TRV
Translation
Complete Jewish Bible
so let’s not be asleep, like the rest are; on the contrary, let us stay alert and sober.
Berean Standard Bible
So then, let us not sleep as the others do, but let us remain awake and sober.
American Standard Version
so then let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober.
World English Bible Messianic
so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober.
Young's Literal Translation
so, then, we may not sleep as also the others, but watch and be sober,
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In the KJVVerse 29,628 of 31,102
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Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 6–10
6 ¶ Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
On what had been said, the apostle grounds seasonable exhortations to several needful duties.
I. To watchfulness and sobriety, Th1 5:6. These duties are distinct, yet they mutually befriend one another. For, while we are compassed about with so many temptations to intemperance and excess, we shall not keep sober, unless we be upon our guard, and, unless we keep sober, we shall not long watch. 1. Then let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch; we must not be secure and careless, nor indulge spiritual sloth and idleness. We must not be off our watch, but continually upon our guard against sin, and temptation to it. The generality of men are too careless of their duty and regardless of their spiritual enemies. They say, Peace and safety, when they are in the greatest danger, doze away their precious moments on which eternity depends, indulging idle dreams, and have no more thoughts nor cares about another world than men that are asleep have about this. Either they do not consider the things of another world at all, because they are asleep; or they do not consider them aright, because they dream. But let us watch, and act like men that are awake, and that stand upon their guard. 2. Let us also be sober, or temperate and moderate. Let us keep our natural desires and appetites after the things of this world within due bounds. Sobriety is usually opposed to excess in meats and drinks, and here particularly it is opposed to drunkenness; but it also extends to all other temporal things. Thus our Saviour warned his disciples to take heed lest their hearts should be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come on them unawares, Luk 21:34. Our moderation then, as to all temporal things, should be known to all men, because the Lord is at hand. Besides this, watchfulness and sobriety are most suitable to the Christian's character and privilege, as being children of the day; because those that sleep sleep in the night, and those that are drunken are drunken in the night, Th1 5:7. It is a most reproachful thing for men to sleep away the day-time, which is for work and not for sleep, to be drunken in the day, when so many eyes are upon them, to behold their shame. It was not so strange if those who had not the benefit of divine revelation suffered themselves to be lulled asleep by the devil in carnal security, and if they laid the reins upon the neck of their appetites, and indulged themselves in all manner of riot and excess; for it was night-time with them. They were not sensible of their danger, therefore they slept; they were not sensible of their duty, therefore they were drunk: but it ill becomes Christians to do thus. What! shall Christians, who have the light of the blessed gospel shining in their faces, be careless about their souls, and unmindful of another world? Those who have so many eyes upon them should conduct themselves with peculiar propriety.
II. To be well armed as well as watchful: to put on the whole armour of God. This is necessary in order to such sobriety as becomes us and will be a preparation for the day of the Lord, because our spiritual enemies are many, and mighty, and malicious. They draw many to their interest, and keep them in it, by making them careless, secure, and presumptuous, by making them drunk - drunk with pride, drunk with passion, drunk and giddy with self-conceit, drunk with the gratifications of sense: so that we have need to arm ourselves against their attempts, by putting on the spiritual breast-plate to keep the heart, and the spiritual helmet to secure the head; and this spiritual armour consists of three great graces of Christians, faith, love, and hope, Th1 5:8. 1. We must live by faith, and this will keep us watchful and sober. If we believe that the eye of God (who is a spirit) is always upon us, that we have spiritual enemies to grapple with, that there is a world of spirits to prepare for, we shall see reason to watch and be sober. Faith will be our best defence against the assaults of our enemies. 2. We must get a heart inflamed with love; and this also will be our defence. True and fervent love to God, and the things of God, will keep us watchful and sober, and hinder our apostasy in times of trouble and temptation. 3. We must make salvation our hope, and should have a lively hope of it. This good hope, through grace, of eternal life, will be as a helmet to defend the head, and hinder our being intoxicated with the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season. If we have hope of salvation, let us take heed of doing any thing that shall shake our hopes, or render us unworthy of or unfit for the great salvation we hope for. Having mentioned salvation and the hope of it, the apostle shows what grounds and reasons Christians have to hope for this salvation, as to which observe, He says nothing of their meriting it. No, the doctrine of our merits is altogether unscriptural and antiscriptural; there is no foundation of any good hope upon that account. But our hopes are to be grounded, (1.) Upon God's appointment: because God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation, Th1 5:9. If we would trace our salvation to the first cause, that is God's appointment. Those who live and die in darkness and ignorance, who sleep and are drunken as in the night, are, it is but too plain, appointed to wrath; but as for those who are of the day, if they watch and be sober, it is evident that they are appointed to obtain salvation. And the sureness and firmness of the divine appointment are the great support and encouragement of our hope. Were we to obtain salvation by our own merit or power, we could have but little or no hope of it; but seeing we are to obtain it by virtue of God's appointment, which we are sure cannot be shaken (for his purpose, according to election, shall stand), on this we build unshaken hope, especially when we consider, (2.) Christ's merit and grace, and that salvation is by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. Our salvation therefore is owing to, and our hopes of it are grounded on, Christ's atonement as well as God's appointment: and, as we should think on God's gracious design and purpose, so also on Christ's death and sufferings, for this end, that whether we wake or sleep (whether we live or die, for death is but a sleep to believers, as the apostles had before intimated) we should live together with Christ live in union and in glory with him for ever. And, as it is the salvation that Christians hope for to be for ever with the Lord, so one foundation of their hope is their union with him. And if they are united with Christ, and live in him, and live to him, here, the sleep of death will be no prejudice to the spiritual life, much less to the life of glory hereafter. On the contrary, Christ died for us, that, living and dying, we might be his; that we might live to him while we are here, and live with him when we go hence.
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) — Commentary on the Whole Bible. This section covers verses 6–10. Public domain.
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Clement of AlexandriaAD 215
The Instructor Book 2
We should sleep half-awake.… A man who is asleep is not good for anything, any more than a man who is dead. Therefore, even during the night we should rouse ourselves from sleep often and give praise to God. Blessed are they who have kept watch for him, for they make themselves like the angels whom we speak of as ever watchful.
Clement of AlexandriaAD 215
The Stromata Book 4
But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as an helmet the hope of salvation."
John ChrysostomAD 407
Homily on 1 Thessalonians 9
"So then let us not sleep, as do also the rest, 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. But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet the hope of salvation."
Here he shows, that to be in the day depends on ourselves. For here indeed, in the case of the present day and night, it does not depend on ourselves. But night comes even against our will, and sleep overtakes us when we do not wish it. But with respect to that night and that sleep, it is not so, but it is in our power always to have it day, it is in our power always to watch. For to shut the eyes of the soul, and to bring on the sleep of wickedness, is not of nature, but of our own choice.
"But let us watch," he says, "and be sober." For it is possible to sleep while awake, by doing nothing good. Wherefore he has added, "and be sober." For even by day, if any one watches, but is not sober, he will fall into numberless dangers, so that sobriety is the intensity of watchfulness. The drunkenness he here speaks of is not that from wine only, but that also which comes of all vices. For riches and the desire of wealth is a drunkenness of the soul, and so carnal lust; and every sin you can name is a drunkenness of the soul.
But it is not sufficient to watch and be sober, we must also be armed. For if a man watch and is sober, but has not arms, the robbers soon dispatch him. "Putting on the breastplate of faith and love," he says. He has shown what it is to watch and be sober, to have "the breastplate of faith and love." Not a common faith, he says, but as nothing can soon pierce through a breastplate, but it is a safe wall to the breast; so do thou also, he says, surround thy soul with faith and love, and none of the fiery darts of the devil can ever be fixed in it. For where the power of the soul is preoccupied with the armor of love, all the devices of those who plot against it are vain and ineffectual.
"And for a helmet the hope of salvation." For as the helmet guards the vital part in us, surrounding the head and covering it on every side, so also this hope does not suffer the reason to falter, but sets it upright as the head, not permitting anything from without to fall upon it. And whilst nothing falls on it, neither does it slip of itself. For it is not possible that one who is fortified with such arms as these, should ever fall. For "now abideth faith, hope, love." (1 Cor. xiii. 13)
John ChrysostomAD 407
ON THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD 5.6
So that you may know that the prayers which are uttered in time of affliction would have the best chance of being heard, hear what the prophet says, “In my affliction I cried to the Lord, and he listened to me.” Therefore, let us stir up our conscience to fervor, let us afflict our soul with the memory of our sins, not so that it is crushed with anxiety but so that we may make it ready to be heard, so that we make it live in sobriety and watchfulness and ready to attain heaven itself. Nothing puts carelessness and negligence to flight the way grief and affliction do. They bring together our thoughts from every side and make our mind turn back to ponder itself. The man who prays in this way, in his affliction, after many a prayer, can bring joy into his own soul.
PrudentiusAD 410
HYMNS 1.1-8
The winged messenger of day
Sings loud, foretelling dawn’s approach,
And Christ in stirring accents calls
Our slumbering souls to life with him.
“Away,” he cries, “with dull repose,
The sleep of death and sinful sloth;
With hearts now sober, just and pure,
Keep watch, for I am very near.”
Leo the GreatAD 461
SERMONS 32.1
Wherefore, let us honor this sacred day, the day on which the author of our salvation appeared. Whom the wise men revered as an infant in his crib, let us worship as all-powerful in heaven. Just as they offered to the Lord mystical kinds of gifts from their treasures, let us bring forth from our hearts things that are worthy of God. Although he himself bestows all good things, he nevertheless asks for the fruit of our effort. For the kingdom of heaven comes not to those who sleep but to those who work and watch according to the Lord’s command. If we do not render his gifts ineffective, we may deserve to receive what he promised through the very things which he has given.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.
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SUMMARY
First Thessalonians 5:6 serves as a powerful exhortation for believers to live in a state of spiritual vigilance and clear-mindedness, contrasting their expected conduct with that of the spiritually unaware world. Following Paul's teaching on the unexpected return of the Lord, this verse calls the "children of light" to actively resist spiritual apathy and maintain a disciplined, watchful posture, prepared for the Day of the Lord and distinct from those who remain in darkness.
CONTEXT
Literary Context: This verse is a direct and urgent imperative derived from the preceding theological exposition in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5. Paul has just explained that the "day of the Lord" will arrive unexpectedly, "as a thief in the night" (1 Thessalonians 5:2), for those who are "in darkness" and unprepared. However, he reassures the Thessalonian believers that they are "children of light and children of the day" (1 Thessalonians 5:5), implying they should not be caught off guard. Therefore, 1 Thessalonians 5:6 functions as the practical application and logical conclusion of this distinction, providing a clear command on how believers should live in light of this eschatological reality, setting their behavior apart from "others" (the unregenerate world).
Historical & Cultural Context: The Thessalonian church was a relatively young community, founded amidst persecution and facing questions about the return of Christ and the fate of deceased believers. They lived in a Roman provincial city, a bustling port with diverse religious and philosophical influences. The concept of "watching" and "being sober" would have resonated with various cultural roles, such as guards on duty, sailors navigating treacherous waters, or citizens preparing for a significant event. Spiritually, "sleep" could allude to the moral laxity and spiritual indifference prevalent in pagan society, where revelry and lack of self-control were common. Paul's exhortation thus called them to a counter-cultural lifestyle, distinct from the surrounding pagan norms and aligned with their new identity in Christ.
Key Themes: 1 Thessalonians 5:6 contributes significantly to several major themes within 1 Thessalonians and Pauline theology. The primary theme is Spiritual Vigilance and Readiness for Christ's Return. Paul emphasizes that while the exact timing of the Lord's return is unknown (1 Thessalonians 5:1), believers must live in a constant state of preparedness, not complacency. This links to the theme of Distinction in Conduct, where Paul clearly delineates the expected behavior of believers (children of light) from non-believers (children of darkness), echoing the contrast found earlier in 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5. Furthermore, the call to "be sober" highlights the theme of Self-Control and Clear-mindedness, emphasizing a disciplined life free from spiritual intoxication or worldly distractions that could hinder spiritual awareness, a concept also explored in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8.
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Paul employs several potent literary devices in 1 Thessalonians 5:6 to convey his urgent message. The most prominent is Metaphor, where "sleep" is used to represent spiritual apathy, moral indifference, or unpreparedness for the Lord's return, while "watch" and "sober" metaphorically describe spiritual vigilance, alertness, and clear-minded self-control. This creates a vivid contrast between two distinct states of being. Paul also utilizes Antithesis or Contrast, directly pitting the actions of "us" (believers, children of light) against "others" (non-believers, those in darkness). This stark opposition underscores the unique calling and responsibility of Christians. Furthermore, the verse functions as an Exhortation or Imperative, using direct commands ("let us not sleep," "let us watch," "be sober") to impress upon the Thessalonians the critical importance of their conduct in light of eschatological realities. The structure itself is a form of Parallelism, presenting a negative command followed by a positive one that clarifies the desired behavior.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
The call to watchfulness and sobriety in 1 Thessalonians 5:6 is deeply rooted in biblical eschatology and ethical living. It underscores the New Testament emphasis on living in light of Christ's return, not with fear or complacency, but with active, Spirit-empowered readiness. This readiness is not about predicting dates but about cultivating a consistent spiritual and moral posture. It reflects the understanding that our present actions are inextricably linked to our future hope. The distinction between "children of light" and "children of darkness" is a recurring biblical theme, highlighting the transformative power of the Gospel and the ethical demands it places on believers to live lives that reflect their new identity in Christ. This verse serves as a foundational text for understanding Christian vigilance as a practical outworking of faith and hope.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
For believers today, 1 Thessalonians 5:6 remains a vital and challenging command. In a world increasingly prone to spiritual distraction, moral relativism, and eschatological indifference, this verse calls us to a counter-cultural lifestyle of intentional vigilance. It reminds us that our identity as "children of light" demands a distinctive way of living—one marked by spiritual alertness, clear-headed discernment, and disciplined self-control. This isn't about anxiety or legalism, but about living with a profound awareness of God's presence, His ongoing work in the world, and the ultimate hope of Christ's return. It means actively resisting the spiritual drowsiness induced by worldly pursuits, media saturation, or even religious complacency, and instead cultivating a vibrant, active faith that is ready for whatever the Lord calls us to, whether His return or His daily direction. Our lives should be a testament to the reality that we are not of the night, but of the day.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
What does it mean to "not sleep" in a spiritual sense?
Answer: To "not sleep" in a spiritual sense, as exhorted in 1 Thessalonians 5:6, means to avoid spiritual apathy, indifference, or moral laxity. It implies being alert and aware of spiritual realities, particularly the unexpected return of Christ and the ongoing work of God in the world. Just as physical sleep renders one unaware and vulnerable, spiritual sleep signifies a state of unpreparedness and spiritual dullness, contrasting sharply with the vigilance expected of "children of light" (1 Thessalonians 5:5). It's a call to active engagement with one's faith and the world, rather than passive detachment.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
While 1 Thessalonians 5:6 is a direct command to believers, its deepest fulfillment and motivation are found in Christ himself. Jesus consistently called His disciples to "watch" and "be ready" for His return, often using parables like the Ten Virgins or the Faithful and Wise Servant to illustrate the necessity of vigilance. He is the ultimate example of one who was always "watching" and "sober," perfectly attuned to the Father's will and prepared for His appointed time, even to the point of His suffering and death on the cross (Luke 22:42). Our ability to "watch and be sober" is not merely a matter of human effort, but a Spirit-empowered response to the indwelling Christ, who Himself is our hope and the light that dispels all darkness (Colossians 1:27). Thus, living a vigilant and sober life is ultimately a reflection of our union with Christ, who is the "light of the world" (John 8:12), enabling us to walk as "children of light" until His glorious return (Ephesians 5:8).