How thoroughly God wants us to be changed – 1 Thessalonians 5:23–28, Part 3

In our study this week through 1 Thessalonians 5:23–28, Paul writes that God desires to thoroughly our whole being: spirit, soul, and body.  God wants all of it to be blameless. 

There have long been debates among Christian theologians about what the writers of Scripture meant by spirit and soul.  Body we get. We engage our bodies through the five senses.  But spirit and soul are that invisible inner part of our lives.  Paul two distinct words to refer to spirit and soul.

Spirit is pneuma, which is where we get our English words like “pneumatic drill” or “pneumatic piston” which refer to the fact that air is involved in the functioning of the device. In the Greek concenption, pneuma referred to literally to “wind, breath, air” and figuratively to spirit.

Soul is psyche, which is where we get our English words like “psychosis” and “psychology,” referring to the functioning of the brain.

Both pneuma and psyche were used by ancient people to refer to the inner life of humans.

What is uncertain is if they refer to two different inner aspects of that human inner life.  Theologians, philosophers, and scientists have rightly made much of this, because the issue of human inner life is extremely important, yet mysterious. For our purposes in studying Paul’s teaching, we don’t need to engage those deep debates. Instead, what Paul is saying is that God created humanity to have an inward spiritual part joined together with an outward physical part.  They are not separate. 

God wants both our inner parts and our outward parts to be changed, to be blameless.  God desires that our entire being experiences his shalom, his flourishing, in the here and now.  As Jesus taught in Matthew 22:34–40, the most important teaching in the Mosaic Law is “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” (Which is a quote from Deuteronomy 6.)

Paul says that God desires that complete transformation in our lives until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The early Christians in Paul’s day believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime.  Thus Paul is simply saying that Jesus is at work in you, wanting you to experience flourishing, and he will keep that going until he returns. 

Of course, Jesus did not return in Paul’s lifetime.  That was 2000 years ago.  Yet Paul’s point stands for us.  God is at work in our lives, and he will keep working until Jesus returns. 

We know this, Paul says in verse 24, because God is the one who has called us, and he is faithful, he will do it.  That statement in verse 24 is now the third description of God that Paul has written in these two verses:  First, God is the God of peace/shalom/flourishing; second, God is very involved in helping us experience his shalom; and third, God is faithful. 

That brings me back to the frustrating questions I asked in the previous post.  What if we don’t feel God working in our lives?  What if we are struggling?  What if it seems we are not experiencing peace, but distress?  What if God doesn’t seem faithful?

Again, those are good questions.  Important questions.  Let’s keep them on the table. 

First I want to finish up the passage, and see if Paul says anything else that might help us.  Debbie Marks covered verse 25 weeks ago when she looked at a number of Paul’s teachings about prayer (starting here).  We covered verse 26 “Greet one another with a holy kiss” when we talked about relationships in the church (read post here). 

So let’s look at verse 27.  Paul is basically saying, “Swear to me that you will read this letter to everyone in the church.”  Not a threatening “swear to me!”  Paul wants them to take this seriously. Likely they had numerous house churches in the city of Thessalonica, and Paul wanted all the house churches and all the Christians to hear his letter.  Paul’s writings are circular letters.  They would even get passed on to Christians in other cities.  It is fascinating to see Paul utilize this ancient technology of handwriting letters to help people learn about flourishing. 

After those final instructions about praying, kissing, and reading, Paul concludes the letter in verse 28, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” Just as when Paul referred to God as the God of peace in verse 23 (see post here), Paul’s mention of grace is not just cursory. Grace is vital. We learn how in the next post.

Photo by Arunmehar Gangaraju Kavikondala on Unsplash