1 Thessalonians 5:14
Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.
It calls for different care for different needs, warning those who are disorderly, encouraging those who are fainthearted, upholding those who are weak, and remaining patient toward everyone. That patience and tender interest are owed to all people, not to fellow believers only, because Christ died for all. It reveals Jesus joined to His people by a love stronger than family ties, faithfully supporting the weak, steadying the wavering, comforting the fainthearted, and healing the wounds of the soul. That warning, comforting, and upholding must be done without harshness, scolding, faultfinding, or discouraging words, but with tenderness, pity, prayer, and plain yet searching honesty. Comfort for the discouraged and fainthearted is to be given while they live through timely sympathy, kind and cheerful words, and patient considerate help, since loving encouragement does more good than criticism and constant admonition does more harm than good.
Fourfold Call to Care
The verse lays down a fourfold differentiated response to need: admonish and warn those who are disorderly and unruly, encourage and comfort the fainthearted and fearful, uphold and support the weak, and show patience toward everyone. Correcting the disorderly, encouraging the fearful, upholding the weak, and remaining patient with all are duties to be obeyed and taken into life, by which believers draw near to God through refusing injustice to brethren. These duties require direct and plain warning where needed, with testimony plain and searching, yet they must be carried out without a censorious or faultfinding spirit, without harshness, scolding, fretting, or discouraging words. Those who struggle to believe are instead to be treated tenderly, pitied, and prayed for.
The care and patience urged extend to all people, not to fellow believers only.
Warning the unruly includes confronting improper affection for someone other than one's spouse, to be read and studied by a man expressing love to a woman besides his wife. Such love is exposed as base and not true sacred love at all, called by its right name as lust of the mind and the fruit of corrupt thoughts. The warning requires no more talk of love to another woman, lest continuance under delusive representations forfeit a position of influence, bring reproach upon God's work, and cheapen those who respond.
Its mutual care means those long in the faith act as their brothers' keepers, while sisters comfort the feebleminded, encourage fellow believers, and pray with them. This shared work cherishes the church's love in purity and simplicity.
Christ's Supporting Love
1 Thessalonians 5:14 reveals Jesus united to His people by a love far greater and more enduring than human family ties. He gives continual assurance of His faithfulness to support the weak, confirm the wavering, comfort the feebleminded, and bind up the bruises of the soul. That supporting and comforting work flows from wondrous love that led Him to yield up His honor, His glory, His royal throne and royal court and for their sakes become poor, that through His poverty believers might be made rich.
He gave all He had, His riches, His glory, and His precious life, enduring the agony of Gethsemane and Calvary. By this He secures believers to Himself, ensures their eternal salvation, reveals His love, woos people from sin, and clasps repentant believers with divine tenderness as an enduring, unchanging friend. Because Christ died for all people, all are to be treated with patience.
Practicing Patient Help
The verse is a duty to be obeyed and taken into life, by which believers draw near to God through refusing injustice to brethren. Keeping it means fearing to sin against God by offending His children, and refusing to wound or bruise His heritage. It means showing tender interest for all for whom Christ died while hoping in His mercy for sinners. It requires cultivating kindness and forbearance and love and representing Christ in character. It forbids evil speaking, accusing, faultfinding, and misrepresenting brethren when personal ideas are not honored as of highest value, because God loves them as He loves us and takes as much pleasure in them as in us.
Conduct shows what a person's influence and principles are worth, with self seen in all that is done when self is the center and Christ's likeness borne when Christ is the center. Warning, comforting, and supporting must be done without faultfinding, harshness, scolding, fretting, or discouraging words. Testimony should be plain and searching. Those who struggle to believe are to be treated tenderly, pitied, and prayed for. Comfort and support for the discouraged, fainthearted, and weak should be given while they are alive through timely sympathy, kind words, and patient, considerate treatment, rather than expressed only after death.
Help is to be patient, self-denying, zealous, faithful, intelligent, and considerate, building one another up in the most holy faith and strengthening those weak in the faith. This is the work of faithful stewards of God's grace who as sons and daughters of God prove the light of the world amid moral darkness, keep the standard of truth uplifted, and testify to pure truth by words and influence. Sharing Christ's glory includes sharing in His ministry to the weak, wretched, and despondent with patient, persevering effort. Kind and encouraging words spoken with constant cheerful effort do wonders, while less criticism brings greater influence for good and frequent strong admonitions do more harm than good. A loving word of encouragement corrects a hasty temper and wilful disposition more than faultfinding and censure, and those treated kindly become open to improvement, so all are to practice Christlike kindness in patient, humble, faithful service that promotes the welfare of God's people and brings rest to the soul.
Comforting the feebleminded and supporting the weak means speaking right words that are pure and true and full of sympathy and love and doing right actions that help and bless the weak. It means never growing weary, and though meeting trial always remaining brave and cheerful to bring joy and courage into other lives. On this influence the triumph of Christianity depends, as believers fight the good fight of faith and strive lawfully with day-by-day seeking of greater power to help those around them. Comforting the fainthearted does not mean constantly exhorting and stirring a depressed person to action, since pressing him with exhortation and many suggestions confuses his mind, hinders more than it helps, and oppresses more than it relieves. The right help is to do less stirring up, leave him in peace alone with his God, and let him be guided by the Spirit.
Comforting the fainthearted means having the Spirit of Christ and the law of kindness in the heart and on the lips, and being a blessing to all. It means taking the noblest revenge on enemies by doing them kindness instead of returning malice for malice and injury for injury which only makes enemies more bitter. In discouragement it means refusing words of unbelief and murmuring and instead speaking words of encouragement that strengthen the fainthearted and sympathize with the afflicted.