Second Thessalonians1:1-2 Overview and Greetings

All right, so this was kind of fun getting ready for today as we move forward into the second epistle of Paul to the Church of Thessalonica. Let me get on the screen here to make sure the PowerPoint's working. So this second epistle to the church at Thessalonica was undoubtedly written by Paul, although some people question that. But I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming that this was written by Paul, and that was while he was in Corinth. And the time know, is approximately six to twelve months after the first epistle. I think that's kind of interesting, so presumably there had been some information, we'll come back to that, that was given back to Paul that reflects on the need for an additional letter.

So here's kind of what things look like here, and here's Corinth here, and And look at the proximity of Corinth to Athens. And Margaret and I kind of spanked ourselves a little bit. We've been to Athens twice, but never got over to Corinth. It's not very far away, but we didn't get there. But I'm sure... We've been to Ephesus. I didn't ask her to say that. But we didn't go to court. And we've been to Smyrna, too. You want to go on? Never mind.

So anyway, but up at Macedonia is where Thessaloniki is at. So geographically, in those days, I'm sure it took months to make that trip. And they may have taken it by sea over the Aegean. I don't know. But whether it was by land or sea, the second letter didn't follow too long, if you think, a snail mail in those days compared to what we have today. within six to twelve months would be a fairly short time frame that related to the second letter to the church's epistle in Ida. Now this was Paul's third epistle and I, you know, every time I look at kind of the chronology of all this I'm kind of amazed about the sequence of the epistle. This was his third epistle written approximately in 50-51 AD. which was preceded by letters to Galatia and the first letter to Thessalonica. So why this epistle? Why did Paul feel the need to make his third epistle to the church of Thessalonica after he'd just written one. He had more to say. Not very profound, Roger, but we'll give you credit for answering the question. Okay. Other thoughts?

I mean, what did we learn in the first epistle? Probably not very much, I can look at this class and there's just a lot of stone faces out there. Marian's smiling, this is good. But all that aside, we learned a lot in the First Epistle. If you could think of a take-home message from that First Epistle to the Church of Thessalonica, what would be, do you think, the bottom line theme of the First Epistle? Give me a one-liner, the First Epistle to Thessalonica. the Lord's return. Thank you. I think that probably would be the best summarial statement about what the First Epistle is about.

So Macaulay says this, we can be certain of this date because of an inscription found at Delphi, Greece, that dates Goliath's pro-councilship as A.D. 5152, and Acts 17 records the establishment of the church at Thessalonica, and in chapter 18, Paul encounters Galileo. Acts 18, 12 through 17. And we'll not look back at that.

So, you know, it's kind of neat the way that non-scriptural history relates to scriptural history. And I think many of us who are part of the body of Christ and trust scripture for everything that's written, I think it's a pretty good historical book too.

I'm not going to get into whether six days are really six days here right now. But anyway, all that aside, I believe that God created heavens and earth in six days, despite the incredible capacity of the universe. But nevertheless, that's not our discussion.

But the timing here seems accurate in terms of 50 to 51 AD. Now, word had returned to Paul, perhaps through Silas and Timothy. That's, I think, speculated to some extent. But the idea here, and that comes from actually in Acts, which preceded this relationship historically to the communication, or at least the evidence that Goliath's pro-councilship was at the time that Acts was being recorded.

But anyway, Acts 18.1 and 5.

After these things, Paul departed from Athens went to Corinth. And when Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, remember that's where Thessalonica was, right? Paul was compelled by the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. I mean, I'm just, I'm leaving a little section out there because the scripture is not necessarily shared here, but I think again, historically, the idea is there were messengers that had come from the area around Corinth, that ultimately met Paul in Corinth, and ultimately he would have been in Macedonia before that.

So the idea here is that there's information being transferred by persons, not by some sort of a snail mail or letter that made this information available. And apparently from my study, most of the news was good about the church at Thessalonica, and we reflected on that during our first epistle study. But there were reports of persecution that continued, and also importantly here, and this relates to Roger's answer to this very important question of the bottom line of the first epistle, false teaching concerning the day of the Lord that led to some brethren actually quitting their jobs in expectation of the Lord's immediate return.

And here we are 2,000 years later. And eventually that place burned down, and it was bizarre. I mean, but anyway, they got off the grid. They were afraid of Y2K, and they hid out in the hills of New Mexico someplace. So man's kind of believers. Man's strange. They'll do weird stuff sometimes.

I didn't plant those comments from Roger, but how many people were concerned about Y2K? No, I'm raising my hand just to see how many people were. Okay, so we all survived that, didn't we? We all survived Y2K. The digital world which we lived and are living increasingly today, right? And thank you for videoconferencing because we have members of the body who are part of this class who are not physically present. All right, good. So that kind of sets the stage here.

So what's the purpose of the second epistle based on that history? Well, the first that's stated is that it's to encourage the body to persevere in the setting of continuing persecution. I mean, welcome to the church today, right? I mean, our persecution today is somewhat different, but it's still a persecution of the word of God and everything it represents. So that's number one.

And as expected, it was for Paul's attempt to clarify events related to the day of the Lord. So let's look just a little bit more detail at that. In the first epistle some of the teaching was misunderstood. There was confusion over first 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 2, which spoke of the day of the Lord. Some believe that the church was going to be present at that time. However, Paul corrects this, that the church was not going to be present at the Day of the Lord. So the confusion of the rapture with the Day of the Lord has been a topic of confusion since the Bible was written, right?

This wasn't unique to the church at Thessalonica. And there are many people, in fact, a pastor of a former church that we belong to believed in a pre-trib or a mid-trib day of the Lord and tribulation rapture. So, I mean, this comes in a lot of different flavors and interpretations, but the fact that the church at Thessalonica was confused, and I think when we taught that section, Roger, Andrew, Roy, ultimately we tried to clarify that, but it was clear from the messages that were delivered back to Paul, this wasn't clear. And I think you could understand why that wasn't clear. I mean, even in the accounts of the epistles of Peter, the idea that, you know, the Lord come quickly, come soon, I mean, the whole issue there about when this second coming is going to be and whether we can distinguish it from the rapture. Other thoughts about that confusion? I mean, don't you agree that that's still a topic of confusion in today's church?

All right. And the third, probably, purpose was he wanted to instruct the church in how to deal with laid-back believers. So some people call these lazy believers, or people who, in fact, were not contributing to the fellowship and the furtherance of the gospel within the body. So let's review those again. To encourage the body to persevere in the setting of continuing persecution.

Aren't you glad we have no persecution today? Not a lot. All right. Clarify the events related to the day of the Lord. How are we doing with that one? I mean, I think we probably have that in correct perspective scripturally, but yet that's still an issue today. And finally, laid back believers. I'm glad there are none here. Anyway, so we'll be looking at that near the terminus of the study of the Second Epistle. So, one of the lessons we can learn from this epistle, and Keithley III, who's written page after page after page after page, I tried to kind of reduce this to maybe some things that could be helpful to the class.

Number one, helping believers grow requires constant diligence and commitment to people. Now, that's not commitment to the body, it's commitment to individuals, right? Number two, helping believers grow is a continual process that requires a great deal of patience and realistic expectations. I mean, think of each of your own personal growths in the Lord.

I mean, this isn't darkness and light. I mean, when we're saved it is, but the growth in the new creations we are in Christ Jesus is a slow process. And I often reflect on Paul near the terminus of his earthly existence that he thinks he's the greatest among sinners. I mean, that's near the end of his writings. And you think of Paul and the example God has given us about the human and his ability to be transformed and conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's saying he's looking at himself as the greatest of all sinners.

I mean, we've got to reflect on this. This continual process is a slow one, and we need to be patient without expectations about how quickly that's going to occur. No disagreement with that, I think, right? Third, there will always be struggles and growing pains is a lesson that I think Keithley feels that we need to learn. Yes, I mean we all know this, but that's another take-home message.

Fourth, if faithfully proclaiming God's word, as was Paul, and his team, there will also be growth, often a great deal of it, both qualitatively and quantitatively. In other words, a lesson to be learned is if, in fact, God's Word is the foundation of our growth, then there will be growth. And we don't necessarily need to measure it for one another, and I don't know that we even measure it to ourselves, but I think as the Spirit continues to activate the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in our life, we can reflect how our ultimate heart and soul are transformed and conformed over time. So it will occur, and that's probably witnessed horizontally, but we're not here to provide measuring sticks to each one another's growth. this is entirely up to the Lord, but when we see the body growing slowly and gracefully that is something we can be experienced by and also encouraged by.

So here's the outline and I'm going to say that my outline, which doesn't make it right, is a composite of those of McGee, Constable, Keithley III, Schofield, and McCauley. And Roger, I didn't look at the teaching lessons one by one. I didn't see an outline from you. That's not a criticism.

Well, there's sort of an outline in the dispersion of the verses. There's sort of an implied outline. But when we teach, like, two verses or four verses or five, I mean, that's consistent with an outline, and you can take this and trash it if you want. But here's my attempt to put five people's thoughts about an outline together.

Okay, Chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, we'll cover that today. This is a salutation, which is a pretty typical salutation, although it's interesting because it differs in a modest way from some of the previous ones. Verses 3 through 10 in chapter 1 is condemnation and comfort in the face of persecution. So remember, one of the goals of this, or purpose of this epistle is to deal with the ongoing persecution that we as a body of Christ face.

From chapter 1, just two verses at the terminus, 11 and 12, the prayer considering the righteous judgment of God. It's kind of a truncated couple of verses that relate to kind of the transition into importantly what follows in chapter 2. And chapter 2 really gets at some of the confusion that's involved in the interpretation of the day of the Lord. Chapter 2 verses 1 through 5, rapture first and then the day of the Lord.

And I think Paul clearly responded mostly, this is my opinion, mostly wrote this second epistle to try to clarify this issue. It's not that he's dismissing the other two purposes, but nevertheless, this is incredibly important. Chapter 2, verses 16-12, mystery of the lawlessness revealed. This is really interesting. What is lawlessness for the believer?

Anybody want to think out loud on that one? Well, it seems like that section, I remember correctly, that talks about the man of lawlessness. It talks about the man of lawlessness is introduced in that section. So that's kind of a key part of that, if I remember. I thought we're not under law. That one under grace. This is addressing this man of law. Who is the man of lawlessness? It's not us. Well, the concept of lawlessness is covered more broadly, but I think it turns to Satan himself, right? Right.

Somebody was going to mention something over the video conference. One of the things that we're getting with it, I think, is the contrast between the Eucharist and the Eucharist. The Eucharist is coming. Okay, and Roy, do you think this relates perhaps, too, to what preceded this, the clarification of the rapture first and the day of the Lord second? Okay. for another time. OK, how long do we have to expect this withholding process? Till he's done. Till he's done, right? OK.

Another thing that I've discovered is very clarifying there is that this mystery of lawlessness is in parallel with the mystery of grace, that the church age was a mystery. Well, keep in mind, what's a mystery? Biblically, what's a mystery? Okay, something that was known to God, but not sufficiently revealed that we can interpret it well or perfectly well.

All right, next section. Chapter 2, verses 13 through 17, exhortation and instruction. That's kind of an unclear summary of that area, but it really encourages the church at Thessalonica and instructs them in terms of behavior that relates to the issues that had already been presented and dealt with in the two chapters before this, or the first part of chapter 2 and chapter 1. Chapter 3, verses 1 through 5, it's a request for prayer. In a sense, the instruction at the end of chapter 2 is a prayer in its own right, but in fact here now it's a request for specific prayer that Paul puts out to the body at this point. Then a big section, 6 through 15, I've simply summarized as discipline of the disorderly. And I think maybe I've paralleled that term from one of the commentators there.

These are the laid back or the lazy, if you will, quote unquote, believers. And by the way, I think that that's one reason why fellowshipping together, I think, is so critically important. I mean, we can do it over a hybrid kind of scenario with the body as you all are in the class today. I think when we're together, there's something that occurs beyond that that's simply related to the way we're preaching the word here today. So anyway, the discipline of disorderly, not that we have any of that here at Holly Hills Bible Church, of course.

All right. No comments. There are a lot of smiles. OK, so yes, go ahead. Laughing. Well, I can't see everybody here. Everybody's got their videos canceled except for a couple people. So Roy, you're one of the few. Clark's on a bicycle. He looks pretty stationary there. And Katie's just got her picture up. But everybody else has no video, so I can't really be seeing you out there very easily. And by the way, the screen I have for your picture is to my right. I'm looking at the camera to try to be as front and center as possible.

Although you may not like that either. All right. And then the last two, three verses really is a conclusive set of comments. Carolyn, what was that, please? You're doing a heck of a job. I didn't need that, but thank you very much. So that's kind of an outline, and you know, Rogers assigned the verses that are appropriate for covering this epistle in a certain time period.

We generally don't like to take too much, because too much you don't dissect down, but also we want to make sure, I shouldn't speak for the other teachers, but I think they agree, we want to make sure that the way we deliver the content of this epistle like anywhere else in the Bible has application to our day-to-day lives.

I mean, if this isn't changing and uplifting us in terms of the walk we have in the Lord, then these classes are not very worthwhile. All right, let's turn now to the greetings that Paul has introduced to the church. 2 Thessalonians 1, 1. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church 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.

So I got a question here for the class. Well, that's not the question. The authors are obviously the same and remain the same, these three guys, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy. But here's the question. Is it the church that is in God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ? Or is it that it's Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy in God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ? What does that modify? Is it the body or is it the three people who are the authors of this epistle?

I believe it's the church. You believe it's what? The church. The church. I agree it's the church. Yes, we're in Christ. Right. OK, but Paul, Samanthus, and Timothy also could recognize God as their Father, Lord Jesus Christ. I think your interpretation is correct. I think it relates to the body. Paul, Samanthus, and Timothy are also in the church. Absolutely. So I don't know that it can't be both. It could be both. But I think, ultimately, the interpretation is best related to the people who are being written to. Don't you? Yeah.

One of the things that we have, though, is an explanation by Christ himself. He says, I am the father of one. And I can't remember where, guys, but I think in John, where the Lord is talking about our, you know, that, I can't say it right, but He is the Father. Anyway, there's a relationship with the Son being in the Father and us being in the Son. Right.

Well, as Romans outlines, we're joint heirs, right? I mean, so we're part of the new Adam, not the old as accepted fully. There's no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. So in a sense, you know, this grace is to us today at Holly Hills in addition to all other believers globally. Can I add another comment here, Bob? Always.

One of the things in this passage that really hit me is on our product and how little we study them. Our focus in the study of scripture centers mostly on the learning of the Bible. That's a great comment, Roy, because I'm going to come back to that in a moment, which makes this greeting a little bit different than other ones. So that's a great, great lead-in to that. McCauley, and here is really exactly a follow-up of what your comment was. Let me get my glasses off. That's my distance here in terms of the screen. The greeting found here is similar to that of 1 Thessalonians, but differs in two ways. By the way, one difference is in verse 2.

We'll come to that. First, Paul adds our with father. When father is used alone, the emphasis is on his person, but here our stresses the believer's relationship to him and the relationship of believers to one another. Second, Paul adds the words from the Father, from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's in verse 2. So we're going to come to that in a second.

And so the addition of the term hour really is what distinguishes this from every other passage. And you know, apparently some older manuscripts omit hour. And so I guess the question of the class, why is this addition of hours so important here? It seems like an obvious answer, but let's have people answer that and think about that.

Boy, you introduced the concept a moment ago. Let's further it. One of the things that I've observed so far, and I'm in the middle of this, is that the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of as a father also. And we don't talk about that much. But that is a relationship that he has to have a progeny, have sons, have a family. And I think that that is a learning, OK? I don't know enough to give that a fuller explanation.

But I believe that in the future, there's an aspect of the fatherhood of the Son of God as well. But I don't know about you, Roy, or most of us, but I don't think of the Lord Jesus Christ as Father. I mean, even though I think I see where you're going, others want to comment on that?

Well, you know, it seems like that the Godhead is presented as, obviously, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that's an important aspect of the God we serve. I mean, the totality of Him is not described, it's described in three persons. A Father, a Son, and then a Spirit. And so I, you know, the whole concept of God is triune. And there's some beautiful, beautiful passages in Scripture that talk about that. So, you can't really, You take the whole entire Godhead, it's all of God.

He's our Father and the Son. When you start trying to dissect it out, you get into trouble, I think. Well, this is called Christianity, right? Right. And Jesus Christ is central in that. Does not diminish God's ultimate capabilities and righteousness and everything else that is representative of God the Father. But it's Christ that makes us Christians. Other thoughts about this? I think the word our, to me, it's a personal thing, and it's possessive. He's mine, or he's ours, each of us. He's our father. In a sense, I think it puts footwear to identification. our Father.

I mean, it really makes us inclusive in the family that includes the triune God. I think without the Spirit, we're, you know, living in Romans 7, right? Because I think sometimes I live more in Romans 7 than I do in Romans 6 and 8. But anyway, all that aside, I think it's the Holy Spirit that activates us as believers and guides us and teaches us and ultimately corrects us at times, too. One of the things that we made in clarifying what I just said is that God is our Father in all three Persons.

The Father Himself could not do it. The Son Himself could not do it. Nor could the Holy Spirit Himself do it. It took all three of them working together to bring about the birth of Christ His death, His resurrection, and His eternal existence on our behalf and for us. It is the Holy Spirit that puts us into that relationship. But without that, we wouldn't have that relationship.

That's something. So in summary of the last few minutes of conversation, although some older manuscripts omit the term ally, I like it there. And I think it means something special and why it only exists here versus the other greetings that Paul has given to Unclear. So I did a little homework here.

This is the thirteenth time Paul has used this phrase that peace from God is not only of the Father but of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thirteen times. And when I did a word search, it's all in the first couple of verses of all the epistles that Paul has written. But this is the only one where the term hour was used. And I think, why would Paul use hour in the second epistle to the church at Thessalonica and not use it elsewhere?

I mean, I think we can speculate. We can't know. Don't we look at the church at Thessalonica as one of the uplifted churches, the one that was doing kind of pretty well overall? And maybe he felt that that hour there was just an enlightenment or an encouragement of keep doing what you're doing.

And by the way, there are a few things we need to correct here. But you're going through persecution. I'm going to help you interpret the Day of the Lord more correctly. And I'm going to make you kind of recognize those people who need to be uplifted in your body. So this hour is personal, which may have been very importantly directed to this church at that time. I'm speculating. And maybe this was mentioned about the personalness of hour.

And maybe some had, well, the father is farther away and the Lord is closer. And you incorrectly. think of the Father as being more distant than the Son, when in reality, we get the whole package. We have the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit continually, 24-7, and He can be called our Father, and we have endearing terms for our Savior. The whole Godhead is our personal God. We have a personal relationship with a God who loves us.

Anyway, I'm just kind of going on here. Just to further that, Jesus Christ walked the path of this soil here. And this was a person that ultimately Paul was confronted by on the road to Damascus. And Paul had good knowledge of Christ before he was saved as a Pharisee.

So Christ is clearly the source of Christianity. There's no question about the Lord Jesus Christ. But how many people saw the Father? Did Moses see God the Father? On the mount? Well, if you take that verse that no man has seen God at any time, I would always like to say that the only person, Christ is the visible person of the Godhead. You have to conclude that. So you think that on the mount, that was not God the Father. But remember that the Jew at that point, Jehovah, right?

Of course, that's all part of. Anyway, we don't need to, we're not going to solve that problem either. But the idea. Go ahead, Roy. A little bit of health care. When we went through the survey of that, Dr. Whiting, my high school teacher, said, notice the text that says he punished his board. Right, OK. Otherwise, he would have died. I mean, he would have died in the whole essence of himself.

Okay, Pat, you have your hand up. Can you move the mic there? I don't know. Can people hear Pat at home? The green light needs to be on there. Another place where our is used, it says, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. So our, I wonder if he's trying to address unity. to bring, hey, it's not a separate group, it's an hour, all of us are part of the body, anyway. But the use of our father is, I think, the unique use here, but no question of what you said, Pat, in terms of its correctness. Let me see if I understand what you say you say say that again, I want to make sure Okay Yeah.

Okay, yes. Yvonne just pointed out to me, we're going to cover this. Verse 12 has a very similar statement, the end of verse 12. The grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. There you go. Our God and hers. No, the first part though, our Lord Jesus. So it has the name of our Lord Jesus. Yeah, he actually has our Lord and our God.

Okay, good. So Paul repeats himself in verse 12. Good. And I wonder if that's not back to the whole, we get the whole package. And he's our God, whether he's Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. I mean, it's got to be that way. We can't be segmenting out the Godhead. He's our, you know. I was just trying to reflect on the unique use here, and maybe now that you point out verse 12, I didn't discover that myself. So thanks, Mark. Good. All right.

So in Colossians 1, 20 to 22, it says, and by Him, to reconcile all things to Himself by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross. This idea of peace from God. And you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight. We all know this, but the idea of peace from God reflects on the cross. That's the only source of true peace from God.

John 14.27 lifts us up. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You know, the earth tries to offer peace in so many different ways. And people think, you know, ultimately that the world can do this.

But that's because of their ignorance about God's peace being a very different entity. And if you think about Ethan and family, what they're going through, despite that likely outcome, the peace of God will transcend that in a special way, and grief is still grief. We'll always remember the Lord himself, grief, after Lazarus had died. So, just a final thought. No God, no peace. No God, no peace. Any further comments or thoughts about today's lesson? All right, good. Let's close in prayer.

Father, the Word speaks to us, and we're thankful that we can turn to the Word of God as the source of all truth. And I look at this repeatedly through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, interpreting the truth you've revealed to us. And we're now excited to look at this second letter to the Church of Thessalonica, to learn what we need to learn, as has been pointed out from Keithley's overview of this particular section of scripture. So we're thankful for the word and all it does to impact our lives day in and day out, and may the service to follow be to your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.