second unit but also serves to remind the readers yet again (this marks the eleventh of fourteen occurrences of the vocative adelphoi in the letter: 1:4; 2:1, 9, 14, 17; 3:7; 4:1, 10b, 13; 5:1, 4, 12, 14, 25) of their status as members of a new social group—a family of “brothers” and “sisters” who will not experience judgment on the day of the Lord. Second, the Thessalonian believers “are not in darkness.” The use of the simple verb “to be” in the present tense here and twice more in the following
Page 354