5:1
“About times and dates we do not need to write to you”. Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour (Matt 24:36). Given these very clear statements one would have thought that people would have got the message that guessing the day of the second coming is a mugs game. However, we all know that there are plenty of mugs around. If anyone claims to know the day or the hour we can be absolutely sure that they do not know what they are talking about, and we can, indeed should, safely ignore them.
5:2,3
The return of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. It will come suddenly. There will probably have been upheavals in society prior to it, but it might be that there is a time of false peace immediately before His return. Indeed Paul says that they will be saying “peace and safety”. This is reminiscent of Jeremiah Jeremiah 6:14 and 8:11, and Ezekiel 13:10. There will be a godless peace, one founded on unrighteousness. This may well have followed a time of extreme persecution of the church, even with the church seemingly defeated (cf Rev 11:1-10). But the church will rise again. However, while the world is at ease, even rejoicing over the “death” of the church, destruction will come.
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