Sleep - 1 Thessalonians 5:5-13

5:5 - Continuing with the “thief in the night” analogy, Paul speaks to the Thessalonian saints saying, “ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: We are not of the night, nor of darkness.” Those “home owners” in the analogy are the ones who will not only be surprised by Jesus’ second coming, but will also be very disturbed and disrupted in their lifestyles. Interestingly, the article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com quotes Neal A. Maxwell as teaching, “True, when He comes, Jesus will come ‘as a thief in the night.’ Those unaware will be as if sleeping, only to be interrupted suddenly by the unexpected. The ‘intruder,’ however, will be the Lord of the Manor come home! A secular society is the most likely cultural candidate to be especially surprised by a Jesus who comes ‘as a thief in the night.’ A society indifferent, even hostile, to things spiritual will be truly astonished. The boredom of self-serving secularism and the masking of materialism will cause their devotees to be unaware of events which foretell Christ’s coming. One who is wise, however, will take time both to smell the flowers and to check the leaves on the fig tree.” That was a fascinating explanation about the analogy of the “thief in the night,” because Thief implies that Jesus would be a stranger coming into a place where he doesn’t belong and taking things that aren’t his, essentially victimizing the tenants. But considering Neal A. Maxwell’s explanation, we can see that Jesus is the real home owner and the tenants are actually living in the house at His pleasure. It’s not so much that his return will be them being victimized, as much as it is that they will have to account for their actions and live according to His law that they don’t want. 5:6-10 - Those who are “children of light” are counseled to “not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.” Now clearly Paul is not saying to literally not sleep, but he’s referencing the common human practices that happen at night, sleeping and partying. Those who are in the dark about the events leading up to the second coming, who will be surprised, are either sleeping or getting drunk. In real life this could be equated to actual partying, or having our focus on worldly things like wealth, materialism, power, and physical pleasures. Or it could also be just not paying attention, it doesn’t have to actively be sin, but could just be apathy. Apathy towards others, apathy towards our responsibilities, apathy towards our own salvation. If “sleep” is apathy, then Paul says that being awake is for us to “watch and be sober,” which I take to mean that we are to be actively engaged in our own salvation and that of others while keeping our focus on spiritual progression. Paul says we can do this by “putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” I don’t remember if we’ve done the armor of God section yet, but this is a reference to that idea. We are to protect our heart and spirit with our faith in the Savior and the plan of salvation, and with love for ourselves, our God, and our fellow man. These are the things that are supposed to keep us watchful and sober. And we can do this because faith is not a static attribute, it’s a living, breathing entity that dwells inside us and can live or die in a short amount of time. I might even go as far as saying that faith can be high maintenance, which normally I abhor, but in this instance, I really like it. I want to say that there is no plateau, your faith is either growing or dying, but I haven’t found that to be the case for me. I keep the commandments; I am temple worthy and that’s a pretty good place to be. And when I’m there but not doing the blog as much or not praying as hard as I could I don’t feel like I’m dying spiritually, it’s just not as pronounced of a spiritual “high” as I get when I am doing those things. When I’ve been actively breaking the commandments, yeah, that’s spiritually dying, but not going above and beyond doesn’t hurt me necessarily, but I don’t grow very much then either. There must be levels to faith then I guess, and the growth and cultivation of faith must be a simple process but complicated at the same time. I guess the only thing that matters is that we are doing our best at the time and slowly our best will get better and better. We have to trust Jesus with the process, “who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.” I think that Paul is referencing saints who died before Jesus’ return and those who will be mortal during that time both enjoying immortality. 5:11-13 – We can use this knowledge and our faith in it to be comforted “and edify one another.” I don’t know if Paul’s speaking to us as members generally or if he’s speaking to the Church leadership specifically, but he asks that we “know them which labour among you… and to esteem them very highly in love… and be at peace among yourselves.” There are a couple of interesting points made by these statements. The first comes from the IM which says, “Although in these verses Paul did not mention specific offices as he did in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, these teachings suggest that even at this early date (around A.D. 52) there was some sort of a structure of Church leadership. Some modern scholars suggest that the early Church did not have any leadership hierarchy and that leadership structures developed much later, perhaps in the second century. It is possible, however, that the early branches of the Church had a less formal leadership structure than the bishops, elders, and deacons described later in Paul’s writings. This would parallel the early days of the Restoration, when Church leadership started with only a first and second elder, with the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and so on developing later.” I love when we are able to connect dots between the original ancient church and our modern-day structure and practice. I also think that this is Paul’s way of asking the Thessalonian saints to sustain their priesthood leadership, just like we are asked to today. And really, what does it even mean to sustain our leaders? I think part of it means supporting them when they ask us to do something. And that’s for bishops, stake presidents, primary presidents, prophets, etc. Or at least pray about what their counsel means to us specifically, which I just realized that I need to start doing. I think it means helping out where we are needed, to lighten the load of everyone, those in need and those in charge of providing for the needy. And I think it’s not holding them to such a high standard that they are destined to fail from our perspective. Everyone is just human and doing their best, and the standard of that best is their past experiences and perspectives. I’ve had many adversarial encounters with local church leadership, mostly as a teenager but I realized that I am in charge of my own salvation and can always gain guidance and perspective specific to my needs directly from God.