1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 But of the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that I write to you.… are often found together, but always in the plural in the New Testament (Acts 1:7), and not unfrequently in the LXX, and the Apocrypha (Wisd. 7:18 Wisd. 8:8), both instructive passages, and Daniel 2:21): and in the singular (Ecclesiastes 3:1; Daniel 7:12). Grotius conceives the difference between them to consist merely in the greater length of the former. But this is insufficient, and fails to reach the heart of the matter. Chronos is time simply as such; the succession of moments (Matthew 25:19; Revelation 10:6; Hebrews 4:7). Keiros is time as it brings forth its several births; thus "time of harvest" (Matthew 13:30); "time of figs" (Mark 11:13); "due time" (Romans 5:6); and, above all, compare, as constituting a miniature essay on the word (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). Time, it will thus appear, embraces all possible seasons, and being the larger, more inclusive word, may be often used where season would have been equally suitable, though not the converse; thus "full time" (Luke 1:57), "fulness of time" (Galatians 4:4), where we should rather have expected "season," which phrase does actually occur in Ephesians 1:10. So we may confidently say that the "times of restitution" (Acts 3:21) are identical with the "seasons of refreshing" (Acts 3:19). Here, then, and in Acts 1:6, 7, "times" are spaces of time, and these contemplated under the aspect of their duration, over which the Church's history should extend; but the "seasons" are the joints and articulations in this time, the critical epoch-making periods foreordained of God (Acts 17:26); when all that has been slowly and without observation ripening through long ages is mature and comes to birth in grand decisive events, which constitute at once the close of one period and the commencement of another. Such, e.g., was the passing away with a great noise of the old Jewish dispensation; such again the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire; such the conversion of the Germanic tribes settled within the limits of the Empire; such the great revival which went along with the first institution of the mendicant orders; such, by better right, the Reformation; such, above all others, the Second Coming of the Lord in glory (Daniel 7:22). (Abp. Trench.) Parallel Verses KJV: But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. |
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