One In Jesus

2 Thess 1:1-4

(2 Thess. 1:1-4 ESV) Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:  2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.  4 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. 

The salutation is very similar to 1 Thess, and so I’ll avoid repeating materials already covered.

Paul begins with a word of praise, thanking God that the church is growing in faith and in love for each other. Paul says not a word about inviting friends and neighbors to church or doing community service projects — not that he wouldn’t encourage these things. Rather, a close reading shows that Paul is, first and foremost, concerned that the church act like the church among and toward each other. It’s not until we have a loving, faith-filled congregation that the world will find us attractive. They’ll happily accept our well digging and house-painting and enjoy our Easter and Christmas programs, but they won’t put on Jesus until they see us living the love and faith of Jesus toward one another. If we would just do that — by becoming a united, holy community — both congregationally and as the church-universal — the evangelism and social service will go much better. Continue reading →

I am late to the study of serious theology, and so I’d not heard of the so-called Deutero-Pauline books until the last few years. And then I saw where many fairly conservative scholars distinguish between the undisputed books of Paul and the disputed books.

Many authors argue theology using only the undisputed letters or argue first from the undisputed letters and then add material from the disputed letters as confirmatory or supplemental.

Well, I’ve read the “Deutero” epistles, and they sure read like Paul to me, although I’m not fluent enough in koine Greek to offer a truly scholarly judgment.

Regarding 2 Thessalonians, Wright concludes, Continue reading →

Third, where I grew up, oaths and swearing were considered sinful based on the seemingly clear teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. And here we have Paul asking his readers to swear that the letter would be shared with the entire church. How can that be?

This is so problematic that most translations hide the problem by saying something like “I charge you” or “I adjure you.” Therefore, most English readers are unaware of the problem, but the ESV courageously translates the words to say what they mean.

Notice the first person singular, “I charge you.” This is Paul speaking for himself, from his own heart and perhaps, at this point, holding the pen in his own hand (see disc. on 5:28; cf. also 2 Thess. 2:5). The expression is a strong one (enorkizō), “I put you on oath.” He is not swearing by the Lord (cf. Matt. 5:34) but appealing to his readers to act as though, in this matter, they were on oath to the Lord. Almost certainly the Lord is Jesus, as in verses 23 and 28, and that Paul should invoke him in this way is “another indication of the stature of the Lord as Paul saw him” (Morris, Themes, p. 33; see disc. on 3:11 and 2 Thess. 2:16).

David J. Williams, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 105. Continue reading →

(1 Thess. 5:27-28 ESV) 27 I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. 28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

These are the last two verses of the epistle, and they present some interesting challenges.

First, Paul’s instruction to have this letter read to “all the brothers” strongly suggests that the church in Thessalonica met in multiple locations, likely houses, while remaining a single congregation under a single leadership. If they all met together every week, there’d be no other way to read the letter except to everyone. But if they had, say, 10 sites where they met, the letter would have to be passed from hand to hand and read over the course of at least 10 weeks. After all, Xerox wouldn’t invent the photocopier for quite some time yet. Continue reading →

1 Thess 5:25

(1 Thess. 5:25 ESV) 25 Brothers, pray for us. 

This short verse is striking in its poignancy. I mean, here we have Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, who prays for so many others, who is so close to God that he’s been entrusted with a history-changing commission, asking the poor Christians in Thessalonica, new converts all, for their prayers.

Such an incredibly humble request. Paul is declaring that, even when it comes to his own relationship with God, even he — an apostle! — depends on other Christians, even new converts. Nothing could more powerfully make the point that we all depend on each other. There is no individual autonomy and no true individual spiritual formation. We grow in Christ together. Continue reading →

Now, inevitably, each reader has his own way of expressing how this works, but regardless of exactly how we connect our own efforts with God’s efforts, it’s clear that Paul is insisting on both human effort and divine effort.

Now, is he insisting on human effort to please God or to earn our salvation? Well, plainly we can’t earn our salvation. But then, neither can we refuse Paul’s instruction to be blameless and completely holy.

It gets tiresome arguing over just the right way to say this, when all sides agree that we are saved by the work of Jesus and the faithfulness of God to his covenant to count faith as righteousness — but we also are obligated to grow in holiness, which is not easy. Continue reading →

1 Thess 5:23

(1 Thess. 5:23 ESV) 23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

To “sanctify” is to make holy. In the NT, “holy” generally does not refer to ritual holiness but to actual holiness.

“Holy,” of course, means “set apart,” as we covered already, and in this case, Paul’s emphasis is on being blameless at the Second Coming.

“Blameless” does not mean perfect but free from accusation. The word was often used to describe the attributes of the ideal public servant. The idea isn’t to be sinless (which is quite impossible) but to have no disqualifying traits. That is, “holy” focuses on the positive attributes — to be like the Holy One, Jesus — whereas “blameless” focuses on the elimination of negative attributes — all with the goal of being Christ-like. Continue reading →