1 Thessalonians 5:1–11

Context

This passage belongs to 1 Thessalonians, the letter that Paul, together with Silvanus and Timothy, sent to the church at Thessalonica. In the immediately preceding section, 4:13–18, Paul addressed what will become of believers who have died before the Lord's Second Coming. In chapter 5 he turns to the question of when that event will take place.

Paul says that he has no need to write concerning "the times and the seasons," because his readers already know that the day of the Lord comes "as a thief in the night." He then calls believers "the children of light, and the children of the day" and exhorts them to "watch and be sober." To be sober here means to be clear-minded and self-controlled. He likens faith, love, and hope to a soldier's armor, and he closes the passage by urging them to comfort and edify one another.

Interpretation

Most interpreters hold that the focus of the passage is not on calculating dates but on living watchfully. The expression "as a thief" is understood to echo the words of Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew 24:43). The grouping of faith, love, and hope also appears in 1:3 of the same letter. The imagery of the breastplate (armor covering the chest) and the helmet is generally regarded as drawn from Isaiah 59:17.

The phrase "whether we wake or sleep" in verse 10 is commonly read as "whether we are alive or dead," on the grounds that in chapter 4 "sleep" referred to death. The sleep of verses 6–7, by contrast, denotes a state of spiritual laxity. The words "Peace and safety" in verse 3 are interpreted in two ways. Some see them as recalling the false proclamation of peace in Jeremiah 6:14, while other scholars regard them as aimed at the "peace and security" slogan promoted by the Roman Empire.

Views diverge on the relationship between 4:13–18 and 5:1–11 and on the meaning of "wrath" in verse 9.

• Dispensational premillennial reading: Proponents of dispensationalism distinguish the Rapture of chapter 4 from the "day of the Lord" of chapter 5 as separate events. They take the wrath of verse 9 to be the Great Tribulation and cite the verse as support for the view that the church will be caught up before the Tribulation.
• Readings from other eschatological views: Many interpreters who hold to amillennialism or historic premillennialism regard the two sections as treating the same Second Coming from different angles. They understand the wrath as God's wrath at the final judgment.

Debates and Issues

In eschatological discussions of the millennium and the timing of the Rapture, verse 9 is a text that various positions each invoke in support of their own views. At the same time, interpreters of every position cite "as a thief" when refuting date-setting eschatology, which assigns a specific date to the Second Coming.

As for translation, the Korean Revised Version's heungbae ("breastplate") is rendered hosimgyeong in the New Korean Revised Version.

In the Korean Church

Around 1992, date-setting movements that predicted the Rapture on a specific date became a social issue in Korea. Their critics are reported to have frequently cited this passage as evidence that the time of the Second Coming cannot be known. The expressions "children of light" and "watch and be sober" are commonly used in sermons on eschatological themes.

Related Passages

• 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14
• Mark 13:32–33
• Ephesians 6:10–18
• 2 Peter 3:10–13
• 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4