4:15a
By the word of the Lord, we declare to you: Paul explained that Jesus himself spoke the words that he was telling them. (It can only be guessed which of the following Paul was referring to: (1) Sayings of Jesus that had been written down, and which were later included in the Gospels. Matthew 24:30–31 is an example. (2) A message from Jesus received directly by Paul. (3) “Sayings of Jesus” which were recorded by someone, but which were not included in the Gospels. The problem is that not everything Paul taught in these verses is found in the Gospels in their present form. So it must be that Paul learned from both sources (1) and (2). See the discussion on this in Best, pp. 189–193.) However, we do not know when Jesus said this or to whom. Therefore, you should not be specific in your translation. If you must say to whom Jesus said this, use as general a term as possible, for example, “according to what the Lord said to people.”
4:15b
that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord: This refers to any believer who was alive at the time when Paul was writing and therefore who might still be alive when Jesus returned.
4:15c
will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep: The Berean Standard Bible phrase by no means translates two different Greek words that both mean “not.” When both occur together, they make the sentence an emphatic negative. Paul was emphasizing that believers who had died would certainly not get left behind when the Lord returned. This was what the Thessalonians had been worrying about.
precede: This means that believers who are alive when Jesus returns will not meet Jesus before those who have already died.
those who have fallen asleep: See the note on 4:13a.
© 2002 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.