1st Thessalonians Chapter 4 verse 3 Holy Bible
For this is the will of God, `even' your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication;
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For the purpose of God for you is this: that you may be holy, and may keep yourselves from the desires of the flesh;
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For this is [the] will of God, [even] your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication;
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For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
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read chapter 4 in WBT
For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality,
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for this is the will of God -- your sanctification; that ye abstain from the whoredom,
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - For this is the will of God. The phrase, "the will of God," has two significations in Scripture: the one is the determination of God - his decree; the other is his desire, that in which he delights - a will, however, which may be frustrated by the perversity of his creatures. It is in this latter sense that the word is here employed. Even your sanctification; complete consecration; holiness taken in its most general so. use. Our holiness is the great design of Christ's death, and is the revealed will of God. Some (Olshausen, Lunemann) restrict the term to moral purity, and consider the next clause as its explanation (comp. Romans 12:1). That ye should abstain from fornication; a vice fearfully prevalent among the heathen, and which, indeed, they hardly regarded as wrong. Especially it was the great sin of Corinth, from which the apostle wrote, the patron goddess of which city was Venus.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) For.--The word further enforces the appeal to their memory: "Ye know what commandments . . . for this (you will recollect) is what God wants;" "a commandment given through the Lord Jesus," being, of course, identical with "God's will."Your sanctification.--In apposition to the word this. The mere conversion, justification, salvation of us are not the aim of God: He would have us holy. The general idea of sanctification passes however here, as the following clauses show, into the more limited sense of purification.Fornication.--The word is often used in late Greek for any kind of impurity, as, e.g., 1Corinthians 5:1, of incest; but here it must be understood in its strict sense. To the Gentile mind, while the wickedness of adultery or incest was fully recognised, it was a novelty to be told that fornication was a "deadly sin;" hence the strange connection in which it stands in the Synodal letter to the Gentile churches (Acts 15:20; Acts 15:29; Acts 21:25). This consideration also makes it easier to understand how St. Paul can praise these Gentile Thessalonians so heartily, although they need earnest correction on this vital point. It is a true instance of the sacerdotal metriopathy (or, compassionate consideration) towards the ignorant and deceived. (See Hebrews 5:1-2.) . . .
