2 Thessalonians 3:14-18 - The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all

3:14,15

The Thessalonians are to take the instructions in this letter most seriously, and to note anyone who does not obey them. Moreover, they are then to not associate with such people. The purpose? To make the disobedient ones feel ashamed. This goes very much against the prevailing ethos in our society and in our churches. We do not want to be judgemental! Yet this is an unbiblical approach. Sin matters and is destructive, both for the one who sins and for others. These firm actions are taken in order to help save the disobedient brother. They are not to be regarded as an enemy, rather the actions are taken as a warning so that the brother might repent. With our “don’t cause any trouble” approach we are not really being helpful to anyone. In fact, the reason we do this is often to save ourselves from any conflict, it is not out of any genuine love for others. The sinner will then tend to think that their sin is not serious, for sin is deceptive.

3:16-18

The letter is now brought to a close, in a way that is common amongst Paul’s letters.There is a blessing in v16, a blessing of the peace and the presence of the Lord. Paul writes this last bit in his own hand, the rest of it was probably written by an amanuensis. He closes the letter by declaring the grace of the Lord to be with them all. 

2 Thessalonians 3:11-13 - Never tire of doing good

3:11

Paul gave his warning about idleness not on a whim, but because he had heard reports of their being idle and disruptive people in the church. Some of these people would claim to be busy, even busy in the Lord’s work, but Paul does not stand for any nonsense and knows that they are just busybodies. 

3:12,13

Such people often claim to be super spiritual, when in fact they are at best a nuisance, and at worst a danger to others and themselves. The right “medicine” for such people is not to treat them with any sort of respect for their supposed spirituality, but to tell them to “settle down and earn the food they eat”. Living life in a sensible and worthy manner is a godly trait and one to be encouraged. It is also essential to true spiritual growth. It is also the best medicine for those who live in a dream world. For the rest of us, we “should never tire of doing good”. All this is a command “in the Lord Jesus Christ”.

2 Thessalonians 3:9,10 - A model for you to imitate

3:9

Paul would have been perfectly within his rights to seek support from the Thessalonians, but he chose not to do so. This was done so that Paul and his companions might be a model for the Thessalonians to follow. Now elsewhere Paul talks about rewarding people properly, and this must not be used as an excuse for churches not to pay their pastors or other workers properly. This is an example that you or I can choose to follow, and sometimes it will be right to do so. But it is not a model that we must impose upon others.

3:10

It seems that there was a particular problem with laziness or scrounging in Thessalonica. The same issue was mentioned in 1 Thess 4:11,12. This verse is also a warning against having a wrong attitude in social care. We should help the poor, there are countless Biblical commands and exhortations to do so, but we must not create a dependency culture.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-8 - We were not idle

3:6

Paul now turns to very practical advice and concerns. The practical and the spiritual go together, it is only us who tend to separate the two. In this verse is a warning against idleness and disruptiveness. This command is given “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ”, it is a very solemn command, not a mew suggestion. And the command is to keep away from the idle and disruptive believers. “But that’s unloving” some might object, there is a time to be “unloving”. These people are not living according to the truth. But it is hard to do this. As well as being accused of being unloving by others, we will feel opposition from within ourselves as well.

3:7,8

Paul then cites the example of himself and his co-workers when they were with the Thessalonians. They were not idle in any way, but quite the opposite. They did not take food from anyone without paying for it, and worked hard to provide for themselves without being a burden upon the Thessalonians.

2 Thessalonians 3:4,5 - May the Lord direct your hearts

3:4

Paul is praying for them not because he thinks they are failing in anyway, but so that they will be strengthened all the more. All of us are totally dependent upon God for our strength. A great danger is that when we do things well because of the grace of God at work in our lives, we start to think that it is because of our own goodness. We then start to rely upon ourselves rather than God. God warned the Israelites not to think they had been given the Promised Land because of any intrinsic merit of their own (Deut 9:4).

3:5

Paul finishes this prayer by asking that the Lord will direct their hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance. God’s love for us is to be the foundation of our lives, it is to be the underlying thought that guides us and forms our worldview. We are also to have perseverance, Christ’s perseverance. Christ faced many obstacles, but He overcame them all, and kept going. In the Revelation letters the reward is for those who overcome. Facing opposition and difficulties is normal.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-3 - Pray that the message of the Lord may spread

3:1,2

Paul now asks the Thessalonians to pray for him and his co-workers. He wants the “message of the Lord may spread rapidly, and be honoured”. He doesn’t just want the message to be heard, but to be believed, in the same way that it was with the Thessalonians. Paul is also acutely aware that there are those who do not have faith, and they are “wicked and evil people”. Paul is not afraid of calling a situation as it is. He asks them to pray that Paul and his co-workers will be delivered from the wicked and evil people. In Acts we see that Paul was describing the situation accurately.

3:3

Some people are evil and wicked, but the Lord is faithful. So Paul moves from concern for his own ministry, to concern for the Thessalonians. Paul knows that God is able to deliver him in dangerous situations. Likewise, he knows that God will strengthen and protect the Thessalonians, for they too faced serious opposition.

2 Thessalonians 2:15-17 - Stand firm and hold fast to the teachings

2:15

So it is God who strengthens us and sanctifies us, but that does not mean we are passive. If we read the New Testament letters there is no concept of a passive believer to be found! We are to hold fast and stand firm to the teachings of the gospel. And Paul is drawing attention to his own teachings. He passed these on to the Thessalonians while he was with them, and through his letter (1 Thessalonians). We should note that a significant amount of the teaching in the New Testament letters concerned false teachings. This wasn’t all they taught about, but the believers were equipped to recognise and stand against false teachings.

2:16,17

Paul ends this section with a prayer, calling on Christ and God the Father to encourage the Thessalonians in their hearts, and to strengthen them in every good deed and word. God has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and hope. And He encourages us in our hearts and strengthens us in what we do. We receive help direct from God Himself!

2 Thessalonians 2:13,14 - We ought always to thank God for you

2:13

So the end will come, and it is associated with lawlessness and living a lie. However, that does not mean we should be pessimistic! For Paul then goes on to say that he and his companions should always thank God for the Thessalonians. Why? Because they were loved by the Lord, and chosen by God as firstfruits. God loves us and has chosen us for a good purpose. We have been chosen, not to live a lie or to love evil, but to be saved by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and belief in the truth. So we see here two things. One is a hard headed realism about what evil is like and how it works; the other is that God has chosen us for victory, for His glory to be displayed in our lives. We need to hold both perspectives. If we only have the former then we will be unduly pessimistic at best, but if we deny the former we are living in a fantasy world.

2:14

This is what we have been called to, and we were called to it through the gospel. There is no other route to a victorious life. What have we been called to? To share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just think about that! We have been called to share in the glory of the Son of God.

2 Thessalonians 2:11,12 - God sends them a powerful delusion

2:11

Now, you might think it is somewhat unfair for God to send them a “powerful delusion”, but we need to look at the order here. “They perish because they refused to love the truth”. So  the powerful delusion was sent in response to this refusal to love the truth. If won’t love the truth then we open ourselves up to delusion.

There is an interesting point we should note here. People often ask about something, “Did God do it?”, “Did the devil do it?”, “Did man do it?”, and sometimes the answer is yes! We see that all this is in accordance with the works of Satan (2:9), it God who sends a powerful delusion (2:11), it happens because man preferred a lie to the truth (2:10) and delight in wickedness (2:12).

2:12

“So that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness”. The powerful delusion shows up the state of man’s heart. Note that Jesus said a similar thing in Matt 24:24. Note also that “they have delighted in wickedness”. There is no arbitrary judgement here, people are getting what they chose. They are receiving the natural consequences of their actions and their choices.

2 Thessalonians 2:9,10 - They will perish because they refused to love the truth

2:9

There is a close alignment between Satan and man. When Jesus rebukes Peter saying “Get behind me Satan” (Matt 16:23) He says Satan has in mind the things of man, rather than the things of God. Satan is described as the prince of this world (John 12:31). The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the works of Satan. There will also be signs and wonders to serve the lie. Revelation speaks of the beast, the false prophet and demonic spirits performing signs on the earth (Rev 13:13,14; 16:14; 19:20). The key thing with signs and wonders is “what do they serve”? Do they serve to glorify Christ, or do they serve the lie?

2:10

Satan is active, but we cannot offload our responsibility. We cannot blame Satan. Wickedness deceives those who are perishing. “They perished because they refused to love the truth and so be saved”. So Satan has responsibility, we too have responsibility, and the most important thing is that we accept our own responsibility. There is a great emphasis these days on victimhood. Now there are many times when people are victims, but living out of victimhood is a futile road to take, one that leads nowhere good. BLM and CRT (critical race theory) encourages black people to blame “whiteness” for everything. BLM and CRT are leading people down a destructive road. Only the gospel leads down a road to life.

2 Thessalonians 2:7,8 - And then the lawless one will be revealed

2:7

“The secret power of lawlessness is already at work”. When the antichrist is revealed it will actually not be much of a surprise, for the power of lawlessness is already at work, and has been for a long time. We see it all around us, and it is very much in evidence in our society today. However, there is a restraining power as well. This will continue until the restraining power is taken away. There is little guidance on who this restraining power. Is it a person? Is it an angel? Whatever the case, it is ultimately God who is restraining evil. At some point He will withdraw His hand and let man have what he wants, and that is the most terrible thing that God can do to us.

2:8

I am still going to look at this through the lens of lawlessness referring to the logical conclusion of man’s rebellion against God. When the restraint is removed we will get what we have agitated for, and it will not be pretty. We will see what a society “free” from God really looks like. However, we should not fear, for this verse, having declared the ultimate ascendency of lawlessness, then focuses on Jesus Christ. He will destroy lawlessness by the splendour of His coming and the breath of His mouth. We should be appalled at the rise of evil in the world, but we should not be fearful, for Jesus Christ is Lord.

2 Thessalonians 2:4-6 - He will exalt himself over everything that is called God

2:4

“He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God .... proclaiming himself to be the God”. This could be an individual, the anti-Christ, but I have been looking at this in the context of referring to man in general. For so many of the things spoken of about the “man of lawlessness” can be taken as referring to man in general. The man of lawlessness is our destination without Christ. We see this all around us in the west, man is increasingly setting himself up as God. He rejects everything to do with God. It is not just a matter of rejecting religion, but there is a rejection of our being created beings. There is a rejection of the sexual order, and the male/female order. Man thinks he can chose or alter his gender. 

2:5,6

Paul has instructed the Thessalonians in these things, telling them plainly the direction the world was going in. “And now you know what is holding him back”. God has been restraining evil in the world, restraining the evil instincts in man. The church has been a major force in that, with most western countries having an underlying Christian ethos of sorts, But now that is being removed.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 - Don't let anyone deceive you

2:1,2

In the Olivet discourse Jesus told His disciples to “not be alarmed” (Mark 13:7). Here Paul tells his readers not to “become easily unsettled or alarmed”. In Jesus’ case it was not to be alarmed by events, here it is not to be alarmed by reports of some teaching or other supposedly given by Paul. The “last things” are notorious for people talking utter rubbish. Events will be wildly misinterpreted, there will be all sorts of ridiculous teaching. But look back to verse 1 here, Jesus Christ will return and we will be gathered to Him. By the way, this is not referring to any re-tribulation rapture.

2:3

“Do not let anyone deceive you”. We need a solid Biblical understanding. Before Christ returns the “man of lawlessness” will be revealed. “The man doomed to destruction”. This could refer to the antichrist as an individual though John speaks of many antichrists, so we do need to be careful about harping on too much about one man. Or it could be mankind’s evil reaching its height, and the true horror of our sinfulness becoming plain to all.

2 Thessalonians 1:10-12 - Lord Jesus may be glorified in you

1:10

Jesus will return to be glorified in His Holy People. We need to realise how central we are to God’s plans. Now we need to be careful about this, because the human tendency is to imagine that we are important apart from God. Apart from God we are nothing. The wrong reaction to this is to then downplay our importance. We might say things like “it’s not about me, it’s about Christ”. Up To a point this is ok, but a more accurate statement might be “it’s about me in Christ”. Christ will be glorified in His people, and His holy people. A holy people are a people who have been justified by Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.And on that day we will marvel at Christ, we will be filled with wonder at what Christ has done, at last seeing the full extent of that work. Paul then assures his readers that they are included in all this, because they believe the gospel.

1:11,12

Paul then turns to what his response is to all this. He prays for the Thessalonians, and prays that God would make them worthy. The gospel involved a change in our lives, a continual and ongoing change. It is the power of God that brings to fruition our good desires for goodness and fruitfulness. So we do change, but the change is all down to God. It all happens according to the grace of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul prays for this so that Christ’s name may be glorified in us.

2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 - They will be shut out from the presence of God

1:7

Paul is looking forward to the return of Christ. That is the day when we will get relief from our troubles. Now, not all suffer equally in this life, and we may well get some relief in this life, but the true everlasting relief comes when Christ returns. Whatever we go through in this life we need to remind ourselves that it is only temporary. When Christ returns it will be with blazing fire and with His powerful angels. The force of this earth will b as nothing compared with Christ.

1:8,9

Those who reject the gospel are disobeying God and will be punished. This isn’t an aspect of the gospel that we tend to talk much about, or even to like. However, it is part of the gospel. The call to believe in Jesus is not an option to be considered, it is a command to be obeyed. “They will be punished with everlasting destruction”. One could get involved in a silly debate about annihilationism, or “conditional immortality”, but such debates are pointless and achieve nothing. There are the most severe consequences for those who reject Christ. They will be separated from God and from His glory. The converse of this is that those who do obey the gospel will be with God and His glory for ever.

2 Thessalonians 1:5,6 - God is just

1:5

This might seem to say that the Thessalonians had somehow earned entrance of the kingdom of God, but what it is actually saying is that God’s plan has proved right. God’s plan is not just about forgiving us. Forgiveness is absolutely essential, but it is not the complete plan. We were saved in order to become like Christ (Rom 8:29), to be the people God always intended us to be. The “perseverance and faith” of the Thessalonians proved that God’s plan was working.

1:6

“God is just; He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you.” Now some might think this is rather unChristian! But that is not the case.We have far too superficial view of Christianity at times. The Bible is clear from beginning to end that God will bring judgement upon those who persecute His people. It was true in the Old Testament, it is true in Revelation. It is because we know that God is just that we do not seek vengeance ourselves, we know we can trust God completely.

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4 - We ought always to thank God for you

1:1,2

This is a fairly typical introduction to a letter from Paul. It starts out by saying who it is from, Paul, Silas and Timothy. Then who it is written to, namely the church at Thessalonica. God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are placed on an equal footing. This also occurs in the next verse, where grace and peace (another common greeting from Paul) come from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1:3,4

Again following a Pauline pattern, the letter starts with thanksgiving. It is good to note what Paul gives thanks for, indeed says they ought to give thanks for. First their faith is growing, and their love for one another is growing. And they thank God for this, for God is the one who makes our faith and love grow. When we look at each other, and pray for each other, we should above all else be looking for growth in faith and love. And this was not happening in an easy time, but in a time of persecution and trials. If we look at the Bible, most of the people in the Bible lived in difficult times, and grew in Christ in the midst of difficult times. So in these days we should seek and expect the Holy Spirit to enable us to mature in Christ in the midst of these circumstances.

2 Thessalonians - Introduction

Introduction

This is going to repeat the introduction to 1 Thessalonians with a few words added.

1 and 2 Thessalonians are thought to be two of the earliest letters written by Paul. Paul first went to Thessalonica after the miraculous escape from prison in Philippi. We read about this in Acts 17:1-9. Thessalonica itself was a busy seaport city. Paul started, as usual, by preaching the gospel in the synagogue, preaching Jesus as Messiah. He attracted some Jews, and a large number of God-fearing Gentiles, and this included a significant number of “prominent women”. With the God-fearers we can see that God was using the Jewish religion to start to draw people into the kingdom. The church was probably predominant;y Gentile, with only a few Jews. At the same time there was the backlash from other Jews who whipped up a riot. As a result Paul and Silas were sent away by the believers to Berea. So the converts had experienced the nature of opposition to the gospel from the word go. This is in stark contrast to the approach we often take today. It is the Spirit of God who converts a man or woman, they are born again through the Spirit. We all too easily rely on methods or music or gimmicks to “convert” someone, and, of course, this is not successful. 

1 Thessalonians was written from Corinth, a view attested to by early church fathers (AD 140). The Pauline authorship was never doubted by the early church, and even scholarship has generally accepted it as Pauline. The date of writing was about AD 51. Paul had had not time to properly set up a church in Thessalonica, so was greatly concerned for them (1 Thess 3:1). The aim of the letter was to help establish the Christians there. There seemed to be great concern about the second coming, and this matter figures again in 2 Thessalonians.

There have been some who have questioned the Pauline authorship of 1 Thessalonians, but their arguments are frankly silly and not worth bothering with. 2 Thessalonians has a very high level of attestation from the early church fathers. The letter seeks to encourage the Christians in difficult circumstances, and to give them proper teaching on the return of Christ, and also to exhort them to proper Christian living now. 

2 Thessalonians 3:6-18 - Do not be idle

In our society we place an enormous emphasis on tolerance (though it does depend on what we are tolerating), and not causing a fuss. Verse 6 represents a different approach. Standards are to be maintained in the church, and two matters mentioned here are idleness and being disruptive. The two often go together, it is a well known phenomenon for those who do least to complain the most. Now this is not meaning that anyone who ever complains about anything is to be shunned, that would be silly and would produce a host of other problems, but to those who are just troublemakers. 

In fact, the emphasis here is on idleness. Paul and his co-workers had set an example here. They had they were not dependent upon people in Thessalonica, but worked and paid their way. So they demonstrated the truth. If we live the truth we have much more authority when we teach the truth. Verse 10 demonstrates that a very firm line was taken on this.

The condemnation continues in verse 11. Earning your living is a key element of Christian living. Instead we are not to tire of doing good. 

The firm line continues in verse 14, but this also gives the motive, which is to encourage them to see the error of their ways and come to repentance. Churches we need to exercise discipline, but we also need to examine our hearts at the same time lest we become judgemental. 

Paul closes the letter with a blessing that they may have the peace of Christ. He also signed the letter himself, as was his custom, to demonstrate that it was genuinely from him.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5 - Prayer

Paul now turns to other matters. It is interesting how the dramatic events of the apocalypse and the mundane things mentioned here go together. Christ will return, possibly very soon, but there is work to be done today, there is life to be lived today. The first thing Paul asks for is prayer that the message of the gospel will spread further. We should all be praying for that today. Note that though Paul was a great apostle he knew that he needed prayer if anything was to be achieved.

He also knew that there would be opposition, and this would come from wicked and evil people. We need to be utterly realistic about the state of man. People will oppose us, and not from good motives. Today the tactics used by some atheists, and by some proponents of gay rights, are evil in intent (I do emphasise the word "some" here, not all are like this). Not all of them are arguing from a genuine belief. So Paul prays to be delivered from such people. So he is realistic, but he is also confident that the Lord will protect them.

So the focus has switched from Paul preaching the gospel to the Thessalonians continuing to grow in faith. This would show itself if love and perseverance.