Bible Commentaries
2 Thessalonians

A COMMENTARY

ON THE New Testament Epistles

BY

DAVID LIPSCOMB

EDITED, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES,

BY

J. W. SHEPHERD

VOLUME V

I, II Thessalonians,

I, II Timothy,

Titus, and Philemon

GOSPEL ADVOCATE COMPANY

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

1942

INTRODUCTION TO THE

SECOND THESSALONIAN EPISTLE.

OCCASION AND DESIGN OF THE EPISTLE.

The persons to whom this Epistle was written—“the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” In order to understand it, we must ascertain the condition of the church when it was written. Paul had been compelled to leave the Thessalonian Christians only partially instructed in the gospel of Christ. He had written them an Epistle to correct abuses and to supply what was lacking in their understanding of the gospel. (1 Thessalonians 3:10.) The in­telligence brought back to Paul by the bearer of the Epistle or through some other channel was the reason why it was written. He thus received a good report of the Thessalonians, and was enabled to express his joy and thankfulness to God that their faith grew exceedingly, and the love of everyone toward each other abounded. (2 Thessalonians 1:3.) But still the erroneous views concerning the coming of the Lord and the consequent disorders to which he had called attention had rather in­creased than diminished. The Lord Jesus Christ had ascended to heaven about twenty years before, and had promised to return at an uncertain date, and therefore nothing was more natural than the church in general should have expected an early return.

Various circumstances, both in the church and in the world, heightened the expectation. Such a view of an immediate coming of the Lord had taken possession of the minds of the Thessalonian Christians. Their deceased relatives who, they thought, would lose all the benefits occurring at the Lord’s coming, had indeed been assuaged by the former Epistle, but the expectation of the immediate coming of the Lord had grown in strength. They, it would seem, from misapprehend­ing some passages of the first Epistle that the day of Christ’s coming was at hand. (2 Thessalonians 2:2.) Mistaken and enthusiastic men had also nourished this deception by appealing to visions and to the traditionary sayings of the apostle; and it would even appear that an epistle had been forged in the name of the apostle. The church was thrown into a state of wild excitement; an impatient and fanatical longing for the instant when Christ would come seized upon one portion, while fear and consternation at the awfulness of the event overwhelmed another. The consequence was that many of the Thessa­lonians were neglecting their secular business and living idle and useless lives, conceiving that there was no use of working in a world which was soon to be destroyed or of performing the duties belonging to a state of things which was soon to terminate. Their only duty they felt was to be in readiness for the immediate coming of the Lord.

Accordingly, the design of the apostle in writing the Epistle was to correct the error which the Thessalonians entertained concerning the immediate coming of the Lord, and to correct those abuses to which that error had given rise. The main object of Paul was to warn the Thessalonians against thinking that the day of the Lord was just at hand. He reminds them of his former instructions on this point and tells them that a series of events—the manifestation and destruction of the man of sin—would intervene. “Now we beseech you, breth­ren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is just at hand.” And along with this correction of error was the correction of disorders occasioned by it. There were among the Thessalonians some who walked disorderly, that worked not at all, but were busybodies; those he enjoined to return to their employment, and “that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12.)

TIME AND PLACE OF WRITING,

This Epistle evidently was written at Corinth not long after the first, most likely in the latter part of the year 53.