2 Thessalonians 1:1–12

Original Meaning

The Prescript (1:1–2)

EXCEPT FOR TWO minor differences, 1:1–2 is identical to what Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 1:1. (1) The first difference is the addition of “our” to “Father,” an instance of what Paul commonly does in the rest of his letters. The designation of God as “our” Father “reflects Paul’s conception of Christians as forming the family of God in a metaphorical sense and is to be seen alongside those texts where believers are called the children of God (cf. Rom. 8:14–23; Gal. 3:26; 4:4–7).”1 (2) The other difference is in verse 2, where the source of the “grace and peace” (which is assumed by Paul in 1 Thess. 1:1) is explicitly identified as “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The same (or similar) phrase is found in all of Paul’s letters except 1 Thessalonians and Colossians (which has only “God our Father”). For the meaning of these verses, see the discussion of 1 Thessalonians 1:1.

Bridging Contexts

A NUMBER OF themes, topics, and elements in this complex section have already appeared or have close parallels in 1 Thessalonians. For how one might approach the prescript (with respect to both Bridging Contexts and Contemporary Significance), see the discussion of the prescript of the first letter (1 Thess. 1:1), from which 2 Thessalonians 1:1–2 scarcely differ. With regard to love, faith, and perseverance, see comments on 1 Thessalonians 1:2–3. The question of the relation between divine initiative and human responsibility arises in 2 Thessalonians 1:11 (cf. also 2:13–15; 3:3–4); see comments on 1 Thessalonians 3:9–13 (Contemporary Significance).

With respect to the thanksgiving (1:3–4) at the beginning of the passage and the petitionary prayer report (1:11–12) at the end, see the discussion of 1 Thessalonians 3:9–13 (Bridging Contexts and Contemporary Significance).17 In giving thanks for what the Thessalonians have done and by praying for what God might accomplish through them in the future, Paul implicitly encourages them as well.

The matter of persecution is clearly a major concern in this passage. As in 1 Thessalonians, Paul has in view “persecutions and trials” (v. 4) that are specifically the result of living for Christ and the gospel in an openly hostile world, which rejects God and his love.18 Thus what I said about this subject in 1 Thessalonians 3:1–5 (cf. also 1:6; 2:13–16) is also relevant to this passage and should be consulted (including the Bridging Contexts section). In particular, the discussion there of how and in what ways various contemporary situations or circumstances do or do not parallel those of the Thessalonians is important here.

In addition to what Paul said earlier about persecution, 2 Thessalonians 1 has a particular angle on this topic that has not come up before and that is central to the discussion. That is the matter of persecution as it relates to the question of God’s justice.

Persecution and God’s justice. Although we do not know for sure why or how the question about God’s justice arose, it seems likely that it is closely connected with the confusion about whether the Day of the Lord has already arrived (the topic of ch. 2). In 1 Thessalonians, Paul had informed the believers in Thessalonica (1) that the trials or afflictions they were experiencing were not due to God’s judgment of them, but were instead the result or consequence of their allegiance to God’s word, the gospel (1 Thess. 1:6; 2:14; 3:4), and (2) that when the Day of the Lord, with its accompanying judgment, did occur, they would experience not wrath but salvation (5:9). In short, the coming of the Day of the Lord would bring an end to their afflictions—the “relief” Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 1:7.

But since the first letter, there has been a new development. In light of 2 Thessalonians 2:2, it seems as if at least some in the congregation were persuaded that the Day of the Lord had already arrived. But if that is true, then why were they still being persecuted? The righteous were supposed to be vindicated, and only the wicked were supposed to experience suffering and judgment after the return of Jesus. Yet as chapter 1 makes clear, they were still being persecuted, perhaps more heavily than before. What did this mean? One can easily imagine how under such circumstances questions could easily arise about God’s justice and judgment.

Paul responds to this problem in two ways. In chapter 2 he corrects the misunderstanding regarding the coming of the Day of the Lord that generated the question about whether God is just. Before that, however, he addresses the question itself. His answer is relatively straightforward. (1) Almost as an axiom not requiring proof, he insists that “God is just” (1:6) and “[his] judgment is right” (1:5). (2) He affirms that the justness and rightness of God’s judgment will become evident to all “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven” (1:7).

By placing the public vindication of God’s justice and judgment in the future, Paul implicitly acknowledges that at the present time and in light of their circumstances, it might indeed appear that God is not just. In this respect his answer has much in common with the perspective of the writer of Ecclesiastes. This author acknowledges that if one views things from a purely human perspective—that is, “under the sun”—it does not appear as if God is just, for the righteous die young and poor while the wicked die old and wealthy (Eccl. 7:15). Moreover (4:1),

I saw the tears of the oppressed—

and they have no comforter;

power was on the side of their oppressors—

and they have no comforter.

But, the writer goes on to assert, there is more to reality and life than what can be learned or observed from the merely human perspective. This observable life is not all there is to reality; a time is coming when “God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil” (12:14). This is essentially the point Paul makes in 2 Thessalonians 1:7–10, where he describes God’s coming judgment, which will set right the scales of justice.

Paul differs from Ecclesiastes in one important respect, however, in that he does not place the vindication of God’s justice entirely in the future. The faith and endurance of the Thessalonians in the face of continuing persecution already offer a clear indication (1:4–5) of God’s justice. This idea is similar to what he says in Philippians 1:28: Opposition to the gospel “is an omen to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God” (NIV, modified).19 In short, the faithfulness of God’s people is, from Paul’s perspective, evidence now of God’s justice, which will be fully vindicated in the future.

A question which well might arise at this point, but which Paul does not address here, is this: Why does God delay his judgment? Why doesn’t he vindicate his people now? Is he unable to, or does he not care? Some have seized on the “delay” in the appearance of God’s judgment as an excuse to ignore or reject the idea of God’s justice. In Romans Paul suggests an answer: It is a matter of God’s gracious patience towards sinners. As he says in Romans 2:4, “Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” (see also 3:25).

In passing we may note that there is in 2 Thessalonians 1:6–8 an implicit explanation of why the Thessalonians are suffering. God’s coming judgment on “those who trouble you” (1:6), Paul says, will fall on those who “do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (1:8). In other words, those who are persecuting the Thessalonians are persecuting them not so much because they hate them, but because they are hostile to the God in whom the Thessalonians believe and trust.

Finally, it is important to observe that when Paul asserts that God will vindicate his people, he is repeating a theme at least as old as the Exodus. In the “Song of Moses” in Deuteronomy 32:40–41, for example, the Lord himself declares:

I lift my hand to heaven and declare:

As surely as I live forever,

when I sharpen my flashing sword

and my hand grasps it in judgment,

I will take vengeance on my adversaries

and repay those who hate me.

And in 32:36, 43, this declaration by the Lord becomes on the lips of Moses virtually a confession of faith:

The LORD will judge his people

and have compassion on his servants

when he sees their strength is gone

and no one is left, slave or free….

Rejoice, O nations, with his people,

for he will avenge the blood of his servants;

he will take vengeance on his enemies

and make atonement for his land and people.

Isaiah takes up the same theme and finds in it a word of encouragement (Isa. 35:4):

Say to those with fearful hearts,

“Be strong, do not fear;

your God will come,

he will come with vengeance;

with divine retribution

he will come to save you.”

In Jeremiah 11:20 (cf. 20:12), it becomes a prayer from the mouth of the prophet:

But, O LORD Almighty, you who judge righteously

and test the heart and mind,

let me see your vengeance upon them,

for to you I have committed my cause.

This confident hope on the part of Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah that God will indeed vindicate his people and take vengeance on his enemies is the background for Paul’s confident assertion that “God is just,” and it offers us a clue to the significance of his statement: To declare that God is just and will vindicate his people is virtually equivalent to a confession of faith in God. In this respect, Paul views the Thessalonians’ perseverance in the face of persecution as nothing less than a declaration of their trust and hope in God. This observation offers a point of departure for thinking about how we might apply this passage today.

A growing faith. Before leaving this section, a short phrase—Paul’s observation in 1:3 that the Thessalonians’ “faith is growing”—may need a word or two of explanation. To people accustomed to thinking in somewhat static terms of “faith” as something one either has or does not have (e.g., “So-and-so has lost his faith”), this phrase may sound a bit odd. But as John R. W. Stott, observes, “Faith is a relationship of trust in God, and like all relationships is a living, dynamic, growing thing.”20

Perhaps an appropriate analogy is the various ways we speak of “love.” True, we say that someone is “in love” or “not in love.” But we also speak of a couple “in love” as growing in their love for each other. Similarly, it is not inappropriate to speak of “faith” as something one does or does not have, as long as we realize that faith is, as Stott points out, a living and (one hopes) growing relationship with God.

Contemporary Significance

IF ONE COMES to this chapter after first working through 1 Thessalonians, many of the topics and themes in this passage sound familiar, and it may not be necessary to treat all of them again. On the other hand, if one begins with 2 Thessalonians rather than 1 Thessalonians, then much more in this chapter calls for treatment or discussion. In this instance, the references given under “Bridging Contexts” (above) to the discussion of the various topics in the commentary on 1 Thessalonians offer guidance in dealing with them here and should be consulted.

In either case, however, there are some themes or perspectives that are distinctive to this chapter and which therefore call for reflection here. These include the importance and consequence of our response to the gospel and the matter of God’s justice.

A choice that makes all the difference. A hard-to-miss characteristic of a modern consumer culture is choice. To walk into a supermarket or department store is to find oneself immediately surrounded by a mind-dazzling (or is it numbing?) array of choices. Two dozen varieties and sizes of soap, fifteen different brands of snack chips, a dozen kinds of toilet paper, nine shoe stores in the same mall, and so on and so on. The range and variety of products—and thus choices—seem endless.

But even as the range of choices has multiplied, the significance of those choices has decreased. Much of the difference between similar products is superficial rather that real, involving distinctions without a real difference. All the brands of soap clean effectively; my car runs the same regardless of which brand of gas I put in it. More and more of our choices mean less and less, despite the efforts of advertisers to convince us otherwise. In the long run, most of the decisions one makes in the course of the day are inconsequential. A year from now, it is unlikely that my life will have been affected by which brand of paper towels or variety of soup I purchased yesterday. Ironically, it seems that a second characteristic of a modern consumer culture is its tendency to trivialize choices even as it multiplies them.

Another aspect of contemporary culture, this one tragic rather than ironic, is the tendency to try to avoid responsibility for our choices. The tendency to “pass the buck” or shift responsibility is everywhere observable. Rather than take responsibility for the consequences of our actions, we seek to blame someone or something else: the way we were raised, the environment in which we were raised, the absent parent who wasn’t there, or the dysfunctional one who was there. Antisocial or personally destructive behaviors have been medicalized and are now treated as diseases rather than viewed as character faults or shortcomings. Our heavy reliance on no-fault divorce, easily accessible abortions, lawsuits as a means of settling minor social problems, or deficit spending as a means to avoid paying for present consumption offers further evidence, I suggest, of a culture fundamentally unwilling to bear responsibility for the consequences of our actions.

But not all choices are trivial, and not all consequences of our choices can be avoided. Despite the ads that try to persuade us that “we can have it all,” there are still times when we are confronted by mutually exclusive choices, whose consequences are more or less irrevocable. Examples include choices about education, which person to marry, what career to pursue, whether to use drugs, whether to terminate a pregnancy, or whether to be faithful to a commitment. They are choices, in other words, that “make all the difference” in the fabric and shape of our lives, to borrow a phrase from one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems, “The Road Not Taken.” This poem reads, in part:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

and be one traveler, long I stood….

Then took the other….

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back….

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.21

Here the choice is unavoidable (“sorry I could not travel both”), and the consequences are both irrevocable (“knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back”) and significant (“I took the one…. And that has made all the difference”).

Paul’s description in 1:5–10 of God’s future judgment—in particular, the basis of it—focuses a spotlight on a particularly consequential and unavoidable choice: the decision whether to accept or reject “the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (1:8). When the time of judgment comes, as it inevitably will, those who, in response to the gospel, believed the message and placed their trust (“faith”) in God will “be with the Lord forever” (1 Thess. 4:17) in his presence. Those, however, who have rejected the gospel will find themselves “shut out” (2 Thess. 1:9) from the Lord’s presence and majesty.

Here we have what J. R. W. Stott describes as “the solemn alternative”: the opportunity to find and fulfill our true identity as human beings (“to glorify God and enjoy him forever,” in the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism) by believing in the gospel, or by rejecting it to place ourselves among those who “will be alienated from their own true identity as human beings. Instead of being fulfilled or ‘glorified,’ their humanity will shrink and shrivel…. Instead of shining with the glory of Christ, their light will be extinguished in outer darkness.”22

By sharing with the Thessalonians this vision of the future consequences of a choice they have already made, Paul seeks to encourage them to remain faithful to the God who has called them (1:11), in spite of whatever persecution they may experience in the meantime. To those of us who have made the same choice as the Thessalonians, it likewise offers encouragement to us. But for those of us who may not yet have made that decision, it confronts us with a sobering vision of the irrevocable consequences of a decision that must be made, an unavoidable choice that makes all the difference.

Declaring God’s justice. For those believers today who find themselves in circumstances similar (if not identical) to those of the Thessalonians—that is, persecuted or afflicted for the sake of the gospel—the application of this passage is clear: Persevere in the face of this unjust treatment as a declaration of the fact that God is just and will vindicate his people.23 Such faithful endurance constitutes, Paul says, a clear “evidence” (1:5) not only that God exists, but also that “[his] judgment is right” (1:5) and that he himself “is just” (1:6; cf. Rom. 3:25–26). As such, it constitutes a bold declaration that the persecutors are wrong and that they are hostile to God. Perseverance, in other words, becomes a form of proclaiming the truth about God.

What should those of us who are not experiencing persecution for the sake of the gospel do? To begin with, we have an obligation to pray for and encourage those who are being persecuted. In addition, we should protest against unjust treatment of our fellow believers. This will accomplish at least two things. (1) It potentially offers (in addition to prayer) a concrete means of encouraging our persecuted fellow believers. (2) Protesting against the unjust treatment of fellow believers is another way (in addition to perseverance) of declaring God’s justice. Governments, nations, groups, or movements that persecute Christians are implicitly (if not explicitly) claiming the right to decide what justice means. But that is not the case; God is the one who defines what justice is. By protesting unjust actions directed toward Christians, we can remind whoever is responsible that they do not set the standard for justice and that God will hold them accountable for their injustices. In sum, if those who are persecuted declare God’s justice by their perseverance, those who are not persecuted can proclaim God’s justice by their protests against injustice.

How or in what way might we protest? (1) If the persecution is of believers in other countries, one way would be to adopt the model utilized by Amnesty International and groups that supported Soviet Jews prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. This involves identifying specific believers who are being persecuted and regularly writing letters on their behalf to leaders, representatives, and embassies of the responsible national government.

(2) We can lobby international organizations that distribute aid or financial resources to countries that persecute Christians to issue on a regular basis reports about the human rights conditions (with special reference to religious rights) in the countries they serve.

(3) We can lobby our own government to pay more attention to the plight of persecuted believers in other countries.

(4) We can raise the question of whether we are trading the religious rights and freedom of persecuted brothers and sisters in other countries for economic or national security considerations. At present, for example, there is in the United States a considerable debate about whether to link human rights issues to trade and economic issues in our relations with China. One side of the debate argues that the United States should not jeopardize its economic well-being by allowing human rights issues to interfere with free trade and commerce. But as believers we should at least raise the question of whether such an approach involves the trading of the religious rights of fellow believers for our own economic advantage.

If the persecution is national or local rather than international, similar strategies (appropriately modified) can be utilized. Instead of writing or protesting to foreign governments, one might need, for example, to write the local school board to protest discriminatory policies against Christian students who wish to meet or gather for prayer or Bible study before or after school. The circumstances and situation might vary, but the principle remains the same.

Original Meaning

The Thanksgiving (1:3–4)

THE STATEMENT IN 1:3a about giving thanks (repeated in 2:13 below) echoes closely what Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 1:2. The phrase “we ought” is otherwise unparalleled in Paul’s writings, as is the phrase “and rightly so.” Some argue that here thanksgiving is viewed as a duty rather than a joy, and they take it as an indication of non-Pauline authorship. But this consideration overlooks the reasons for thanksgiving, two of which are given in 1:3b: The Thessalonians’ “faith is growing more and more,” and the love they have “for each other is increasing”—the very thing for which Paul said he was praying in 1 Thessalonians 3:10, 12.2 Any sense of “obligation” in 2 Thessalonians 1:3a is driven not by duty but by gratitude to God for the divinely inspired growth experienced by the Thessalonians, a gratitude so overwhelming that one has little choice but to give thanks for it.

The Thessalonians’ growth in faith and love (cf. 1 Thess. 1:3) was taking place under the most adverse conditions: the continuing experience of “persecutions” (diogmois; cf. Acts 8:1; Rom. 8:35; 2 Cor. 12:10) and “afflictions” (thlipsesin, NIV “trials”; cf. 2 Thess. 1:6; also 1 Thess. 1:6; 3:3, 7). The church’s circumstances do not appear to have changed much since the time of Paul’s writing the first letter (cf. 1 Thess. 3:1–5). But adverse external circumstances have not hindered the fellowship’s growth in the critical areas of faith and love; if anything, they may have promoted it.

Consequently (NIV “therefore”) Paul reports two more reasons why he gives thanks and “boasts” (cf. 1 Thess. 2:19) to other congregations about the Thessalonians. These are the “perseverance” (cf. 3:5; also 1 Thess. 1:3, “endurance inspired by hope”) and “faith” (primarily in the sense of “trust,” but perhaps also a bit of the sense of “faithfulness”) that they have demonstrated. In short, the Thessalonian brothers and sisters3 have become for Paul an exemplary model of enduring Christian commitment under difficult conditions.