Possess your Vessel

 ⁴ that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. 1 Thessalonians 4:4 NKJ

This passage is difficult to interpret with certainty. However, it is about God's moral will. And it is about sexual morality.

What's difficult is Paul's words "possess" and "vessel" and the flow of thought from verse 4 to 5.

Translations like the NIV give you an interpretation, and I think it is probably correct, but I prefer a translation of the Greek, and then let me interpret it.

that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, ⁵ not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; 1 Thessalonians 4:4-5 NIV

At the end of Chapter 3, Paul expresses desire that they increase in love toward one another. 3.13 seems to continue by connecting that love to being "blameless in holiness" for the coming of Christ. Through holiness, believers do love one another, because holiness fulfills those moral laws that are contained in those of the 10 commandments that have to do with human relationships.

Holiness and sanctification translate the same root Greek word. "Holy one" and "Saint" mean the same thing. It means to be "set apart" unto God. Believers are all "saints" in a positional sense, but it is to be their practice in life. God's will is the believer's "sanctification," and in this context, it is with regard to sexual morality.

Paul must be addressing this issue because of the background and tendency of these newish believers of former pagan practices.

Leon Morris writes: The Thessalonian Christians lived in a world where people did not see fornication as a sin but as part of normal life. It [was] featured in the worship of more than one deity.

Some see the words "possess" and "vessel" as referring to acquiring a wife and not to take advantage of another's wife or someone to be another's wife. Others take this to mean to control your body.

Why doesn't Paul use the words "wife" or "body?" A "vessel" is something that serves a purpose. Why use that word here?

I tend to think he is speaking to both men and women, and he is using the word "possess" to mean something like "control," and he is using "vessel" instead of "body" because of the reference to "sanctification." The believer belongs to the Lord, and he/ she is to be set apart as a "vessel" fit for service.

Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 1 Corinthians 6:13

18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20

The reference to a "brother" could mean a fellow believer and not just the men, and to involve them in sexual immorality would be to take advantage of (pressure or seduce them) them. They come under the same consequence.

4 Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Hebrews 13:4

We love others by being holy, defined by God's moral will towards others as stated in his commandments. We are blameless in that holiness. To not commit sexual immorality with another is the love and holiness one is called too. One must possess their body to not fulfill lusts. The body is a vessel in it has a purpose for God.  We are not for sexual immorality. One should not take advantage of another sexually. You don't want to rob another of their approval before God and man.