Passage

1 Thessalonians 4.1

Book: 1 Thessalonians · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

1. Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk,, that ye abound more and more.

For ye know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; (1 Thessalonians 4:1-3, ASV)

WEB

1. Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more.

For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3. For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, (1 Thessalonians 4:1-3, WEB)

KJV

1. Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. ^{beseech: or, request} ^{exhort: or, beseech}

For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. 3. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: (1 Thessalonians 4:1-3, KJV)

YLT

1. As to the rest, then, brethren, we request you, and call upon you in the Lord Jesus, as ye did receive from us how it behoveth you to walk and to please God, that ye may abound the more,

for ye have known what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus, 3. for this is the will of God, your sanctification; that ye abstain from the whoredom, (1 Thessalonians 4:1-3, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Paul, writing with Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy, who are named as co-senders in the opening (1 Thess 1:1).
Audience: The church in Thessalonica, capital of the Roman province of Macedonia; a largely Gentile congregation of recent converts (1 Thess 1:9) founded on the second missionary journey (Acts 17:1-9).
Location: Written from Corinth, shortly after Timothy returned with news of the young church (1 Thess 3:6).
Time period: c. AD 50-51. The Gallio inscription from Delphi fixes Paul in Corinth around AD 51-52 (Acts 18:12), which makes this letter either the earliest or one of the two earliest surviving Pauline writings, roughly twenty years after the crucifixion.

Theological reading

"Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more."

The hinge of the letter. Loipon oun, "finally then", marks the turn from narrative and thanksgiving to instruction. Everything before this has been about the relationship; everything after it is direction.

"We request and exhort." Erōtōmen kai parakaloumen, a mild pairing. Paul asks rather than commands, which fits the letter's tone throughout; he has already declined to press his apostolic weight (1 Thess 2:6-7).

"To walk." Peripatein, the Hebraic idiom for conduct as a way of life, standing behind the later Jewish term halakhah. Paul uses it constantly (Ephesians 4:1; Colossians 1:10). Christian ethics in this vocabulary is a road walked, not a set of decisions made.

The parenthesis matters. "Just as you actually do walk." Paul stops to affirm before he asks for more. The pattern recurs at verses 9-10, where he says they need no instruction about brotherly love and then asks them to excel still more, and it is a small but consistent feature of his pastoral method: the call to grow is addressed to people who are told first that they are already doing it.

"To please God." Not to please men, which he denied as a motive at 1 Thess 2:4. The same standard applied to the apostle applies to the congregation.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

G2962 - kyrios, kyrios, Strong's G2962
G2424 - Iesous, Iesous, Strong's G2424
G2316 - theos, theos, Strong's G2316

Quoted in

Concepts:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.