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You are citizens of the light

1 You do not need anyone to write to you about the delay and the ap pointed time for these events.

2 You know that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

3 When people feel secure and at peace, the disaster will suddenly come upon them as the birth pangs of a woman in labor, and they will not escape.

4 But you, beloved, are not in darkness; so that day will not surprise you like a thief.

5 All of you are citizens of the light and the day; we do not belong to night and darkness.

6 Let us not, therefore, sleep as others do, but remain alert and sober.

7 Those who sleep, go to sleep at night, and those who drink, get drunk at night.

8 Since we belong to the day, let us be sober, let us put on the breast plate of faith and love, and let the hope of salvation be our helmet.

9 For God has not willed us to be condemned but to win salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord.

10 He died for us so that we might enter into life with him, whether we are still awake or already asleep.

11 There fore encourage one another and build up one another, as you are doing now.

12 Brothers and sisters, I want you to be thankful to those who labor among you, who lead you in the way of the Lord and also reprimand you.

13 Esteem them highly and love them for what they are doing. Live at peace among yourselves.

14 We urge you to warn the idle, encourage those who feel discouraged, sustain the weak, have pa tience with everyone.

15 See that no one repays evil for evil, but try to do good, whether a mong yourselves or towards others.

16 Rejoice always,

17 pray without ceasing

18 and give thanks to God at every moment. This is the will of God, your vocation as Christians.

19 Do not quench the Spirit,

20 do not despise the prophets¡¯ warnings.

21 Put everything to the test and hold fast to what is good.

22 Avoid evil, wherever it may be.

23 May the God of Peace make you holy and bring you to perfection. May you be completely blameless, in spirit, soul and body, till the coming of Christ Jesus, our Lord;

24 he who called you is faithful and will do it.

25 Brothers and sisters, pray for us.

26 Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss.

27 I order you in the name of the Lord that this letter be read to all of them.

28 May the grace of Christ Jesus our Lord be with you.

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Comments 1 Letter to the Thessalonians, Chapter 5

• 5.1 Christ comes at night and believers are people of the light. These words are rich in meaning. Those who follow their evil desires are people of darkness, hiding to do evil. While children of the light are beyond reproach, transparent before God and with nothing to hide from him. The unbeliever sleeps and is off-guard while the believer keeps watch and stays awake: he likes to pray all night long until dawn as if waiting for the day to welcome Christ. As for those who have died, they are not dead: they are only ¡°asleep,¡± ready to rise when the Lord comes.

Encourage one another and build up one another (v. 11). In this the Church is seen as the true community needed by believers so they can grow in faith and overcome trials. In every difficulty, the help of the community will be the proof that we are surrounded by the love of God and of Christ, as was said in the first line of the letter.

According to verse 12, after only three months of evangelization this community already had leaders in charge.

• 19. Do not quench the Spirit (v. 19). A community such as this with few traditions and written instructions, depended on the intervention of the Spirit. Among these Christians there were some gifted with the charism of prophets: they would receive their communications during the Eucharistic assemblies. That is why Paul asks to profit by these spiritual messages, but not without first examining them as he will remind them in 1 Cor 14. This is a delicate situation: the community is subject to the Spirit who speaks through the prophet, but it must ¨C and its leaders must ¨C judge if it is truly the Spirit of God speaking.

May you be completely blameless in spirit, soul and body (v. 23). Neither the Jews nor the majority of Greeks would have agreed with our definition of the human: body and soul. They spoke at the same time of the soul that gives life to the body and deals with material activities, and of the spirit that is capable of truth and justice.

Paul¡¯s way of speaking, like the great spiritual Christians, shares this conception. When Paul speaks of the deep life of believers, he does not use the word soul but spirit. We do not face God as we do in facing an interlocutor and look at each other from the exterior: to understand better our relationship with God, through the Spirit we must think of what unites beings who love each other and in some way live in one another.

According to the Bible, God¡¯s Spirit can be omni present, insinuate itself, adapt itself, become our spirit without ceasing to be itself. Our spirit is not a part of ourselves, it is us, and it is at the same time our access to God. Our soul ex presses itself in different ways, for example in dreams. We only discover our spirit in the measure of our experience of God. Only when we see God shall we truly know what and who we are.