But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman; and they will in no way escape. But you, brothers, aren’t in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief. You are all children of light, and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night, nor to darkness, so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep in the night, and those who are drunk are drunk in the night. But let us, since we belong to the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and, for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God didn’t appoint us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Therefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as you also do. But we beg you, brothers, to know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to respect and honor them in love for their work’s sake.
Questions
- Are you concerned about the actual day when Jesus will return?
- What does a life lived in the day as children of light look like?
- Paul obviously means that we should metaphorically live without sleep. With this in mind, how should we “watch and be sober”?
- How do we live as children of the light at night?
- What role does the “breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet, the hope of salvation” guard us in the night?
- We’re appointed to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ. How can we pursue this salvation, how can we live together with him, whether we’re awake or asleep?
- Are we exhorting one another? Are we building each other up?
- How do we rightfully honor and respect those who “labor among us, are over us in the Lord”?
