And here is the Latin / Vulgate translation: Semper gaudete.  Semper means “always.”   Gaudete is the title of a famed medieval Christmas song and is suitable translated by our English “rejoice:”

The lively, beautiful hymn Gaudete, such in Latin, is available on YouTube  here:

Digging Deeper #1:  The Verb “Rejoice”

The verb in the verse is translated in most Bibles by the term “rejoice,” we also see “celebrate,” “full of joy,” “joyful,” “full of joy,” “joy ye / you,” “be cheerful,” “be happy,” and the ever popular “have simcha.”

“Be happy” and “celebrate” have some overlap of meaning with “rejoice,” but such phrases convey something more outward, effusive.

But what about the word “rejoice” itself?  Is it referencing a feeling, like a warm inward glow that comes over a person perhaps on the occasion of a wonderful letter with great news from an old friend?

Or is “rejoice” an objective  concept (as opposed to subjective) by which I am to frame how I see ‘life’ itself, as it unfolds for me, as God’s redeemed one?

Before we try to answer this question (subjective / feeling vs. objective / framework), let us consider another important fact about “rejoice” in this verse, something not apparent from English translations.  It is this, in the Gr mss, the word translated “rejoice,” is the imperative form of:  Strong’s G5463. χαίρω chaírō.  That is, the verb is given as a command, and it is in the present tense and active voice (meaning that you and I, the implied subject of the verse, are to do the action, “to rejoice”).

One of the above English translations seeks to convey this by the use of an exclamation point.  But even this alone doesn’t capture the essence of a present tense, active voice, imperative command verb.

So, you and I create, as a volitional act of will, an deep, inward, glow?  Skilled professional actors can, and they are trained and paid to do so on command.  But that’s not what happens to ordinary folks like you and me, even as new creations in Christ, especially in the context of the adjoining word in the verse (“always,” as we’ll come to later).

The Implications of Rejoice as an Objective Frame

If rejoice is something that is not purely an inward, subjective feeling, though feelings may inevitably follow, what does that word really mean?

It will help us greatly here to think of another idea that appears as a far afield concept, namely the ancient issue of theodicy.  Theodicy is the issue of God’s justice (“theo” references “God,” and “dicy” is a shortened form of the Latin word from which we get “dictator,” i.e. all-powerful ruler).  The issue is framed like this:  if God is all powerful, and He is, powerful beyond all human  comprehension, and if God is love, and He is, loving beyond all human comprehension or comparison, then why is the world, life, our experience faced so often (or at all) with such sorrow, misery, pain, disappointment, and even downright awful evil, evil beyond human comprehension?  How do the results of life ‘square’ with God’s power and love, and we might add His infinite and all knowing (Omniscience)?

Grasping the core issue of theodicy–how God can be all that we customarily attribute to him (Good, Loving, Knowing, All Powerful) and, at the same time, His being just / righteous while “evil” exists and even prevails–is a conundrum that has plagued humans for thousands of years.   It is not our purpose to consider all the various feeble answers that man has proposed to resolve the issue.  Elsewhere, I have done a 45 week study on the Book of Job where God has ‘answered’ (in a certain sense) that matter, in what is likely the oldest book in the Bible.  That study is available at:  www.iDealmaking.org.

To get right to the point for our concern here, the core idea of the theodicy issue is this:  God has done, is doing, and will do, all things well–without error or unrighteousness–however incomprehensible it has been, is now, or will at some time yet-to-come.  There can be no other answer consistent with His basic character of Sovereignty.

The question then for me, and you, is the same one faced by Job:  will I curse or praise God to His face, in every circumstance?  And on exactly what basis will I make that binary choice (between praising God and cursing Him)?

The imperative command to rejoice 1 Thes 5:16 is exactly on this question.  Am I on that same, inexplicable journey that Job took, or do I exit on the ‘off ramp’ of Job’s wife’s reaction?  (Where she said:  “Curse God and Die!” recorded in Job 2:9).

What honors God beyond all measure, is the objective expression of claiming that what God is working on, in, through me, in the circumstances of my journey through life, is both right and good in that such will accomplish that which God intends and all-knowingly works it for good.

Digging Deeper #2:  The Context of “Always”

In a somewhat parallel sense to our discussion above, there are two possible alternative understandings of the second word of 1 Thes 5:16, “always.”

“Always” is actually a wonderful translation as we will discuss below.  But for a moment, let’s consider an off-point view of the word, namely meaning every thing in the sense of things around me, such as people and stuff.  For this view, one can picture sitting in an imaginary large room in the here and now of my life surrounded by everything I own or control, and every person with whom I have some interaction.  And so I can scan all the contents of this large room and for every distinct thing or person I am  “to rejoice,” seeing that this person or thing is the right and good thing that God has brought into my ‘room’ and so outfitted my life.

This (above) view is taking “all” in the specific sense of everything that now is.  Rejoicing in this way is a Biblical idea but it is not the significance of this verse in Thessalonians.  The word perfectly translated by “always” has to do with the passage of time, not the scanning about the stuff and people at hand.

What is so helpful here is the parsing the English word “always” into its two obvious parts–all + ways–and focusing on “ways.”

Think of how the word “way” and “ways” appears in some many journey words and phrases we use: walkway, roadway, pathway, the way, wayward, waylaid, no way, way home, straightaway, expressway, gateway, hideaway, underway, etc..

Here is some interesting background of the very word “way:”

The idea, then, of “always,” and the word in the original language from which it was translated is this:  

As our journey through life goes, in all the events and circumstances that come our way along that path we will follow to life’s end, we are given the opportunity, the privilege, and the difficulty of saying “God continues to do all things well,” or “I rest in God’s love [despite…],” in even the most unwanted of situations as we would have humanly chosen otherwise if we had that power of control.

The Bible and The Way

A worthy activity is to search the Bible for the word “way” itself, or related phrases such as “your ways.”  One useful website for doing this is:  www.BibleGateway.com (with yet another example use of “way” in the word “gateway.”)

The Way (Road) Home

There’s a wonderful poem by the late Robertson McQuilkin especially for older Christians needing encouragement to remain steadfast on the final stages of life.  Here is the poem that is part of the McQuilkin library (http://mcquilkinlibrary.com/sermons/homebeforedark/):

Let Me Get Home Before Dark – Poem

It’s sundown, Lord.

The shadows of my life stretch back
into the dimness of the years long spent.
I fear not death, for that grim foe betrays himself at last,
thrusting me forever into life:

Life with You, unsoiled and free.
But I do fear.
I fear the Dark Spectre may come too soon
– or do I mean, too late?
That I should end before I finish or
finish, but not well.
That I should stain Your honor, shame Your name,
grieve Your loving heart.

Few, they tell me, finish well . . .
Lord, let me get home before dark.

The darkness of a spirit
grown mean and small,
fruit shriveled on the vine,
bitter to the taste of my companions,
burden to be borne by those brave few
who love me still.
No, Lord. Let the fruit grow lush and sweet,
A joy to all who taste;
Spirit-sign of God at work,
stronger, fuller, brighter at the end.
Lord, let me get home before dark.

The darkness of tattered gifts,
rust-locked, half-spent or ill-spent,
A life that once was used of God
now set aside.
Grief for glories gone or
Fretting for a task God never gave.
Mourning in the hollow chambers of memory,
Gazing on the faded banners of victories long gone.
Cannot I run well unto the end?
Lord, let me get home before dark.

The outer me decays –
I do not fret or ask reprieve.
The ebbing strength but weans me from mother earth
and grows me up for heaven.
I do not cling to shadows cast by immortality.
I do not patch the scaffold lent to build the real, eternal me.
I do not clutch about me my cocoon,
vainly struggling to hold hostage
a free spirit pressing to be born.

But will I reach the gate
in lingering pain, body distorted, grotesque?
Or will it be a mind
wandering untethered among light phantasies or grim terrors?

Of Your grace, Father, I humbly ask. . .
Let me get home before dark.