But we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly, comfort the faint-hearted, sustain the weak, be patient towards all.
Paul has just spoken about those who labour among the Thessalonians. Now he gives four short commands to the whole church: three groups needing three different responses, and one attitude that covers everyone.
It would be easy to leave this work to the people who lead.
But there is no encouragement here for the unloving, careless idea that those who labour are to carry the whole burden of the saints, especially the part that calls for moral courage and patience. The command falls not on the rulers only, but on the brothers in general. Only love can work this way. Love looks at the saints as they are in God's sight. It grieves at the ruin Satan would make in that holy garden of the Lord, and it is jealous for His will and glory.
The first group is marked not by one particular sin but by a refusal to submit.
Someone may refuse to submit to rule and to the Scriptural order of the assembly. He disobeys God's Word and goes on in self-will and disorder. Such a person is unruly, and the brothers who care for souls in the assembly must warn him. His soul is in a carnal state, and he cannot see where his conduct will lead him. The assembly's watchmen do see it. They are responsible to sound the note of warning, so that he may escape the serious consequences of that course.
Scripture holds its heaviest measures back. The command here is to warn — nothing more.
Some brothers have a hard spirit and enjoy sitting on the judgment seat. They might excommunicate saints for failings that call for patience and godly care, not for excommunication. For instance, we are told to "admonish the idle" (1 Thess. 5:14), not to excommunicate them... How slow the Spirit of God is to take drastic action; He would rather have the saints act lovingly, patiently and yet faithfully with evil among them.
The middle two commands are easy to blur together. One writer keeps them apart.
"Encourage the fainthearted, help the weak" implies a difference between these two which makes good sense. There may be real weakness where there is no faint-heartedness. A person may show no tendency to give way under the pressure of circumstances or of evil. Yet there is still a weakness that calls for the ministry of sympathetic love.
Does sharing strength with the weak leave you with less? One writer answers that fear.
"The weak" need support. For this I certainly am my brother's keeper, and if God has given strength to one, that person should share it willingly with others. We may be sure that our sharing in this will not lessen our own strength, but the opposite.
The last command widens out to everyone. The word for patience here has a particular sense.
"Long-suffering means patience with people; endurance means patience with things." The word means "a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion." Scripture uses it of God in His forbearance toward those who provoke Him.
The writer quoted earlier adds why this patience is owed. We are all a trial to one another, so "patience becomes a matter of justice quite as much as of mercy."
Put the four commands together and you get a picture of what a gathering of believers is for.
Finally, the church of God is a nursery and not an inquisition. If I am a true leader I warn the unruly. I do not put them under church or family censure for being unruly. I comfort the faint-hearted and I support the weak. Otherwise I would deserve the rebuke in Ezekiel: "The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed ... and with force and harshness you have ruled them."
- All — the verse hands pastoral work to every believer, not only to those who labour and lead.
- Warn — the idle live by self-will; we warn them where it leads, rather than exclude them.
- Comfort — the faint-hearted give way under pressure; they need comfort, not a warning.
- Support — the weak need strength shared with them, and the one who shares loses nothing by it.
- Patient — long-suffering is God's own bearing with people who provoke Him. We all try each other, so patience is justice, not a favour.
See that no one render to any evil for evil, but pursue always what is good towards one another and towards all;
This letter closes with a rule for a young church facing real hostility from the people around it. The verse asks two things at once. No one is to pay back a wrong. Everyone is to chase after good — inside the church and outside it.
The first half of the verse closes a door that is always open. The command is given to the whole church, and one writer shows what refusing revenge still leaves room for:
Revenge refused. We are to see that no one pays back evil for evil. There is the ever-present danger of answering the flesh with the flesh. We may have to stay silent when someone is spiteful, and even keep away from the one who acts that way (2 Timothy 4:14-15), but in any case we are not to pay back evil for evil.
Paying a wrong back costs the person who does it. The test gets harder when the wrong comes from a fellow believer:
The Thessalonians did suffer evil from the world around, but like their Master, they were not to return it. We need this as a constant reminder, because the flesh resents unfair treatment far too quickly. But to return evil for evil only makes me the same as my persecutor and untrue to my Christian character. We may find it even more of a test if a child of God treats us badly, but of course the same applies. He must answer for his conduct, no doubt, but I must answer for mine. To have the heart set on good is the real safeguard here.
One writer sorts every possible response into three, and ranks them:
To pay back evil for evil is brutish. To pay back evil for good is devilish. To pay back good for evil is Christian.
The standard here is not what a court would award. It is what God Himself is like:
Grace is the mark of the gospel. It is the spring in God Himself, as shown in Christ, and He wants the same in His children. Not human justice, which takes the side of the just against the unjust, but unselfish love, doing good to the evil and suffering evil from them. So He would have us not overcome by evil, but overcoming evil with good. Such is Christianity in practice, above heathenism and Judaism alike.
The verse does not stop at what to refuse. The second half gives something to chase, and to keep chasing:
Good to be pursued. While we avoid the evil, we are to "always seek to do good to one another and to everyone." The flesh loves to be busy with evil. These commands warn us not to be careless about evil, and even to deal with it when we must. Still, what we are to pursue is the good.
The good reaches everyone, not only fellow believers. One writer describes what people saved by Christ are now sent into the world to be:
People who have been led to find a Saviour in Jesus know the ransom of their souls by His blood. In Him, risen and glorified, they have received the free gifts of righteousness and eternal life. God makes them His ministers of love, of mercy, and of grace to a rebellious world... This is the highest honour put upon those who belong to Christ.
The command sits next to instructions about warning those who are out of line and helping the weak. All of it runs on one power source:
Giving up self-will, and a real sense of God at work and present with us, brings power. That power lets us warn those who are out of line, comfort the fearful, help the weak, and be patient with everyone... In no case were they to pay back evil for evil, but to follow what was good among themselves and towards all. All this conduct depends on communion with God, on His presence with us, which makes us superior to evil. He is this in love; and we can be so by walking with Him.
- Pressure. The Thessalonians were suffering real evil. The command assumes provocation, not a quiet life.
- Refusal. Paying evil back makes you the same as the one who wronged you — you answer for your conduct, he answers for his.
- Grace. The standard is not fair justice. It is God's own grace — unselfish love, doing good to the evil and suffering evil from them.
- Pursuit. Refusing evil is only half of it. The good is something to chase, not just to admire.
- Reach. The good goes to fellow believers and to everyone else. God makes His people ministers of love and mercy to a rebellious world. The power comes from walking with Him.