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1 Thessalonians 5:16-24: 6th Piece of Holiness Pi (6/7, Test everything, hold onto what is good)

Paul knows that Jesus may come back at any moment and so he comes up with this way for us to remember how to be blameless, how to be holy in preparation for this event. He gives us the 7 P's (Greek 'Pi') of holiness. Today we will have our sixth piece of pi.

Pi 6 = But test everything, hold onto what is good

This is one of the most important things (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:21). This is one of the primary reasons that we are given the Bible as it is, I imagine; so that indeed we can and we will test things and see what is right and see what is wrong. We must be like the Bereans (Acts 17:10-15). Paul applauds them for this very thing. They do not accept what the Apostle Paul is telling them simply because he is telling it to them; they put his words to the test. They search the scriptures; we need to search the scriptures. It is very important. Smart people sometimes make mistakes. Good people sometimes make mistakes and when we hear someone utter what we think may be a mistake we need to look it up in the Bible. We need to pray about it. We need to then approach them about it – because if they are wrong, they need to change and if we are wrong, we need to change and either way as we are smart enough to test what is good and what is evil, we will indeed grow.

Pi 6 = But test everything, hold onto what is good

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