2 Thessalonians: do not be shaken

About the book

Like the first letter, it comes from "Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy" (2 Thessalonians 1:1). The church has traditionally held that Paul wrote it soon after the first, from Corinth about AD 51. It closes with a greeting in Paul's own hand, "my mark in every letter" (2 Thessalonians 3:17), and in the second century Irenaeus quotes it as Paul's Irenaeus, Against Heresies. The events it tells of lie in the era the map under the Jesus tab calls the church (c. AD 30–90).

Many scholars doubt that Paul wrote it. It follows the order and wording of the first letter closely, yet its tone is cooler, and where the first letter says the day comes like a thief, this one names signs that must come first; so they think a later disciple wrote it in Paul's name. Many other scholars, among them evangelicals, who stress the authority of Scripture and the telling of the gospel, answer that a letter to the same church months later, about a new problem, would naturally be both like and unlike the first.

How it unfolds

Key passages

Someone had told the church "that the Day of the Lord has already come" (2 Thessalonians 2:2). It will not come, Paul answers, "until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness — the son of destruction — is revealed" (2 Thessalonians 2:3). This figure has been read in several ways. Many since the early church have seen one person still to come before Christ returns, the antichrist (1 John 2:18). Many Reformers saw a power exalting itself within the church, the papacy, and the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterian churches (1646), in the King James wording of this verse, named the Pope of Rome ‘that man of sin and son of perdition’ ch. 25.6; many of those churches later removed or revised the words. Some scholars link Paul's words to events of his own time. Matthew Henry is frank: "There have been great disputes who or what is intended by this man of sin and son of perdition" Matthew Henry. Views on the Lord's return are set out in Christ's return and the millennium, in the doctrine course.

Not knowing the hour is no reason to be shaken:

Therefore, brothers, stand firm and cling to the traditions we taught you, whether by speech or by letter.

2 Thessalonians 2:15

"But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one" (2 Thessalonians 3:3). Yet some had stopped working and become busybodies, and Paul repeats his rule: "If anyone is unwilling to work, he shall not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Those who wait for the Lord get on quietly with their work.

Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.

2 Thessalonians 3:16

The book and Christ

To a suffering church the letter shows "the Lord Jesus ... revealed from heaven with His mighty angels" (2 Thessalonians 1:7). He will slay the lawless one "with the breath of His mouth" (2 Thessalonians 2:8), as Isaiah said the king from the stump of Jesse would "slay the wicked with the breath of His lips" (Isaiah 11:4). The king promised long ago will overcome all evil at the last.

Reading it

2 Thessalonians takes about ten minutes. Read it at one sitting from 2 Thessalonians 1, straight after 1 Thessalonians, and compare how the two letters speak of the same hope. Rather than lingering over the hard sayings of chapter 2, notice what Paul urges because of them. Then go on to 1 Timothy.

Practice