I Thessalonians Chapter V

1But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need for me to be writing to you; 2for ye yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief at night.

1. On Watchfulness

  • “Be mindful therefore how you have received and heard, and be holding fast and repent. If then you do not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and in no wise shall you know what hour I will come upon you. [Rev. 3:3]

  • 15“Behold, I am coming as a thief. Happy is the one watching and keeping his garments, lest he be walking about naked and they be seeing his unseemliness.” [Rev. 16:15]

 

2. Vigilance

  • Guarding one’s thoughts, obedience, fasting, tears, confession, silence, humility, vigil, courage, cold, toil, hardship, humiliation, contrition, forgetfulness of wrongs, brotherly love, meekness, simple and unquestioning faith, freedom from worldly cares, detachment, innocent simplicity, voluntary abasement.

  • “After God, let us have our conscience as our mentor and rule in all things, so that we may know which way the wind is blowing and set our sails accordingly. ( John Climacus, Step 26)

  • Chrysostom: “For in the case of those who are watching and who are in the light, if there should be any entry of a robber, it can do them no harm: so also it is with those who live well. But those who are sleeping he will strip of everything, and go off; that is, those who are trusting in the things of this life.”

 

3For whenever they say, “Peace and security,” then sudden destruction stands over them, even as the pangs of childbirth to her who is with child; and in no wise shall they escape. 4But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief.

1. The Day of the Lord has come to us in the Church – we are living in the last times
Saint Symeon the New Theologian: “As many, therefore, as are children of the light also become sons of the day which is to come, and are enabled to walk decently as in the day. The day of the Lord will never come upon them, because they are already in it forever and continually. The day of the Lord, in effect, is not going to be revealed suddenly to those who are ever illumined by the divine light, but for those who are in the darkness of the passions and spend their lives in the world hungering for things of the world; for them it will be fearful, and they will experience it as unbearable fire.” [“The Church and the Last Things,” On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Vol. I, Tenth Discourse, 146, 147.]

5Ye are all sons of light and sons of day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. 6So then, let us not be sleeping, as also the rest, but let us be fully awake and sober. 7For they who sleep, sleep by night; and they who get drunk, get drunk by night.

1. Purity of life
Chrysostom: “Here he speaks of a life that is dark and impure. For it is just as corrupt and wicked men do all things as in the night, escaping the notice of all, and inclosing themselves in darkness.”


2. Baptism is our adoption – God is our Father
• Chrysostom: “So also sons of God are those who do things pleasing to God; so also sons of day and sons of light, those who do the works of light." And we are not of the night nor of darkness."

3. To be in the Day depends upon our free-will

  • Chrysostom: “Here he shows, that to be in the day depends on ourselves . . . with respect to that night and that sleep, it is not so, but it is in our power always to have it day, it is in our power always to watch. For to shut the eyes of the soul, and to bring on the sleep of wickedness, is not of nature, but of our own choice.
    On the Drunken Soul 

  • Chrysostom: But let us watch,’ he says, ‘and be sober.’ For it is possible to sleep while awake, by doing nothing good. Wherefore he has added, ‘and be sober.’ For even by day, if any one watches, but is not sober, he will fall into numberless dangers, so that:

  • sobriety is the intensity of watchfulness. "They that sleep," he says, "sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night." 

  • The drunkenness he here speaks of is not that from wine only, but that also which comes of all vices. 

  • For riches and the desire of wealth is a drunkenness of the soul, 

  • and so carnal lust; and every sin you can name is a drunkenness of the soul. 

  • On what account then has he called vice sleep? Because in the first place the vicious man is inactive with respect to virtue:

  • again, because he sees everything as a vision, he views nothing in its true light, but is full of dreams, and oftentimes of unreasonable actions: and if he sees anything good, he has no firmness, no fixedness.

  • Such is the present life. It is full of dreams, and of phantasy.

  • Riches are a dream,

  • and glory, and everything of that sort. He who sleeps sees not things that are and have a real subsistence, but things that are not he fancies as things that are. Such is vice, and the life that is passed in vice.

  • It sees not things that are, that is, spiritual, heavenly, abiding things, but things that are fleeting and fly away, and that soon recede from us.

8But let us who are of the day be sober, having put on a breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. Cf. Is. 59:17.

  • Chrysostom: “Here he glances at life and doctrine. He has shown what it is to watch and be sober, to have "the breastplate of faith and love." Not a common faith, he says, but as nothing can soon pierce through a breastplate, but it is a safe wall to the breast; - so do you surround your soul with faith and love, and none of the fiery darts of the devil can ever be fixed in it. For where the power of the soul is preoccupied with the armor of love, all the devices of those who plot against it are vain and ineffectual. For neither wickedness, nor hatred, nor envy, nor flattery, nor hypocrisy, nor any other thing will be able to penetrate such a soul. He has not simply said "love," but he has bid them put it on as a strong breastplate.”

  • Chrysostom: "And for a helmet the hope of salvation." For as the helmet guards the vital part in us, surrounding the head and covering it on every side, so also this hope does not suffer the reason to falter, but sets it upright as the head, not permitting anything from the outside to fall upon it. And while nothing falls on it, neither does it slip of itself.”