Father Mendoza's Commentary on 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4

 Translated using Gemini.

Section 1: Exhortation to Holiness

1 Th 4:1-7 Furthermore, then, brothers, etc. Furthermore, O brothers, we ask and beseech you in the Lord Jesus, or out of due reverence for Christ the Lord, that just as you have received from us—that is, were informed by us—how it behooves you to walk in the way of salvation and to please God, so you should walk and abound more and more, excelling in virtue and holiness. For you already know what precepts I gave to you through the Lord Jesus, or by the authority of Christ, whose place I hold. For this is the will of God: the desire, precept, and sum of all precepts is your sanctification, so that you may study the perfect purity of mind and body.

Section 2: Possessing the Vessel in Honor

Namely, that each one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; or, having received from God the possession of his own body, that he should preserve it in chastity and the honor of modesty. For just as one affects his own body with disgrace when he permits it to be addicted to luxury (lust), so he increases its honor when he procures that it shines with chastity. Indeed, to a man, honor comes from chastity and disgrace from luxury. Whence, regarding a chaste woman, we say in Spanish: Es muger honrada (She is an honorable woman).

Not in the passion of desire, like the Gentiles who do not know God; or, not in the affection of libido, which many Christians obey as if they did not know God. And indeed, the vice of luxury turns a man into a Gentile in a certain way, receding entirely from the memory of God.

Section 3: The Nature of "Passion of Desire"

Weigh that word: In the passion of desire. Why is this vice called a "passion of desire" and not of "work"?. Certainly because the pleasure of the flesh is so momentary that it seems the desire was hardly reduced to the work. Or because the appetite for these types of pleasures, even once conceived in work, is never filled; it never says "enough".

And let no one overstep nor circumvent his brother in the matter. Here the Apostle acts against adultery, which he calls "overstepping" and "circumvention"—that is, oppression and prevarication—by which someone, by climbing over the bed of his neighbor, affects him with injury.

Section 4: Avoiding Impurity

Indeed, regarding Ephesians 4:19, Paul uses the word for "circumventing" to mean immoderate desire for sexual matters. Therefore, let no one be so unbridled in overstepping that he dares to circumvent or plot snares against another’s bed in the matter recently discussed—namely, that he might enjoy another's wife.

Because the Lord is the avenger of all these things, as we told you before and have already testified elsewhere. For God did not call us to the Church of Christ into uncleanness, or so that we should serve lust, but into sanctification, so that we might be pure, chaste, and holy, washed from the filth of vices.

Section 5: On Rejecting Man and On Brotherly Love

1 Th 4:8-11 Therefore, he who despises these, etc. For this reason, he who despises these warnings delivered to you by me does not despise me—a man like himself—but God, the author of the precepts toward whose observation my warnings are directed. He has also given His Holy Spirit in us; or, through the Holy Spirit whom He imparted to us, He made us ministers of His word and gave us the power to intimate the precepts of the law to you in His name.

Concerning the charity of the brotherhood, or brotherly love, it is not necessary for me to write to you. For you yourselves, by God’s inspiration and through Evangelical doctrine, have learned to love one another. And indeed, that which you learned from God, you do—or rather, you exercise brotherly charity toward all the brothers who dwell in all of Macedonia.

Section 6: Quiet Life and Manual Labor

But we ask you, brothers, that you abound more; or that you study to profit more and more in this virtue of brotherly charity. For the more you love one another, the more perfectly you will observe the law; for the seven precepts of the second Table are directed toward the benefit of the neighbor.

And strive to be quiet, so that quarrels do not induce any coldness into brotherly charity; and that you do your own business—that is, that each one attends to his own vocation and work and does not thrust himself into another's—and that you work with your hands, as we have already commanded you. Do not leave an opening for idleness, which is the fountain of all evils; and walk honestly toward those who are outside—that is, conduct yourselves decently so that the Gentiles are not offended by your morals, nor turned away from undertaking the Christian religion.

Section 7: Religious Life and the Sleep of Death

This lesson is especially fitting for the Religious. Among those who are outside (seculars), the immodesty and liberty of [some] Religious has been the cause for Religion to be contemned, as seculars judge the rest to be similar based on one immodest person.

"And desire nothing of anyone". From the Greek: labor with your hands for food, lest the want which usually arises from idleness forces you either to steal or to unjustly desire the things of others.

1 Th 4:12-18 We would not have you ignorant, etc. We do not want you to be ignorant, O brothers, regarding the mystery of those who are sleeping. He calls the dead "sleeping" because of the hope of resurrection. For very quickly they will wake up from the tombs; and they will be roused from the tombs as if from beds.

Section 8: The Resurrection

This word "sleeping" fits the just especially, whose death is a sweet sleep. Do not be saddened by the horror of death, as the rest of the Gentiles and others who have no hope of resurrection. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so we ought to believe that God will raise the dead to glory; and those who have slept in Jesus—or in the faith and charity of Jesus—He will bring with Him to reign eternally.

For this we say to you in the word of the Lord, or in His name: that we who are alive—or whoever of our descendants shall then be living—who remain until the coming of the Lord, or who will be survivors when the Lord comes for judgment, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. Rather, both those recently dead and those long dead will rise.

Section 9: The Order of the Last Day

To speak more precisely: as many as are living around the day of judgment will not be gifted with immortality and the glory of the body [before] those others who died long ago and have decayed. Because the Lord Jesus Himself, as Judge, at the command and empire and at the voice of the Archangel Michael—there will be a cry of God's trumpet—will descend from heaven, accompanied by all the Angels and blessed ones, into [the Valley of] Josaphat.

And the dead who are in Christ—or who died in the grace of Christ—will rise first. (In Greek, "first" or "before" [those living are caught up] to Christ in the air) .

Section 10: The Fate of the Living

Then we who are alive at that time—who are left behind, such as Elijah and Enoch, who were as if kept until the time nearest the judgment, and other saints formerly dead but now revived together with us—will be snatched up together to proceed to meet Christ the Lord.

Will those living at that time become immortal without death? With the leave of Justin and Cajetan, I respond in the negative. For they will die before being snatched up, whether by the fire of the conflagration or by the withdrawal of God's concurrence, as Suarez thinks.

Section 11: The Meeting in the Air

The just will be snatched up to meet Christ in the air, so that there, in thrones prepared for each, they may sit in their individual order, grade, and place at the right hand of the Judge, while the reprobate are left on the ground at the left.

The just will be snatched up both by the ministry of Angels and by the power of their own agility—a gift which, along with other glorious gifts, will be given at the very instant of resurrection. And so we shall always be with Him, both in the judgment and in heaven, which we shall soon ascend. Therefore, comfort one another in these words; excite your mutual faith and hope, and sustain them patiently. For there is nothing that the hope of a glorious resurrection does not soften.

CONTINUE