‘Comfort and Edify’

Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.

I Thessalonians 5:11

The Scriptures are full of admonishments and outright commands. We cannot make light of these commands or ignore them. Having said that, we can approach those commands in a Christ-filled or Christless fashion. The ancient Jewish scholars and the Pharisees of Christ’s day approached the commands of Scripture in a distinctly ‘Christless’ fashion. We want to be careful, as proclaimers of the New Testament, not to do the same thing. Our text for today declares, ‘Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.’ We want to pay particular attention to the word, ‘Therefore.’ To what does it refer? It refers to the preceding, ‘For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.’ We ‘comfort…and edify one another’ on the basis of the Person and Work of Christ. We may easily extrapolate this out to every other admonition and command. All the rationale for all of our behavior proceeds upon the foundation that Christ has lived and died and risen again to purchase our redemption. We behave as we do in the light of that with all that it entails. Therefore, we ‘comfort…and edify each other.’ We have no other motive more worthy than that. We live, we love, we comfort, we edify, we rejoice, we give thanks, we eat, we drink, we do whatever we do, ‘for Jesus’ Sake,’ Who lived, died, and rose again for us.

O, Christ, our Savior, our Helper, and our Friend,
We rejoice that You are the Great Reason for all that we do.
We praise You that we may look to You,
and from Your Example we may learn how best to serve others.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning