Thought from today’s Bible reading from 1 Thessalonians 1-5; 2 Thessalonians 1-3.
It is common for brethren to take Paul’s warning to the church in Thessalonica about abstaining from every form of evil and apply it broadly to every type of sin imaginable. It is certainly true that Christians are to strive to abstain from sin and every form of evil (Romans 6:11; Ephesians 5:1-11). But Paul was making a specific point here. Notice the context:
“Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22).
In the context, Paul was discussing what had been revealed by God. To quench the Spirit would be to remove the power from the gospel that had been revealed by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:7-10). To despise prophetic utterances would be to disregard the message of “men moved by the Holy Spirit” who “spoke from God” (2 Peter 1:21). Paul’s point was that these brethren (as well as all of us today) needed to accept the inspired word of God.
After making this point, Paul told the Thessalonians that they needed to “examine everything carefully.” Not every message they heard would be in harmony with the Spirit-inspired word of God. Like the nearby Bereans, they needed to examine the Scriptures to see if what they were being taught was the truth (Acts 17:11). The word of God is the standard of truth (Psalm 119:160; John 17:17). Therefore, truth will always harmonize with the word of God because they are one and the same.
Once we examine the Scriptures to see what is right, we must “hold fast to that which is good” and “abstain from every form of evil.” In other words, we must hold fast to that message which can be found in God’s word (cf. 2 Timothy 1:13). Anything that is contrary to the truth revealed in the Scriptures must be rejected.
The general principle of rejecting sin may not be out of place in this passage, but we need to remember the primary point. We must respect the word of God, accept it, and reject anything and everything that is contrary to it.
Tomorrow’s reading: Acts 18:19-19:41
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
