The Will of God

by Hugh DeLong

Paul stayed only a short time in Thessalonica and thus left a fledgling group of disciples in a very ungodly situation. Thessalonica was a rather typical Roman city, with a very loose moral code, and one very far from God’s.

While many things were permitted and practiced in this city (and across the Empire), Paul could state emphatically:

“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. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality” (I Thessalonians 4:1-3).

From the beginning, God’s instruction for sexual intimacy has been in a committed one-on-one relationship, one male and one female, with a complete dedication to being a connected and intertwined unit – the two shall be one. Then Jesus added: “What God has joined together, let man not put asunder” (Mark 10:9).

Yet from the beginning, men have lived in ‘the lust of concupiscence’ (KJV – just because I enjoy the sound of reading it – ESV = “the passion of lust” – NASB95 = “lustful passions). Lust is desire, but that ‘sexual desire’ is to be restrained and limited to the one spouse. This is not a suggestion! This is God’s Will. This is the commandment of the Lord. Our society is no different than Roman society in this regard; we (as a society) have rejected God’s will and made our own moral rules. In this regard, our cultural battle as disciples is not far different from that of these first-century disciples in Thessalonica.

The encompassing warning for us as disciples: “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4).

We are God’s people. We have been set apart from the worldly culture (sanctified). On an individual level, this demands self-control, the reigning of our desires, the changing of our mindset on the relationship within marriage. We are not to be conformed to the cultural moral thinking, but to walk by God’s will. The conclusion of this section: “So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you” (I Thessalonians 4:8).