2 Thessalonians

1Chapter
1Greetings from Paul, Silas, and Timothy. To the church of those in Thessalonica, who are in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3We thank God for you always. And that’s what we should do, because you give us good reason to be thankful: Your faith is growing more and more. And the love that every one of you has for each other is also growing. 4So we tell the other churches of God how proud we are of you. We tell them how you patiently continue to be strong and have faith, even though you are being persecuted and are suffering many troubles.

Paul Tells About God’s Judgment

5This is proof that God is right in his judgment. He wants you to be worthy of his kingdom. Your suffering is for that kingdom. 6God will do what is right. He will punish those who are causing you trouble. 7And he will bring relief to you who are troubled. He will bring it to you and to us when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven for all to see, together with his powerful angels. 8He will come with burning fire to punish those who don’t know God—those who refuse to accept the Good News about our Lord Jesus. 9They will be punished with a destruction that never ends. They will not be allowed to be with the Lord but will be kept away from his great power. 10This will happen on the day when the Lord Jesus comes to receive honor with his holy people. He will be admired among all who have believed. And this includes you because you believed what we told you.
11That is why we always pray for you. We ask our God to help you live the good way he wanted when he chose you. The goodness you have makes you want to do good. And the faith you have makes you work. We pray that with his power God will help you do these things more and more. 12Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of you, and you will be honored because of him. This can happen only by the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2Chapter

Evil Things Will Happen

1Brothers and sisters, we have something to say about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We want to talk to you about that time when we will meet together with him. 2Don’t let yourselves be easily upset or worried if you hear that the day of the Lord has already come. Someone might say that this idea came from us—in something the Spirit told us, or in something we said, or in a letter we wrote. 3Don’t be fooled by anything they might say. That day of the Lord will not come until the turning away from God happens. And that day will not come until the Man of Evil appears, the one who belongs to hell. 4He will stand against and put himself above everything that people worship or think is worthy of worship. He will even go into God’s Temple and sit there, claiming that he is God.
5I told you before that all these things would happen. Remember? 6And you know what is stopping that Man of Evil now. He is being stopped now so that he will appear at the right time. 7The secret power of evil is already working in the world now. But there is one who is stopping that secret power of evil. And he will continue to stop it until he is taken out of the way. 8Then that Man of Evil will appear. But the Lord Jesus will kill him with the breath that comes from his mouth. The Lord will come in a way that everyone will see, and that will be the end of the Man of Evil.
9When that Man of Evil comes, it will be the work of Satan. He will come with great power, and he will do all kinds of false miracles, signs, and wonders. 10The Man of Evil will use every kind of evil to fool those who are lost. They are lost because they refused to love the truth and be saved. 11So God will send them something powerful that leads them away from the truth and causes them to believe a lie. 12They will all be condemned because they did not believe the truth and because they enjoyed doing evil.

You Are Chosen for Salvation

13Brothers and sisters, you are people the Lord loves. And we always thank God for you. That’s what we should do, because God chose you to be some of the first people to be saved. You are saved by the Spirit making you holy and by your faith in the truth. 14God chose you to have that salvation. He chose you by using the Good News that we told you. You were chosen so that you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15So, brothers and sisters, stand strong and continue to believe the teachings we gave you when we were there and by letter.
16-17We pray that the Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father will comfort you and strengthen you in every good thing you do and say. God loved us and gave us through his grace a wonderful hope and comfort that has no end.
3Chapter

Pray for Us

1And now, brothers and sisters, pray for us. Pray that the Lord’s teaching will continue to spread quickly. And pray that people will give honor to that teaching, the same as happened with you. 2And pray that we will be protected from crooked and evil people. Not everyone believes in the Lord, you know.
3But the Lord is faithful. He will give you strength and protect you from the Evil One. 4The Lord gives us confidence that you are doing what we told you and that you will continue to do it. 5We pray that the Lord will cause you to feel God’s love and remember Christ’s patient endurance.

The Obligation to Work

6Brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ we tell you to stay away from any believer who refuses to work. People who refuse to work are not following the teaching that we gave them. 7You yourselves know that you should live like we do. We were not lazy when we were with you. 8We never accepted food from anyone without paying for it. We worked and worked so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We worked night and day. 9We had the right to ask you to help us. But we worked to take care of ourselves so that we would be an example for you to follow. 10When we were with you, we gave you this rule: “Whoever will not work should not be allowed to eat.”
11We hear that some people in your group refuse to work. They are doing nothing except being busy in the lives of others. 12Our instruction to them is to stop bothering others, to start working and earn their own food. It is by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are urging them to do this. 13Brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good.
14If there are some there who refuse to do what we tell you in this letter, remember who they are. Don’t associate with them. Then maybe they will feel ashamed. 15But don’t treat them as enemies. Counsel them as fellow believers.

Final Words

16We pray that the Lord of peace will give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with you all.
17Here’s my greeting in my own handwriting— Paul. I do this in all my letters to show they are from me. This is the way I write.
18The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Study
Chapter 3
CSB

If our physician, God in Christ, having rescued us from our desires, regulates our flesh with his own wise and temperate rule, it is evident that he guards it from sins because it has a hope of salvation, just as physicians do not allow people whom they hope to save to indulge in whatever pleasures they please.

—Justin Martyr

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Transition. Paul requests prayer for his work, reassures the Thessalonians regarding God’s faithfulness, and closes by praying for the Thessalonians.

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Request for Prayer. Paul requests prayer for the gospel’s advance through his ministry and for deliverance from wicked opponents. He prays that the word of the Lord (the gospel) would speed ahead (enjoy unhindered progress) and be honored (by people acknowledging its truth and embracing God’s offer of salvation). For not all have faith. The gospel is not always embraced with faith; indeed, it frequently provokes violent hostility.

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Reassurance. Paul gives some final words of comfort to the Thessalonians in the wake of the false claim about Christ’s return (2:2). In Greek, the last word of 3:2 is “faith” (Gk. pistis) and the first word of v. 3 is faithful (Gk. pistos)—the unbelievers’ lack of faith contrasts with God’s faithfulness. guard you against the evil one. Satan has been seeking to destroy the Thessalonians’ young faith. But God’s faithfulness assures Paul that the Evil One will not succeed: the Thessalonians will overcome him by responding appropriately to Paul’s two letters. He has confidence that they already are doing and, when they get this letter, will do the things that we command. Paul may have in mind his instruction to discipline those within their community who are idle (vv. 6–15) and/or his command to hold to the traditions about the day of the Lord (2:15).

ESV

Prayer. Paul prays that the Thessalonians will be directed toward the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ, by which he means either Christ’s endurance as a model for Christians or the perseverance imparted by Christ.

CSB

Refusing to associate with certain so-called believers is not a call to intolerance or avoiding unbelievers (1Co 5:10-11) but to church discipline (reflecting Jesus’s teaching in Mt 18:17). Discipline (removal from fellowship) should be for those boldly and persistently engaging in loveless divisiveness (Rm 16:17), deviant teaching (2Jn 9-11), or scandalous moral behavior (1Co 5:1-5). It should always have the goal of restoring the disciplined one to fellowship and changed behavior (see Mt 18:15; 1Co 5:5; Ti 3:10-11; Jms 5:19-20).

ESV

The Problem of the Idlers. Paul instructs the Thessalonian community to exercise church discipline on those refusing to work. Although there is nothing in 1 or 2 Thessalonians that explicitly links the idleness with the confusion about the end times, many think that the Thessalonians stopped working to await and proclaim the Lord’s coming. Others believe that the problem was merely one of lazy Christians exploiting the charity of wealthier Christians, and using their free time to meddle in others’ affairs. Whatever the cause of the idleness, Paul’s patience has evidently now run out (cf. 1 Thess. 4:9–12).

ESV

The Command to the Community. Paul strongly commands (Gk. parangellō) the community as a whole to discipline by disassociation those who are not working but are depending on others for a living. The community is to keep away from these idlers, which probably means excommunicating them. Paul takes the sin of these people seriously, but at this point he still regards them as “brothers” (v. 15). In idleness (Gk. ataktōs) means “in an undisciplined, irresponsible, or disorderly manner.” These people are shirking their obligation to work (see Gen. 2:15). This behavior was not in accord with the tradition passed on by the missionaries regarding the necessity of working for one’s keep.

ESV

The Tradition. The missionaries had passed on the tradition about the need to work for a living both by example (vv. 7–9) and through oral instruction (v. 10).

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eat anyone’s bread without paying for it. Paul refused to depend on others for his living. Indeed he took on a heavy workload of manual labor in addition to his ministry commitments in order to avoid being a financial burden to any Thessalonian Christian, even though (in contrast to the idle Thessalonians) it was his God-given right to be supported (see 1 Cor. 9:3–15; 2 Cor. 11:7–9; 1 Thess. 2:9). He wanted to provide his converts with an example to imitate.

ESV

The Problem. not busy at work, but busybodies. There is a wordplay here in Greek: not ergazomenous (“working”) but periergazomenous (“being a busybody, meddling”). Those who refused to work were exploiting their free time to meddle in others’ affairs. Cf. 1 Tim. 5:13, where irreligious prying flows from idleness.

ESV

The Command to the Idlers. Paul forcefully commands the idle to get back to work, so that they may be financially independent. work quietly. The opposite of being nuisances or “busybodies” (v. 11).

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Instructions to the Community. The community is to keep doing good (v. 13) and to discipline any unrepentant idlers (vv. 14–15).

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The community as a whole, particularly wealthier members exploited by the idle, might grow weary in doing good, but Paul calls on them to continue being charitable, albeit only to those who are deserving.

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Paul believes it is very possible that some will ignore his warning and continue in their idle ways, so he instructs the community as a whole to take note of such people and have nothing to do with them (cf. v. 6). The purpose of this disassociation is so that the stubbornly insubordinate brothers will be ashamed, repent, and be restored to the community. Church discipline must always aim at renewing discipleship.

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Disciplining a fellow Christian can easily degenerate into the community treating him as an enemy, so Paul says warn him as a brother.

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Conclusion. The letter concludes with a benediction, a final greeting, and a prayer for grace.

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Paul offers a benediction. Lord of peace. Jesus has reconciled the Thessalonian Christians to God and is at peace with them, able to replace their disturbed fear (2:2) with an experience of inner peace. in every way. Especially peace as opposed to consternation regarding the end times (2:1–3:5) and peace amid ongoing persecution (1:5–10).

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Paul makes explicit what would have been clear to readers of the original letter: the bulk of the letter was dictated to a secretary, and the final greeting was written in Paul’s own unique handwriting, which served as a mark of authenticity, much like signatures at the end of modern letters. Paul’s highlighting of this fact may reflect a suspicion that a forgery in his name was in existence, which may have been the source of the idea that the day of the Lord had already come (see 2:2). This affirmation of genuineness also shows that writing in another person’s name was condemned among early Christians.