Verse of the day · October 5
What does pray without ceasing mean in 1 Thessalonians 5:17?
An archbishop died in exile, persecuted and despised, saying glory to God for all things.
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Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Three short sentences, one after another. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks. Evermore, without ceasing, in every thing: each command has a word in it that leaves nothing outside, and none of the three makes an allowance for the day a man cannot. They arrive in a run of short orders near the end of the letter — warn the unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, be patient with everybody, see that nobody pays anybody back evil for evil. The orders are short enough not to burden the memory, and every one of them is a duty of great importance.
Paul wrote the letter to a congregation in Thessalonica, Jews and Gentiles both, called out of darkness by the grace of God and gathered into a church; he had been with them not long before. The letter says they received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. Earlier in the same letter he tells them not to be shaken by these afflictions, since they knew they were appointed to such afflictions, and reminds them that they had been warned in advance, before any of it happened, that there would be tribulation to suffer. Their troubles had not come by chance, and not merely out of the wrath and malice of the enemies of religion, but by the appointment of God; being told beforehand was meant to arm them. It is to that church that the letter says, in every thing give thanks.
The rejoicing asked for first is not joy in a man's own wisdom, or money, or in the reputation his religion earns him. It is joy in the Holy Ghost, and it comes from a sight of pardon by the blood of Christ, of being counted righteous because of Christ's righteousness and not his own, of atonement made by his sacrifice. Religion is not a sullen, sour thing but full of joy — so full that a believer can be glad when the whole world seems to frown. And it is not only for the good stretches: it is asked for in adversity as well as in prosperity.
Take the middle command at its word and it asks for more than a human body can keep up. A believer is not meant to be calling on God out loud all day with his hands lifted up: that would crowd out other parts of worship and the duties of ordinary life, and the flesh would not bear it — a body wants food and drink, sleep and rest, and there has to be time for the work a man is called to. What it means is that nothing else a man does should crowd prayer out of its proper season. The Greek reads nearer pray without intermission: no prayerless gap allowed to open between the times of prayer.
So the command has two parts. One is the set times, kept regularly: on his own, with his family, and with the congregation he belongs to, and not dropped for any small reason. The other is a mind kept in a state where it could pray at any moment. A man can lose that by such ordinary means as business taking him over, idle talk, frivolity and vanity, the wrong book, too much food or drink, late nights in thoughtless company. Underneath both parts is dependence: a man relies on God for every good thing and can do nothing without him, and a man who feels that will be found praying whenever he possibly can. Some of it is never out loud — prayer in the heart, short things sent up silently while a man's hands are full of the day's business.
The command is aimed at particular habits, and at the reasons behind them. A man gives prayer up because sin has got the upper hand, or because Satan is at work, or because an answer has not come and discouragement has set in, or out of plain carelessness. It stands as well against the man who never prays, against the man who prays only when trouble and distress are on him, and against the notion that nobody should pray except when the Spirit is moving him and the Spirit's graces — faith, love, zeal — are lively in him. The reason given for praying constantly is unflattering: the saints are always needy. Their wants come back daily, they are called to fresh service and further trials, and they need more grace and strength than they have.
The three are not three separate disciplines. The way to rejoice evermore is to pray without ceasing, and we would rejoice more if we prayed more. Thanksgiving comes out of the same motion: pray without ceasing and there will be no shortage of matter for thanks in every thing.
The middle command turned out to have a limit inside it. The third has none: in every thing has no exception cut into it, and that is where it costs. Thanks for being alive and being kept alive, for food and clothing and the ordinary mercies; for the word and the men who bring it; for being chosen, redeemed, pardoned and kept to the end; and above all for Christ himself. And then thanks in every circumstance a man finds himself in. Thanks in adversity, the way Job gave them. Thanks in a frame of mind nobody would wish for, on the ground that even that could be worse than it is. Thanks under Satan's temptations, because they could be heavier, because there is grace enough to bear them and to bring a man out of them, and because Christ is a high priest who feels it along with him. And thanks in afflictions of every kind, because they are all working for good. Thanks even in what seems to be against a man, because nothing really is — all things work together for good to the people who love God. There may be reason enough to bring our complaints to God, and never any reason to complain of God. A man named Chrysostom, who had been archbishop of Constantinople, was driven into exile, persecuted and despised, and died far from the splendour of the capital and all the comforts and honours he had enjoyed, uttering his favourite motto. Glory to God for all things.
Only the last of the three carries a clause, and the clause is a reason: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. It stands after the third command, so it can be read as belonging to that one alone: what God requires of you is that you be grateful. But the reason is given once, for three commands, and it can as well be read over all of them. Read that way it takes each in turn: that you should have that joy all the time, that you should live in the spirit of prayer, and that you should get good out of every occurrence in life and be grateful and obedient all the way through. So what is called the will of God here is not only the thanksgiving. It takes in the rejoicing and the praying with it.
The last words of the reason are the ones that carry it: in Christ Jesus concerning you. They may be read three ways. In Christ may mean declared by him, since he made the whole of God's will known. Or it may mean accepted through him — what a man does in obedience being acceptable to God through Christ. Or it may mean exemplified in him. Taken the last way, it points at Christ himself, who gave thanks to God for all things and in all things, with his own will handed over to his Father's in every circumstance of his life. And on the day a believer cannot see how to rejoice, there is still ground for it, because the ground is not in him. Let his circumstances and his own frame of mind be what they will: the God he is in covenant with does not change, and the love God has for his people is the same from everlasting to everlasting; the covenant of grace is settled and cannot be moved; and Christ, the Mediator of it, is the same yesterday, today and for ever. Of all the people in the world, the ones who are in Christ have reason to be thankful for everything, and in every circumstance.
Drawn from Matthew Henry, John Gill, the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary, Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes and B. W. Johnson. How these teachings are made