into us. is the thought here of theodytikos. Theodytikos. I get up to be able to pronounce these Greek words over the course of the week studying and then Sunday mornings I can't. Like the coffee hasn't kind of kicked in. They're hard to say. And then love one another. The second love in this verse is agapao.

And that is, as you know, agape love. That's the love, that's God's love which expresses itself as patient, kind, not jealous, not bragging, not arrogant, not unbecoming, not seeking its own. It doesn't keep an account or a ledger of things wrong, suffered against it. it endures all things, it hopes all things, and I think I mentioned before in that paragraph that it's long-suffering, and that's from 1 Corinthians 13 of course. Not a definition, but more of just a list of how agape love expresses itself, right? Merriman says that agape love always expresses itself in a dignified manner and is never unbecoming. And I want to look more at this brotherly love versus agape love. And grammatically, verse 9, the Philadelphia is a noun. genitive singular feminine, and I think the genitive means that the person having the brotherly love has ownership of it. Is that right for you Greek geeks out there? Although we use nouns. Oh, okay. Versus agapao, which is a verb, a present active infinitive. So that's to love, is the infinitive in that present tense, active voice.

So I thought that was interesting, so the love of the brethren, the Philadelphia, is a noun in this verse, and in the love one another, the agapao is a verb. And then I discovered, I When you read through something quickly, he's addressing the love of a brethren as a noun phrase, not a verb up there. So he's saying now as to the brotherly love that you're expressing to people. I just thought it was interesting that he's expressing that as a noun phrase, not a verb.

For comparison's sake, fla'o is the verb of Philadelphia and agape is the noun form of agapal. Here's the definition of agape love or agapal. It's not really for students in 13, it's more this sense, and you guys recognize this, you guys will know this.

Akapa'o is a love that is awakened by a sense of value in an object, which in turn causes one to prize the object loved. It springs from an apprehension of the preciousness of the one loved, a love of esteem and approval. Two things determine the quality of the Akapa'o. The quality of the one who loves. The quality of the one who loves character. is what I should have said there. And second, the quality of the loved one's character.

John 3.16, for God so loved the world, is agapao. And to do that, God determined the preciousness of each member of the human race in his heart. The constituent element of the agape that gave his son to die on the cross and the fact that each member of the human race bears the image of God the Creator. That moved him to act in agape love and send his son to die on the cross because, of course, agape love is a self-sacrificing love.

Then here's Wyss' definition of phileo love, or brotherly love, and that's a love consisting of the glow of the heart It's kindled by the perception of that in the object which affords us pleasure. It is the response of the human spirit to what appeals to it as pleasurable. It's pleasure and delight, it's the pleasure and delight one experiences when he or she apprehends the qualities of the one he or she loves.

And Merriman, I think, would say that flail can act gushingly and maybe in a non-dignified manner, maybe between two guys, you know, who hug each other and go to football games and things like that, brotherly love, but it can be a little gushing and non-dignified, I think is the point. So, Andrew? Yeah? Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay, good. So I'm thinking about Philadelphia or how Philadelphia is, you know, thinking of the Phillies and the Eagles and stuff.

Anyway, you know, this brotherly love, is that kind of appealing to a human nature in terms of the interaction? I mean, agape is something you don't work at, right? That's a whole different kind of interaction. So your thoughts about, is brotherly love just kind of like approaching their humanness and their interaction that doesn't really relate to a spirit-led behavior? I mean, what are your thoughts on distinguishing these two types?

Oh yeah, and that's an excellent, and that's, Bob, that's the one thing I was kind of wrestling with all week on this verse, just that question itself. You know, why are there, why are there two types of love here? And the short answer I'll give you is, you're right, the brotherly love is a human, from the human spirit, and agapa'o is from, that's God's love.

God is love, right? That's his essential essence and character. But, however, God also And I don't know if I go into it in this lesson with some verses, but he also expresses the phileo love towards people, too. So humans can have both loves, God can have both of these loves. And it could really take a several week course in looking at all this with the different verses.

Andrew? Yeah. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Now, as far as agape, that's the kind of love we should have for everyone, right? Including enemies? Right, right. And so that's not so easy. Unless you're depending on the Lord to express that love. I think the easy one would be the phileo. Because you just like the person, you know?

Right, right. And yeah, phileo love is the love that friends have, you know, your buddies, your girlfriends. My best friend who passed away last October, probably the one guy that I loved more than my brothers. I mean, that was phileo love. Just this, I took joy and delight in my best friend James. we share so many things. That's flail love.

And love, agape love is, yeah, agape love is, you don't, I don't know if this is the way to say it, but I don't know if you even need to like. Well, think of this. That's the key, Andrew. Yeah. You just have to like them, just have to love them, right? And that's why That's why agape, Andrew, I don't think is something you work on.

This is the script-led life that we have in Christ Jesus. You know, if you walk by people in the street or ultimately in a mall or wherever you're at, looking at them through the eyes of the Lord Jesus Christ makes them equally sinful as you, with the crucifixion and resurrection for them as much as you. So, I mean, it's a whole different view of somebody. Anyway, that's enough on that for me, for sure.

And, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, in your last slide, something that stuck out with me was recognizing the value in the other person. Yeah. You see them... Where did I see it? But you were talking about, you know, not necessarily, you know, whether you like the person or not, but recognizing their value, you know, in God's eyes, which is, you know, kind of what Bob was saying.

Yeah, and so akapa'o is every human being has value in God's eye, preciousness. And what, you know, think of this, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world. that it's not for God so Phle'o loved the world because they were sinners and he hates sin. It just repulses him. He's repulsed so he can't have Phle'o love toward the human race. He had Agape love which is that sense of value of the object. He didn't take any pleasure or delight in their sin. So that's kind of... Yeah, and you guys are picking up on this really nicely.

So J.B. Stoney has this, and I'll show you the graph, this article called, The First Circle of Interest and Influence for the Believer, or Where Do You Start? Where's the place to start for a believer in Christian activity? So all Christian activity, he says, is based on Christ's command.

Love one another. It was the Lord's self-disclosed, simple instruction to his apostles. A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. From John 13, 34. This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. He's restating that in John chapter 15 and verse 12. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. And that, of course, is agape love, sacrificial, from John chapter 15 verse 13.

This I command you, that you love one another. again from John 15 these are different verses see how he's he's Christ himself is like a broken record on this on this command to love one another the book of John has 23 loves in 21 chapters I at least I counted that if I counted accurately more evidence for our Agapao love being our first fear first sphere of influence and should be our sole focus, as it was Christ's. In John chapter 21, here's an example, Christ says, Peter, do you love me?

And he says, of course I do, Lord, feed my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my sheep. And three times he said that. Interesting on this, if you go and look at that, Christ said, Simon Peter, Do you agapao me? And Peter said, Yes, Lord, I flao you, I love you, brotherly love you. Then he asked him again, Peter, do you agapao me? And Peter says, Yes, I have warm, brotherly feeling, I take joy and delight in you, Lord, I love you.

He used the word again, flao. The third time, And this is what's so interesting about all this. The third time Christ says, Peter, do you love me? And he uses the word phleo on the third time. And then Peter responds, yes Lord, I love you, I take joy and delight in you.

And that's really interesting. So, these two loves interspersed that you wouldn't see without the Greek. So Andrew, I think that the Peter that wrote the epistles that we studied last is a Peter who learned agape love by his faith. Yeah, exactly what I was thinking.

I think it's so interesting the way Christ set the table, but it wasn't ultimately fully delivered at the time that he interacted with Peter before he was resurrected. Yeah, and Peter hung out with Christ personally for three years and loved him and But he had no idea, those disciples had no idea of who he was until he died and they were born again, received the Holy Spirit. And then they saw his, they didn't see back then, I don't think they saw his preciousness, right? His value in their life. They really didn't see that, but they loved him. They took joy and delight and pleasure in him. And then John chapter 17, again, the church, us, we're his sole focus, and it has abide in my love. That's John 15, but you get the picture.

So, more of this J.B. Stoney, Christ's interest being us and his love for us, that's the place to start before a new believer gets into like missionary work, just make sure you love one another. And I tried to illustrate this here in this little visual. So we abide in Christ, who is our rock, you and me, that's the place to start. And that's, He's interested in us, we're beholding Him, we're interested in Him. And then from that, the first fear of influence Or where we start is our love for brothers and sisters in Christ. And then it can go out into co-centric circles out from there. And this is more from J.B. Stoney. The love we have for one another as a body will be observed by the world.

But instead of drawing admiration from the world, it draws hatred, which is interesting. and there's the supporting verse by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another and that's John 1335 Stoney says this devotedness of interest for one another unto death sacrificial is so novel and unaccountable a thing here This devotedness of interest for one another unto death, so novel and unaccountable a thing here, would arouse and arrest the attention and chagrin of the selfish world in a very remarkable way, he says. And then, to support that, in John 15, 18-19, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this, the world hates you. So I just think that's a really interesting thing, when the world sees our love, especially that agape love, it causes them to hate.

It's really bizarre, really odd. There are also verses that speak of the fact that the love of the brethren will demonstrate, some will get it, some will see it. Yeah, right. So there's two reactions. There are drawn to it and the ones that hate it. And we'll see that in verse 12, coming up here, that exact same point here.

The interesting thing though, as Roger kind of alluded to, You know, if the world hates us because of who we are and what we represent, then we walk honestly towards them that are without. I mean, this whole issue, I mean, it's a dilemma, isn't it? We have the world to hate us because of who we are.

We're heavenly citizens existing here part time. But then ultimately, we're to be able to interact with the world to the extent that they see the gospel. Anyway, it's a challenge. It is. And in fact, the natural thing is, if they hate you, my natural reaction is, hey, right back at ya. That's the challenge. That comes from the old man.

That sounds like the Philadelphia fans, actually. Oh, and by the way, you know, Philadelphia, named after this Filet-O-Love, I was looking at the statistics for Philadelphia, And there's no murders, zero. No crimes, zero. No assaults, zero. It's amazing. They've got brotherly love in Philadelphia. So there you go. Move to Philadelphia. I just thought that was funny. You had my attention there for a moment. I'm like, what?

So here's verse 10, for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all of Macedonia. And this is the brotherly love, this is the phileo love. But we urge you brethren to excel still more. This verse is good evidence that the Thessalonians were properly expressing this J.B. Stoney model of their their brotherly love expanding out to others from their first circle of... Christ himself and them abiding on him in love. Compare verse 10 up there to chapter 1, 7 through 9's narrative, if you can think back when Paul brought the gospel to the Thessalonians, they received it enthusiastically and they turned to God and they rejected their idols as a result. So much so that all of the region, it says that in those 739 in Macedonia knew of these things, they observed these things from the Thessalonians. So they were happy and successful examples of conversion from their old life to brotherly love. And again, Paul is commending them. Yet, up in verse 10, Paul is urging them to, and urging is that paraphernalia of coming alongside them and calling them, pleading them on bended knee to do more, super abound in this brotherly love.

And Excel is Per Suo, and that's to super add or to surpass. And I just thought of an example that, you know, when I was in high school, there were these high school seniors who had 3.35 GPAs, and they were competing against other students who had 4.29 GPAs. And I was like, what's the point? You're perfect, you're beyond perfect. you know, but these kids were bounding still more and it's like, wow, isn't a 4.0 kind of the goal? But they're above that in their GPA.

I just thought that was kind of... So here we are, verse 11. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and to attend to your own business and work with your hands just as we commanded you. Go ahead. No, on your chart here, mind your own beeswax. Yeah, yeah. And that's the summation of that verse, isn't it? Is that in the New International Version or what? No, it's in the Message Bible. Mind your own beeswax.

So be ambitious, or when it says make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and to attend to your own business, that's a philotemomai, philotemai, philotemaiomai, that's the Greek word. It's being ambitious and leading a quiet life. That word, that Greek word, also means make it your aim. Phila Tameomai has the distinction of being honorable. It's an honorable thing to make it your ambition, make it your aim to lead a quiet life. Merriman says, be ambitious to be quiet and be ambitious to do your own thing. He also said it means study to be quiet and study to do your own thing.

Philotome Oma is in the middle of the voice, in the middle voice, so we personally are doing it, and it's for us, for our benefit. And we, what we're doing is we're, you see the Greek word there, he-he-shak-so, that I can't pronounce, that's to lead a quiet life. And that means keeping quiet, quieting down, being in a state of relax, repose, having a life of non-drama. And I said maybe taking it easy is a good modern day definition of that H-E-S-Y-C-H-A-Z-O, leading a quiet life.

Andrew? Yeah. It kind of makes me think, I've used this verse in the past, or thought about in the past, for just the contrast between where a believer should be, leading a quiet life, with the world system that wants to stir up life. They want to stir things up, they want to inflame things. Yeah, oh yeah. It's a quiet life, and it's always kind of struck me, that contrast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, good point.

Attending to your own business. Attend is proso and your own business is idios. So that's to exercise and practice and be busy with your own self and your own things. So that proso idios. And idios is an interesting Greek word. It's how the Greeks would describe a person who maybe had diminished mental capacity, faculties. They noticed that a simple person would be only occupied with himself and not others, kind of isolated on his own little island. And so they, this word idios, of course it became modern usage went to idiot, which is derogatory, and now we've kind of left that. But that's where that came from. So it sounds like being an idiot in that day and time, or being it now, is a good thing. Just pay attention to yourself. Don't be a busybody. Don't be a gossip. Respect other people's privacy, is the thought here.

In 1 Peter 4.15, he has one of that treblesome meddler. He puts those people in with murderers and thieves and evildoers. And he says, don't be that. And I like the definition of treblesome meddler.

And that is one who takes the supervision of affairs pertaining to others. and in no wise to himself, so in other words, he doesn't pay attention to his affairs or supervises himself. He'll stand up from his cubicle and look over that cubicle wall into the other guy's cubicle and tell them how to do their job, right? Is the kind of thought. Working with your hands. That's good for you. In verse 11.

In Greeks, you know, the economy got so good that the slaves did the dirty work. The slaves did the hand-driven work. And that left more time for the Greeks to enjoy the theater, and they went to the Lyceum to hear the philosophers lecture. They had more walking-about time. And walking-about is, the Greek word is P-E-R-I-P-A-T-E-T-I-E-T-I-C. They had a therapeutic school of Aristotle and that means that they would just sort of leisurely walk about and hear things and look at art and stuff like that. So they weren't working with their hands. think that we can return to the garden here a little bit in terms of working with your hands.

I mean, I remember my first wife's father, who now is with the Lord, but he always felt more spiritually tuned in when he was physically tired than rather than many of our jobs have been white-collar kinds of things at desks. That's a different kind of anxiety, kind of peace and comfort. There's something about physical work that really, I think, grooms the spirit to be more attentive to the things of the Lord.

What are your thoughts? Can we imply that maybe working with your hands does imply physical labor? And if you look at Strong, he kind of says that, but not directly. What are your thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. I think everyone feels that.

Everyone has jobs that utilize their minds and computers. You're sort of in this unreal world, aren't you? Yet it's very complicated, today's work world. Very complicated. Maybe that adds to the stress. Whereas if you have a that day job that's labor-intensive, yeah, your mind is maybe more at rest.

I have this point at point B, and that is, you know, Paul made tents to be self-funded so he didn't charge people for the gospel so they couldn't criticize him. But I'm wondering if he also took to making tents to be an example to counteract this Greek leisure lifestyle. to make it so that people could see that there's the biblical way, the Jewish way, is hard work and values, working with your hands. And I say especially if he took to tent making when he left Asia and Galatia and came over to Europe and went to Ephesus and Philippi and down to Athens and Corinth, he was making tents. That's how he met So I wonder if that was so that he could show to the world that, hey, all this leisure time is bad for you.

You should do something physical like make tents. It's just a thought I have. Yeah, go ahead. I was just thinking, you know, some people, if they have too much time on their hands, they get into trouble. Yeah, they do. What's that phrase? Idle hands? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Onto verse 12. So that you behave properly towards outsiders and not be in any need. So this is a proper witness to the world. The Amplified Version bears this out nicely, this verse 12. So that you may bear yourselves becomingly and to be correct and honorable and command the respect of the outside world. That's what we were talking about before, right? Roger and Bob, this commanding respect of the outside world instead of hatred.

And that would be that they see these Thessalonians just being productive and being dependent on nobody, being self-supporting and having need of nothing. We saw that proper godly love from one believer to another, on out, that start from the first circle and go out, to surrounding believers, like in Macedonia, would draw the iron hatred of the cosmos. As Jesus said in John 15, 19, the world loves its own, that's phileo, but it hates what is not its own. So it seems the honor and dignity expressed in minding one's own business and being productive and not being a drain on Greek society would blunt the Greek's criticism of Christians and they would come to admire the godly Christian lifestyle.

So that's touching on the point that we were asking before, isn't it? Being good exemplary citizens of Greek society and caring for themselves and their own and their own is what is in mind in verse 12 here. And that word properly is yukshamon, and if you see that eu, that what I know of Greek is good, the gospel is euangelion, right? You can see the root word good, so it's graceful, it's elegant, and it can mean speech or actions, that yukshamon. which is behaving properly with grace and elegance. Okay, final thoughts from Roy's class last October.

He was working on 2 Peter 1, 5-9, and that reads, And besides this, giving all diligence, add or enable to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and from patience, enable godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, phileo, and to brotherly kindness, love, agape. For if these things be in you and abound, they will make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord our Lord Jesus Christ. So there you see our two Greek words for love and And again, I can't answer, it takes more time and more kind of thinking about it, but yeah, does phileo come from agape or how are those related? Do you start with phileo and then move to agape? It sounds like both from what we looked at this morning.

But Roy says, these verses express the will of our God and the ways he will accomplish his will through believers. He commands us to enable His character to be seen in our manner of living. His expression of Himself through us is the drama God wants to show the world. In other words, God wants to show His glory to the world. This is the logical result of believing what He reveals to us of Himself. This is the how we are to respond to His command. When we see in His Word His character as shown to us by the Holy Spirit, and then we believe it personally as a reality, we have enabled His character, His nature to be lived by Him through us, and as a result His glory will be seen by those around us.

So I thought that was perfect, but Royce is there. Smart guy that Roy. I don't know where he went, but yeah, so I thought that was a beautiful way to kind of say all this in a manner to wrap it up here. Okay. Thoughts? It's a good class. A lot of participation. Yeah.

It's just a question on that, like the phileo love, is that maybe a difference between the two? That's something that we can do on our own, but the agape love is something that God has to do through us? Well, I would say no, but however, you know, unbelievers express phileo love, don't they? So, that's a good question. That's a really good question. that we should think about and try and come up with an answer to.

Put them to noodle on. Yeah, noodle on, because unbelievers have, they love too, so, and where do they get that, you know? They don't have that indwelling Holy Spirit. It must be, maybe phileo love is a love we have instilled simply because we're created in the image of God.

How about that? But I think maybe even unbelievers have, you know, now I'm just thinking of something I haven't thought before, so I'm thinking off the top of my head, but maybe agape too is instilled by being creations of the God who is love. And everyone has that, even unbelievers, but maybe sin mars it and they can't express it the way it should properly be expressed.

Good question, Carolyn. You got me stumped. Andrew, from this end we better shut things down and stuff. Yeah. Okay. Let's all pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love for us and we thank you for sending your Son into the world to die for the sins of the world and to save us and that we will be with you one day. Hopefully soon, Lord. In these things we pray. Amen.