Furthermore {1} then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would {a} abound more and more.

(1) Various exhortations, the foundation of which is this, to be mindful of those things which they have heard from the apostle.

(a) That you labour to excel more and more, and daily surpass yourselves.

People's New Testament

4:1 Exhortation to a Godly Life

SUMMARY OF I THESSALONIANS 4:

Continence Commanded. Brotherly Love Required. Each Should Quietly Follow His Own Business. Not to Sorrow Without Hope for the Dead. They, As Well As the Living Saints, Shall Meet the Lord at His. Coming.

Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you. In all Paul's letters to Gentile churches there is a closing exhortation to purity of life and against such sins as Gentiles especially needed to guard against. These exhortations to the Thessalonians begin with the fourth chapter.

How ye ought to walk and to please God. He reminds them that he had instructed them how to live to please God.

Wesley's Notes

4:1 More and more - It is not enough to have faith, even so as to please God, unless we abound more and more therein.

King James Translators' Notes

beseech: or, request

exhort: or, beseech

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 4

1Th 4:1-18. Exhortations to Chastity; Brotherly Love; Quiet Industry; Abstinence from Undue Sorrow for Departed Friends, For at Christ's Coming All His Saints Shall Be Glorified.

1. Furthermore-Greek, "As to what remains." Generally used towards the close of his Epistles (Eph 6:10; Php 4:8).

then-with a view to the love and holiness (1Th 3:12, 13) which we have just prayed for in your behalf, we now give you exhortation.

beseech-"ask" as if it were a personal favor.

by, &c.-rather as Greek, "IN the Lord Jesus"; in communion with the Lord Jesus, as Christian ministers dealing with Christian people [Edmunds].

as ye . received-when we were with you (1Th 2:13).

how-Greek, the "how," that is, the manner.

walk and . please God-that is, "and so please God," namely, by your walk; in contrast to the Jews who "please not God" (1Th 2:15). The oldest manuscripts add a clause here, "even as also ye do walk" (compare 1Th 4:10; 5:11). These words, which he was able to say of them with truth, conciliate a favorable hearing for the precepts which follow. Also the expression, "abound more and more," implies that there had gone before a recognition of their already in some measure walking so.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:1-8 To abide in the faith of the gospel is not enough, we must abound in the work of faith. The rule according to which all ought to walk and act, is the commandments given by the Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctification, in the renewal of their souls under the influences of the Holy Spirit, and attention to appointed duties, constituted the will of God respecting them. In aspiring after this renewal of the soul unto holiness, strict restraint must be put upon the appetites and senses of the body, and on the thoughts and inclinations of the will, which lead to wrong uses of them. The Lord calls none into his family to live unholy lives, but that they may be taught and enabled to walk before him in holiness. Some make light of the precepts of holiness, because they hear them from men; but they are God's commands, and to break them is to despise God.