3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:
3 It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification:
3 God wants you to live a pure life. Keep yourselves from sexual promiscuity.
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;
3 God's will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin.
2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.
2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
2 Certainly - but only within a certain context. It's good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder.
2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
2 But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.
(Read 1 Corinthians 7:1-9)
The apostle tells the Corinthians that it was good, in that juncture of time, for Christians to keep themselves single. Yet he says that marriage, and the comforts of that state, are settled by Divine wisdom. Though none may break the law of God, yet that perfect rule leaves men at liberty to serve him in the way most suited to their powers and circumstances, of which others often are very unfit judges. All must determine for themselves, seeking counsel from God how they ought to act.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:3
Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
(Read 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8)
To abide in the faith of the gospel is not enough, we must abound in the work of faith. The rule according to which all ought to walk and act, is the commandments given by the Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctification, in the renewal of their souls under the influences of the Holy Spirit, and attention to appointed duties, constituted the will of God respecting them. In aspiring after this renewal of the soul unto holiness, strict restraint must be put upon the appetites and senses of the body, and on the thoughts and inclinations of the will, which lead to wrong uses of them. The Lord calls none into his family to live unholy lives, but that they may be taught and enabled to walk before him in holiness. Some make light of the precepts of holiness, because they hear them from men; but they are God's commands, and to break them is to despise God.