1 Thessalonians 4:3 –   Your holiness

For this is the will of God: your holiness. You are to be abstaining from all prostitution…

The question what GOD wants with our lives as believers is not difficult to answer. He wants our holiness, i.e. we are set apart for Him. The idea is positive: you are set aside for Him. At the same time, where something is set apart, it is also separated from something. Paul mentions that here: whoever is sanctified refrains from prostitution.

The word ‘prostitution’ in Greek is ‘porneia’. That word is indeed related to our word ‘porn’, but in Scripture this ‘porneia’ does not refer to sexual images or descriptions. ‘Porneia’ means to be one flesh, i.e. to have sexual intercourse with someone other than one’s own husband or wife. Paul explains this in the following verses, as he does elsewhere (1 Cor. 6:16 and 7: 2).

In a positive way, God wants “one flesh” to be exclusively reserved for a man and his wife (Gen.2: 24). It is the essence of a wedding: connected for life. It is a reflection of the faithfulness of GOD (male) to his creation (female). After all, He never abandons the works of his hands!

Delen: