Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Thessalonians · About this commentary
Admonish, Encourage, Support
1 Thessalonians 5:14-15
14 We exhort you, brothers: Admonish the disorderly; encourage the faint-hearted; support the weak; be patient toward all. · WEB
Three groups needing three different responses — and the skill is telling which is which.
We exhort you, brothers. The instruction now passes to the whole congregation rather than to its leaders, so what follows is everyone's work.
Three groups, each with its own treatment. Admonish the disorderly — the military word for a soldier out of rank, the family the second letter uses of people who had stopped working 2 Thessalonians 3:6. Encourage the faint-hearted, literally the small-souled, whose courage has run short rather than whose conduct has gone wrong. Support the weak, a verb meaning to hold on and not let go.
The difficulty is in the sorting. Confusing the disorderly with the faint-hearted means rebuking someone who needs holding, and the verse assumes a community that knows its members well enough to tell. Then the qualifier covering all three: be patient toward all.
Verse 15 adds the boundary. See that no one returns evil for evil to anyone — the temptation of a persecuted church — but always follow after that which is good for one another and for all. The second phrase reaches past the community again, as 1 Thessalonians 3:12 did.
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