Not in the lust of concupiscence, for such a method of using one’s faculties, such an attempt to acquire mastery of vital powers, is really to abandon them altogether to others. This notion is involved in the very word here translated “lust,” which is more often rendered “passion,” and implies something which befalls a man, something done to him: “Not in the helpless passivity of concupiscence” or uncontrolled desire.
The Gentiles which know not God. — Mind the punctuation. The readers of the letter were “Gentiles which knew God.” Their brother Thessalonians. are held up to them as melancholy examples of men who are trying in the wrong way to show their power over themselves. Remark that this is not one of the crimes which he alleges against Jews.