2 Thessalonians: Not Yet

At a Glance

Who wrote it: It says Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, like the first letter. Scholars are divided. Many think a follower wrote it later in Paul’s name, to correct people who were reading the first letter as saying the end had arrived.

When: If Paul wrote it, about 50 or 51, soon after the first letter. If not, perhaps between 80 and 100.

Written for: The church in Thessalonica, still harassed by its neighbors. Some had been told that the day of the Lord had already come, and some had quit working to wait for it.

What it remembers of me: Nothing from my life. It describes my return with his mighty angels in flaming fire (1:7).

How close it stays to me: Close in keeping even the disobedient as brothers. Far on enemies, with flaming fire for persecutors.

If you only read three chapters: It has three. Read them.

Words to Know

The day of the Lord — the day of God’s judgment, promised by the prophets.

The man of sin — a figure of rebellion who, the letter says, must appear before the end. Many Bibles call him the man of lawlessness.

The restrainer — something, or someone, holding the man of sin back. Nobody knows who or what.

Idle — in Greek, ataktōs, in a disorderly way, out of line. The letter uses it of people who had stopped working.

The Book in Brief

Paul, Silvanus and Timothy write again to the church in Thessalonica. Chapter 1 thanks God for the church’s faith and love, and for how it endures persecution. It promises that God will repay those who afflict them and relieve the afflicted, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his angels in flaming fire.

Chapter 2 deals with a rumor that the day of the Lord has already come. Do not be shaken, the letter says, whether by a spirit, a word or a letter claiming to be from us. That day will not come until the rebellion comes and the man of sin is revealed, who sets himself up as God in the temple of God. Something is holding him back for now. The Lord will destroy him when he comes. The chapter closes with thanks and a prayer.

Chapter 3 asks for prayer and warns against believers who live in idleness. They should follow Paul’s example of working night and day. If anyone is not willing to work, he is not to eat. Those who defy the letter are to be avoided, but not treated as enemies. Paul signs the greeting in his own hand.

Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ … we ask you not to be quickly shaken in your mind, and not be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come (2 Thessalonians 2:1–2).

And at the end, Paul takes the pen to prove it is really him: The greeting of me, Paul, with my own hand, which is the sign in every letter: this is how I write (2 Thessalonians 3:17).

That is the first strange thing about this letter. It worries about forgeries. And the line meant to prove it is genuine is exactly the line a forger would add. Scholars have noticed the irony for a long time.

Go deeperHow a letter was signed, and how it was forged

Paul rarely wrote his own letters. Like most people in the ancient world, he spoke them aloud to a secretary and then added a line in his own hand at the end. You can see it in the letters. Tertius, the secretary of Romans, greets the reader in his own name: I, Tertius, who write the letter, greet you in the Lord (Romans 16:22). Paul takes the pen at the close: See with what large letters I write to you with my own hand (Galatians 6:11), and This greeting is by me, Paul, with my own hand (1 Corinthians 16:21). Ancient papyrus letters show the same habit, with a different hand at the end.¹

Forgery was a real danger. In the second century the doctor Galen wrote a whole book, On My Own Books, because works he had never written were being sold in Rome under his name. About the year 200, Tertullian told of a church elder in Asia who wrote a book called the Acts of Paul, which includes the story of Thecla. When he was found out, he said he had done it out of love for Paul, and he was removed from his post.¹

So the worry in this letter was a realistic one. The open question is whether this letter is itself one of the forgeries. Those who think so say that a forger who wanted to be believed would add exactly this sign. Those who think Paul wrote it say that he would have signed it in just this way. Neither side can prove it.

Two letters, two clocks

The second strange thing is the timing.

In the first letter, the end comes suddenly. The day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2). No warning. Be ready.

In this letter, there is a sequence of events that must happen first, so nobody needs to panic yet. Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction, he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God … so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God (2 Thessalonians 2:3–4).

First a thief in the night. Then a checklist. That is not impossible from the same man in the same year. People say different things to different worries. But it is one of the main reasons many scholars think this letter came later, from someone dealing with a new problem: believers who were so sure the end had come that the church was coming apart.²

Copying the first letter

The third strange thing is how closely this letter copies the first.

The same three names open both letters, in the same words. The structure follows the same order, sometimes phrase by phrase. Yet the tone is cooler. The first letter is warm and personal: We always give thanks to God for all of you (1 Thessalonians 1:2). This one is formal: We are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, even as it is appropriate (2 Thessalonians 1:3).

We are bound to. It sounds like duty. A German scholar named William Wrede argued in 1903 that the second letter was written by someone with the first in front of him, imitating its shape.³ Others answer that Paul might have reread his own letter before writing again. The argument is still open.

The man of sin and the restrainer

The passage about the man of sin has fed more speculation than almost anything else Paul is supposed to have written.

He sits as God in the temple of God. Some of the first readers may have remembered the year 40, when the emperor Caligula ordered his own statue set up inside the Temple in Jerusalem, and my people were ready to die to stop it.⁴ Caligula was killed before it happened.

Then comes the most mysterious sentence in the letter. Now you know what is restraining him … Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way (2 Thessalonians 2:6–7).

You know, the writer says. They may have known. Nobody since has. The Roman Empire, the emperor, the preaching of the gospel, an angel, God himself and the Holy Spirit have all been proposed. Augustine, one of the greatest minds the church ever had, read the passage around the year 420 and said plainly that he did not know what it meant.⁵

Since then, the man of sin has been named as the pope, Muhammad, Napoleon and many others, depending on who was reading. The restrainer has been named as whatever the reader wanted to keep in place. It is a passage that tells you far more about its readers than about the end of the world.

Go deeperThe Temple had been defiled before

A man who sits as God in the temple of God (2 Thessalonians 2:4) was not a new picture. The Temple in Jerusalem had been defiled before, and my people never forgot any of it.

In 167 BC the Syrian king Antiochus IV turned the Temple over to the worship of the Greek god Zeus. Jews read the book of Daniel as describing this deed: They will set up the abomination that makes desolate (Daniel 11:31). In 63 BC the Roman general Pompey walked into the Holy of Holies, where only the high priest could go.⁶ Then, in the year 40, Caligula ordered his own statue set up in the Temple. I used Daniel’s words myself: when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not (Mark 13:14). And in AD 70, when the Temple was burning, Roman soldiers carried their standards into the court and offered sacrifices to them.⁶

That is also the difficulty in dating this letter. If a follower wrote after the year 70, the Temple building no longer stood. Scholars who think so say the phrase is a picture borrowed from Daniel, or that the temple of God means the church. Scholars who think Paul wrote it say the picture fits the 40s and 50s, when the Temple still stood and the crisis under Caligula was a fresh memory. Neither side can prove it.

Flaming fire

The first chapter has some of the hardest words about judgment in any of the letters.

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, punishing those who don’t know God … who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 1:6–9).

It was written to a small church being harassed by its neighbors, promising that their persecutors would get what was coming. You can understand why frightened people wanted to hear it.

Set it beside what I said about the people who persecute you: love your enemies … and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you (Matthew 5:44). And beside what Paul wrote in a letter nobody doubts: Bless those who persecute you; bless, and don’t curse (Romans 12:14).

If anyone is not willing to work

Then comes the verse from this letter that the world remembers.

For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: “If anyone is not willing to work, don’t let him eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

Look at why it was said. For we hear of some who walk among you in rebellion, who don’t work at all, but are busybodies (2 Thessalonians 3:11). Some members, believing the end had come, had quit working and were living off the others, perhaps eating at the common meals while contributing nothing. The rule was for a small community sharing its food, aimed at people who would not pull their weight because they thought the world was over.

The verse has had a long life since. In 1609, Captain John Smith used it to drive the starving colonists at Jamestown, in Virginia, to work, adding his own exception for those disabled by sickness. In 1917, Lenin quoted it. In 1936, the constitution of the Soviet Union wrote it into law as a principle of the state.⁷ And today it is quoted in nearly every argument about feeding the poor, usually by people arguing for feeding them less.

Read the word that is almost always skipped. If anyone is not willing to work. Not if anyone does not work. Not if anyone cannot find work, or is too sick, or too old, or a child. The rule was about willingness, in a community where everyone already shared food. It was never a reason to let a hungry person go hungry.

The same chapter ends with a line that belongs beside it: But you, brothers, don’t be weary in doing what is right (2 Thessalonians 3:13). Two verses later, even the person who defies the letter is not to be written off: Don’t count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother (2 Thessalonians 3:15).

Check It Yourself

Look up: 1 Thessalonians 5:1–3, then 2 Thessalonians 2:1–4.

You will find: the end coming suddenly, like a thief, in the first letter, and a list of things that must happen first in the second.

Then read 2 Thessalonians 3:6–12 and ask who the rule about work was aimed at.

The Short Version

• 2 Thessalonians warns against forged letters claiming to be from Paul, and many scholars think it may be one.
• The first letter says the end comes like a thief. This one says certain things must happen first.
• Its man of sin and its restrainer have puzzled every reader since. Augustine admitted he did not know.
• Its flaming fire for persecutors is far from love your enemies.
• If anyone is not willing to work was aimed at people who quit working because they thought the world was ending. It was never about people who cannot work.