not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God;
Parallel translations
- WEB not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God;
- KJV Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:
- NKJV not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
- NASB not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
- NLT not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Believers are not to live in lustful passion like those who do not know God. Knowing God should change how one handles desire.
Overview
Paul contrasts the believer's purity with the "passion of lust" that marks the Gentiles "who don't know God." Ignorance of God and unbridled desire go together, while knowing God produces self-control. Sanctified living visibly distinguishes God's people from the surrounding culture.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Gal 4:8Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
- Acts 17:30–31Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent.
- Eph 4:17–19So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
- 2 Th 1:8in blazing fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
- Col 3:5Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.
- Eph 2:12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
- Rom 1:26For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
- Rom 1:28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
- 1 Pet 4:3For you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.
- 1 Cor 15:34Sober up as you ought, and stop sinning; for some of you are ignorant of God. I say this to your shame.
- Rom 1:24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another.
- Matt 6:32For the Gentiles strive after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
- Luke 12:30For the Gentiles of the world strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.
- Acts 17:23For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you.
- 1 Cor 1:21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Christ at the center
The believer waits for God's Son from heaven, Jesus who delivers from the wrath to come and who will return to gather his people to himself.
How 1 Thessalonians 4:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.