1 Thessalonians 4:13
“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
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Paul had been forced to leave Thessalonica early, and the young congregation worried about believers who had died before Christ's promised return. This verse begins his answer.
What Does 1 Thessalonians 4:13 Mean?
Paul writes to settle the grief of believers who had buried fellow Christians and feared those loved ones might miss the Lord's return. He does not tell them to stop mourning -- he tells them not to mourn the way people do when death looks like the end. The word translated "asleep" pictures death as rest, not extinction, a temporary condition from which the sleeper will wake.
The phrase "others which have no hope" describes those who face the grave with nothing beyond it. Believers grieve differently because they carry a confident expectation: those who have died in Christ are not lost but waiting. Paul wants the Thessalonians informed rather than "ignorant," because accurate knowledge of what God has promised is what steadies the heart in loss. Grief is honest and allowed; despair is not necessary. The verse opens a passage meant to comfort, anchoring sorrow in the certainty that death does not have the last word for those who belong to the Lord.
In the Original Language
The word for "asleep" is koimaomai, a gentle term for death implying rest and future waking; "hope" is elpis, confident expectation rather than wishful longing.
Cross References
“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:”
- John 11:25
“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.”
- 1 Corinthians 15:20
“Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
- 1 Thessalonians 4:18
Application
When you grieve someone who died in faith, let your sorrow be real but let it be shaped by hope, not hopelessness.