2 Thessalonians
Author: Paul
Paul writes again to Thessalonica because a claim that the day of the Lord has already come is unsettling the church, and because some have stopped working.
Outline
Endurance under trouble (1)
Thanksgiving for their patience is joined to a promise that God will repay tribulation and give rest.
The day has not come (2)
A falling away and the revealing of the man of sin must come before that day, and the church is to hold the traditions.
Work and discipline (3)
Paul commands those who walk disorderly and will not work to be warned, and he tells the rest not to grow weary.
Key verses
2 Thessalonians 2:1–2
They are told not to be shaken by any word claiming that the day of Christ is already at hand.
2 Thessalonians 2:15
They are to stand fast and hold the traditions they were taught by word and by letter.
2 Thessalonians 3:10
If anyone will not work, neither should he eat.
Second Thessalonians follows the first letter closely enough that the same three names open it: Paul, Silvanus, and Timotheus, to the church of the Thessalonians. The situation has shifted. The church is still enduring persecutions and tribulations, and Paul still boasts of their patience and faith. What is new is a disturbance about the timing of the day of the Lord, and a group that has heard the talk of the Lord’s coming and has stopped working. The letter is short because both problems can be answered from what Paul already taught them in person.
He thanks God that their faith grows exceedingly and their charity toward one another abounds. He tells them he glories in them in the churches of God for the patience and faith they show in all their persecutions. The suffering is not meaningless, and it is not the last word. It is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that they may be counted worthy of the kingdom for which they suffer. God will recompense tribulation to those who trouble them, and to those who are troubled he will give rest, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel. He will be glorified in his saints. Paul prays that God would count them worthy of this calling and fulfill the work of faith with power, that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in them.
The second chapter is the correction. He beseeches them, by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and by their gathering together unto him, that they be not soon shaken in mind or troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from him, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Someone has claimed, perhaps with a forged letter, that the day has already arrived. Paul says they know better. That day will not come unless a falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God and sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Paul told them these things when he was still with them. They know what withholds, that the man of sin might be revealed in his time. The mystery of iniquity already works. The Lord will consume that lawless one with the spirit of his mouth and destroy him with the brightness of his coming. The coming is after the working of Satan, with power and signs and lying wonders, and with deceit for those who did not receive the love of the truth. God sends them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. Paul gives thanks that the Thessalonians are not in that company. God has from the beginning chosen them to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Therefore stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word or by our epistle. He prays that the Lord would comfort their hearts and stablish them in every good word and work.
The last chapter asks for prayer that the word of the Lord may have free course, and that they may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men. The Lord is faithful, who will stablish them and keep them from evil. Then the disorderly are named. Withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not after the tradition received from Paul. He did not behave disorderly among them. He did not eat any man’s bread for nothing. He labored night and day. He had the right to be supported, and he waived it to make himself an example. When he was with them he commanded that if any would not work, neither should he eat. He hears that some walk among them disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. He commands and exhorts by the Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. The rest are not to be weary in well doing. If anyone does not obey the letter, note that person and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. The salutation of Paul with his own hand is the token in every epistle. Second Thessalonians protects a suffering church from a rumor about the end and from a laziness that used the rumor as an excuse.