I Thessalonians 5:1-2 – “Curiosity”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹But, brothers, you do not have a need to write to you concerning the times and the seasons, ²for you yourselves know accurately that [the] day of the Lord is coming as a thief in [the] night.

I’m going to go back to I Thess for a while, then eventually get back to Daniel 3. One thing I must say is that Greek is sure easy to work with! It is so similar to English. After working in the Aramaic of Daniel 2 for a while, I almost can’t believe how easy and smooth the Greek is back in the New Testament. The Aramaic and Hebrew of the Old Testament are almost like working in Chinese. There is seemingly nothing in them even faintly reminiscent of English. That in itself makes it fun to work with them, but, on the other hand, I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed before just how easy Greek is.

To the passage at hand.

Paul at the end of chapter 4 has been discussing prophecy and the Rapture in particular. There, of course, was no chapter break in his letter, so the words before us need to be read as a continuation of chapter 4. It would seem that what Paul is doing here in vv 1,2 is anticipating an (apparently) very predictable human response: curiosity. He’s been talking about the Lord “descending from Heaven with a shout,” and now (apparently) is anticipating the question “When?”

Humans are (again, apparently) incorrigibly curious. When Jesus was teaching the disciples about the end times, their response was: “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?” Then, even after He was resurrected and just before He returned to Heaven, they asked Him, “Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” To the first question He answered, “About that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” To the second He answered, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority.” When Jesus told Peter he would die an old man, Peter immediately looks at John and asks, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”

Curious. People are curious. They want to know. They want to know a lot of things. They generally don’t like to not know. I suppose, if we pondered it for a while, that it has something to do with us being made in the image of God. God Himself, of course, is Omniscient, all-knowing – perhaps our curiosity arises from our desire to be like Him in that way? Hmmmm. I’ll have to think about that one for a while.

At any rate, we do find ourselves curious beings and the subject of prophecy seems to always leave us wanting to know “When?” It is apparently almost irresistible. I say that because Jesus made it very clear, “No man knows the day or the hour,” and yet people all down through the ages have incessantly strove to pin-point that day and hour anyway, and then often have been able to generate large followings of other people, equally willing to completely disregard Jesus’ very clear words, even to the point of selling their property, giving all their money to their charlatan leader, and doing all sorts of other very foolish things.

Paul was able to write I Thessalonians 5:1,2, which I’ll write out in opposition to people’s insatiable curiosity: “But, brothers, you do not have a need to write to you concerning the times and the seasons, ²for you yourselves know accurately that [the] day of the Lord is coming as a thief in [the] night.” Paul says, “You know, very well,” that the Day of the Lord will come at an unexpected time. They already know that. Jesus made it clear. Paul has apparently made it clear. Yet he needs to say it again. “Like a thief in the night …”

The bottom-line of this is, in spite of our insatiable curiosity, this is one question for which we cannot and will not get an answer.

Will not. Period.

No matter how many times we ask. No matter how much we study. No matter how many “secret codes” we think we find in the Bible – this in one question for which we cannot and will not get an answer.

It seems to me that somewhere in my Bible studies I have run across this same issue. We know about the past. We live in the present. But the Lord has hidden from us the future. We all have to live in the present, honestly not knowing what will happen in the next five seconds – much less the next 50 or 100 or 1000 years. We all know it is true and yet there is something in us, this apparently insatiable curiosity, that leaves us yearning to somehow pierce that dark veil of the future.

I don’t think it is a matter that we somehow need to stop being curious. Again, that may be an expression of the image of God in us. But somehow it needs to be a sanctified curiosity. It needs to be a curiosity that humbly accepts what the Lord will not let us know. We must believe that He knows best, and even in what He withholds He is giving us what truly is best for us. And apparently it is best for us to live our lives knowing He will come but not knowing when.

He will come … like a thief!