1 Thessalonians 5:11 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Comfort. — Rightly translated. St. Paul is here catching up once more the thought of 1 Thessalonians 4:18. They are to comfort one another about their communion with the dead who live in Christ; but perhaps the word also involves the comfort to be imparted by the thought of predestination to earn salvation. The command to “Edify one another” certainly refers to the instruction given in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10 :” Build one another up “in these settled purposes of holy living. This metaphor of building is one which St. Paul uses frequently in his later writings, and which St. Peter (who uses the same) may have adopted from his brother Apostle. St. Paul considers not only the whole Catholic Church to be a great Temple of the Spirit, the stones of which are individual souls (1 Peter 2:5; 1 Corinthians 3:16), but each believer is a temple too, complete in himself, or, rather, in continual process of completion (1 Corinthians 6:19).