1 Thessalonians 4 - Paraphrase

The following is a personal paraphrase meant to illustrate how a student of the Bible might put the scriptures into their own words in order to better understand the text. As such, some liberties are taken in wording.

Since our desire for you is that you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, so that God may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before or God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints, we ask you (as friends) and urge you (as apostles with the authority of Jesus Christ), that you live in a manner which pleases God, just as we have taught you previously and just as you are presently doing - but we would have you do it more and more.

For you know the instructions we gave you, through the Lord Jesus Christ, when we were with you.

It is the will of God that you increase in holiness and therefore do not participate in sexual immorality. You all must learn to control your bodies. Not allowing your bodies to be controlled by lustful passions the godless Gentiles, but to be to control your body in a way consistent with holiness and which is honourable . You must not trespass beyond proper sexual boundaries and thereby wrong your fellow believers, because the Lord will avenge the wrongs committed against his people. This is the same solemn warning we gave you when we were with you.

Again, it is God's will and his call upon us that we be sanctified, becoming increasingly holy and abstaining from impurity. Since this is God's will and his call, to disregard it is to disregard, not man, but God who has given his Holy Spirit to dwell within our bodies.

Now concerning your love towards one another as believers, there is no need to write to you for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. This is clear because you are showing love to all the believers throughout Macedonia. But, we urge you to do this more and more and to seek to live quiet lives, minding your own affairs and working with our own hands, so that you can have a proper testimony before unbelievers and be dependent on no one - just as we instructed you when we were with you.

We don't want you to be uniformed regarding those of you who have passed away; so that you will not grieve like others who have no hope. Because, since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.  For this we declare to you as a direct word from the Lord, that those of us who are still living when Christ's returns will not rise to be with him before those who have already died. For the Lord will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And those believers who have previously died will rise first. Then, those of us who are alive at his coming will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.