Catholic Commentary
Exhortation to Walk Worthy of God
1Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that you abound more and more.2For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 4:1–2 presents Paul's transition from doctrinal instruction to moral exhortation, urging the Thessalonians to increase in holiness and proper conduct as they received from apostolic teaching. Paul emphasizes that these instructions come through Christ's authority, not his own, and appeals to their existing knowledge of the moral directives delivered during his founding mission.
Paul doesn't command as a dictator but as a father calling his children into a walk with Christ that has no finish line—only deeper abundance.
Verse 1: "Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus..."
The Greek loipon oun ("finally then") does not signal an abrupt ending so much as a transition from doctrinal groundwork (chapters 1–3) to moral application — a movement characteristic of Pauline letters (cf. Romans 12:1). The double verb erōtōmen kai parakaloumen ("we beg and exhort") is deliberately affectionate and weighty at once. Erōtaō carries a tone of intimate request between equals, while parakaleō — from the same root as Paraclete — suggests encouragement, consolation, and a summons from one with authority. Together they reveal Paul's pastoral genius: he does not merely issue decrees but draws the community into willing co-operation with God's design.
The phrase "in the Lord Jesus" (en Kyriō Iēsou) is not ornamental. It situates the entire moral appeal within the sphere of baptismal identity and union with Christ. Paul is not appealing to his personal prestige or the natural moral law alone; he speaks as one whose authority is exercised within the Body of Christ, making this an essentially ecclesial communication.
The verb peripateō ("to walk") is laden with Old Testament resonance. In Hebrew thought (halakh, from which we derive halakha), to walk (peripatein) before God is to conduct one's entire moral and spiritual life in His presence (cf. Genesis 17:1; Micah 6:8). Paul has already commended the Thessalonians' walk (3:6) and now urges them not to plateau but to "abound more and more" (perisseuēte mallon). This is a key phrase: sanctification, in Paul's vision, is not a fixed threshold reached at baptism but a dynamic, ever-deepening participation in divine life. "Pleasing God" (areskein theō) echoes the Old Testament ideal of the righteous person who "walked with God" (Genesis 5:22, 6:9) and is here Christianized: to please God is now inseparable from conformity to Christ.
Verse 2: "For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus."
The Greek parangelias ("instructions," sometimes translated "commandments" or "precepts") is a military and civic term denoting authoritative orders passed down a chain of command. Paul's use of it here is deliberately strong: these are not suggestions but apostolic directives. Yet the crucial modifier is "through the Lord Jesus" (dia tou Kyriou Iēsou) — Paul's authority is strictly mediatorial. He is the transmitter, not the source. This places apostolic moral teaching in a precise theological relationship: it originates in Christ, passes through the apostles, and is received by the Church.
The reminder "you know" (oidate) performs a subtle but important function: Paul is not introducing new doctrine but recalling what was already delivered orally during his founding mission in Thessalonica (cf. Acts 17:1–9). This appeals to the depositum fidei — the body of faith and morals handed on — and to the capacity of the community to recognize authentic teaching when it is recalled to them. The spiritual senses here are rich: typologically, Paul acts as a new Moses delivering the law of the new covenant; allegorically, the "instructions" through Christ echo the divine Wisdom who calls her disciples to walk in her paths (Sirach 24:19–22); anagogically, the goal of this walk is the beatific encounter with God that the letter has already described (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
Catholic tradition draws several profound threads from these two verses. First, they provide a scriptural foundation for the Church's teaching authority. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 85–87) teaches that the Magisterium is not above Scripture but serves it, transmitting what it has received from Christ through the apostles. Paul's model here — Christ → apostles → community — is precisely the structure of Tradition as Vatican II's Dei Verbum (§9–10) describes it: "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God." The parangeliai Paul recalls are oral apostolic teaching, a striking affirmation that the Christian moral life was never transmitted by Scripture alone.
Second, the phrase "through the Lord Jesus" has been mined by the Church Fathers against every tendency to separate Christian ethics from Christology. St. John Chrysostom (Homily on 1 Thessalonians 5) insists that Paul's authority rests not on the dignity of his person but on the One who commissioned him, making his instructions binding precisely as Christ's own. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on this letter, draws on peripateō to connect the moral life to the virtue of prudence (prudentia), the practical wisdom that enables one to navigate the path toward the final end — a journey that must continually "abound more and more" as the soul grows in charity.
Third, "abound more and more" articulates the Catholic doctrine of growth in sanctifying grace. Unlike forensic understandings of justification that emphasize a single declarative act, Catholicism (Council of Trent, Session VI, Canon 24; CCC 1999–2000) affirms that grace is a real, transforming participation in divine nature that admits of genuine increase. Pope Francis echoes this dynamic in Gaudete et Exsultate (§17): "To be holy does not require being a bishop, a priest or a religious... it is about growing." Paul's "more and more" is the grammar of Catholic moral and spiritual theology.
Contemporary Catholics often experience a tension between doctrinal formation received earlier in life and the demands of ongoing moral growth. These verses directly address that temptation toward spiritual complacency. Paul's appeal to what the Thessalonians have "already received" implies that formation is not a destination but a starting point. A Catholic today might ask: Do I treat what I learned in RCIA, in my parish, in Catholic school, as a completed curriculum — or as a living deposit I am called to inhabit more deeply?
The apostolic structure Paul invokes also challenges the privatization of morality. To receive instructions "through the Lord Jesus" and "through us" (the apostles and their successors) is to understand that moral life is not self-constructed. In an age of "morality by personal GPS," this passage invites Catholics to return to the Catechism, to their confessor, to Magisterial teaching not as external impositions but as a road already walked by Christ, given to us to walk more abundantly. Practically: examine an area of moral life where you have plateaued — and ask your confessor how to "abound more and more" there.
Commentary