Commentaries:
The advice given to the Christian is to watch. While asleep, one cannot watch. The Greek word for "watch" can be better translated "alert," and the word for "sober" is more correctly "self-controlled." So Paul advises, "Let us be alert and self-controlled." In other words, while all of the distractions of this world spin dizzyingly around us, we have to be alert to their appeal and controlled enough to discipline ourselves to prioritize in the right way.
Though such a task is not easy, we must forcibly set our wills to pay attention to those eternal things that are more important. If we fail in this task, we may begin conducting our lives in darkness, and living in darkness leads eventually to spiritual blindness. It is vital to our spiritual health to remain alert and self-controlled!
John W. Ritenbaugh
The World, the Church and Laodiceanism
These people were so far gone already in around ad 50 that they were being neglectful—they were going to sleep spiritually. In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, they all slumbered and slept, and the Thessalonians were now going to sleep spiritually themselves.
John W. Ritenbaugh
How to Know We Love Christ
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