What is the context?
Paul moves from his prayer for holiness to concrete instruction. He commends the way the believers already live and urges further growth under the authority of the Lord Jesus.
God’s will includes abstaining from sexual immorality, conducting oneself with honor, and refusing to exploit another person. The warnings about God’s judgment and His gift of the Holy Spirit make this a matter of faithfulness to God, not merely a local social preference.
This reference is part of 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8. Read the larger group to keep the command within Paul’s whole instruction.
How is this passage commonly understood?
The wording of verse 4 allows different explanations. The BSB understands it as controlling one’s body. Wesley understands it as possessing one’s wife honorably. Thayer’s entry for σκεῦος, skeuos (SKYOOH-os), meaning a vessel or implement, records both the wife and body readings in this verse. The surrounding command is sexual holiness in either case.
The USCCB notes also discuss a narrower proposal involving unlawful marriage within a family. That is a proposed explanation of the local problem, not information Paul explicitly supplies. The warnings against lust and exploitation remain part of the passage whichever specific problem prompted it.
What is our position?
Prayer and Faith identifies the holiness of believers as part of God’s revealed will. Here Paul makes that concrete by commanding sexual purity; this verse should be read with the instructions that follow.