START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
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OBSERVE:
Sometimes when we read the Bible we begin to realize that we are walking into a flower garden — in which someone seems to have buried landmines! What may seem clear on the surface actually becomes uncertain, and maybe even dangerous to one’s faith.
So it seems with Biblical commentaries, and with Lectionary Texts. In the case of Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians, there are disputes among scholars about its authorship and its date. Historical-critical scholars in the late 18th century questioned whether Paul had actually written 2 Thessalonians because the language seems different than 1 Thessalonians. They also believed that there is a less urgent tone in 2 Thessalonians concerning the Second Coming of Jesus. However, the traditional, orthodox view has maintained the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians.
In the final analysis, even scholarly opinions are conjectures that cannot overshadow the fact that the books of the New Testament were completed no later than the early 2nd century. The Bible is ultimately the Church’s book, not a landmine in a flower garden.
Although formal canonization of all 27 of the New Testament books by the councils of bishops didn’t come for several centuries (Synod of Hippo Regius in North Africa 393; the Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419; Pope Damasus I’s Council of Rome in 382), 2 Thessalonians was one epistle whose authority was never in doubt.
Having said all of that, I assume that 2 Thessalonians was written by Paul.
Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy had established a church in Thessalonica around 50 A.D., one of the very first churches in Macedonia after Philippi. Thessalonica was a key port city on the Aegean Sea. It was also situated on the Egnatian Way, a Roman highway which a traveler could take from Byzantium to the East, through Philippi, and all the way through Thessalonica to the coast of the Adriatic Sea. From there a traveler could catch a ship at Dyrrachium and sail to Brundisium in the heel of Italy. Needless to say, Thessalonica was a strategically located city.
Paul had already written a first letter to the Thessalonians, seeking to comfort them and to clarify Christian teachings about the Second Coming of Jesus. Although 2 Thessalonians is shorter, it addresses many of the same issues that the first letter does — with information about the Second Coming, and how they are to live in the meantime.
Paul writes in the name of himself and his co-workers, with a greeting that is somewhat typical of his letters:
Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the assembly of the Thessalonians in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul speaks of his thanksgiving for the church, and praises the growth of their faith and mutual love. He tells them that he boasts of them wherever he goes:
we ourselves boast about you in the assemblies of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which you endure.
Already, we are seeing the persecution of the church as a counter-cultural organization, although Paul doesn’t specify the source of the persecution. From Acts 17 we learn that there was stringent resistance to Paul and his message by some of the members of the synagogue. We also learn that these folks enlisted the help of a mob and accused Paul and his cohorts of sedition by seeking to promote the kingship of Jesus over Caesar. Paul may be aware that though the church at Thessalonica has been successfully planted, they are still being falsely accused of acts that are:
contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus! (Acts 17:7).
Their accusers were right about one thing, though. These Christians had:
turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6).
Now we come to a second problem with our epistle for this week — the lectionary editors skip from verse 4 to verse 11. So when we read in verse 11, To this end we also pray always for you, we don’t know what Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy are praying for unless we connect the dots by reading verses 5 to 10.
There, we see Paul’s continuing argument from verse 4, that the persecutions are a sign of the coming judgment of God, and that God will requite those who afflict God’s people. His language is quite dramatic:
it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, giving vengeance to those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus, who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired among all those who have believed (because our testimony to you was believed) in that day (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).
This is why Paul and company are praying so fervently, because of the persecutions that the Thessalonian church is suffering. He is seeking to encourage them so that:
God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire of goodness and work of faith, with power; that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The goodness and faith and power of the persecuted church are a compelling witness to their character.
APPLY:
I sometimes think that only Christians in the persecuted church around the world should be allowed to read the apocalyptic books in the New Testament, like 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Revelation, and certain other books. The reason I say that is that they understand these books better than those of us in the West whose Christianity is fairly easy.
All the more reason that the “un-persecuted church” must be even more faithful than we are now. When the world sees us, do they see that we are:
worthy of our calling, fulfilling every desire of goodness and work of faith, with power?
Or do they see a country club of congenial consumer Christians who conform the Gospel to their own lifestyles, rather than taking up the cross and being conformed to Christ?
RESPOND:
I sometimes wonder how I would handle real persecution. Not the imagined persecution that Christians sometimes become a little too hysterical about in the U.S. — “we can’t wish each other a Merry Christmas anymore! Why can’t we have public invocations and prayers at ball games and graduations?”
I have the feeling that Christians in Iraq and Syria and Egypt and Indonesia and China would gladly exchange the fear of beheading, desecration of their churches, and job discrimination with our petty concerns.
What I am hearing in my own American culture is that Christianity is becoming increasingly irrelevant. “Christians” don’t look or act particularly different than their non-Christian neighbors. Christians tend to divorce at the same rate, tend to have similar rates of alcoholism, tend to be just as materialistic, etc., etc., etc.
There is room for improvement. How are we to be the leaven, the salt and the light in our secularized culture? Perhaps we can do no better than seek to replicate the observation by pagan Romans as they described Christians in the early church:
See how these Christians love one another (Tertullian).
May our faith, our power and our love be our Christian witness!
Lord, give me the faith and power to be the witness you have called me to be. Amen.
PHOTOS: "Thessalonians" by Ian Wakefield is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.
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