Commentary on 2 Thessalonians

Contents

In a few places the lemma printed in a passage belongs to a neighbouring verse (the digital text misnumbers verses); the passage keeps its staged number.

1. 0.1The prologue says the second letter speaks, veiledly, of the end of the Roman empire, the Antichrist, and some idle brothers.
2. 1.1Paul greets the Thessalonians and gives fitting thanks for their growing faith and their love for one another since the first letter.
3. 1.4Paul boasts of the Thessalonians’ endurance of persecution, which foreshows God’s just judgment: glory for the sufferers, ruin for the persecutors.
4. 1.6At his coming Christ will give rest to the persecuted saints and eternal, unending punishment by fire to pagans and unbelieving Jews.
5. 1.11Paul prays that God will help the Thessalonians complete their work of faith, to Christ’s glory and their teacher’s.
6. 2.1Paul warns against claims that the Lord’s day has come, even in forged letters, since the Roman empire must first fall and the Antichrist appear, probably a Jew, claiming to be God.
7. 2.5What restrains the Antichrist is the Roman empire; when it fails and he appears, the Lord’s coming will follow.
8. 2.7The mystery of iniquity has worked through persecuting emperors from Nero to Diocletian and Julian, and will last as long as the Roman empire stands.
9. 2.8After Rome falls, Satan, cast down from heaven, will work through a man who imitates Christ with lying signs to be worshiped as the highest god, until Christ destroys him.
10. 2.10The Antichrist’s deceptions succeed only with those who rejected the truth preached by the apostles and are therefore abandoned by God.
11. 2.11Those who refused the light are given over to believe the lie, so that their condemnation is beyond dispute.
12. 2.12God chose the Thessalonians from the beginning because he foreknew their faith, by which they increase the body of Christ.
13. 2.14Paul urges them to hold the apostolic traditions, and naming the Son before the Father shows their one divinity, the Father who gave his Son for our life and justification.
14. 3.2Paul asks prayer that the word may spread and that he may be delivered from unbelieving troublemakers.
15. 3.3God, faithful to his promises, will guard the Thessalonians, and Paul is confident they will obey his commands.
16. 3.5Paul prays that their hearts may advance in God’s love and await Christ’s coming.
17. 3.6Believers are to keep apart from disorderly brothers so that these may recognize their error.
18. 3.7Paul worked for his own bread, though entitled to support, to give a pattern of freedom that makes a preacher’s words respected.
19. 3.10Teachers must practice what they preach, and the poor should work to keep their freedom rather than living by flattery at others’ tables.
20. 3.11The idle go about as gossips to win meals in rich houses, making their belly their god.
21. 3.12The idle are to work quietly; the generous must keep doing good; and the disobedient are to be shunned without insult and admonished as brothers until they amend.
22. 3.16Paul wishes them lasting peace, which leads to eternal life and brings the Lord’s presence.
23. 3.17Paul signs every letter himself so that forgeries under his name cannot be accepted.
24. 3.18Paul’s handwritten closing wishes them the grace of Christ.