2 Thessalonians 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy greet the church in Thessalonica and thank God that the believers' faith and love keep growing while they endure persecution. The writers say this endurance is evidence of God's righteous judgment, and that God will pay back trouble to those who trouble them and give relief to the troubled when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his angels. They describe the punishment coming on those who do not know God or obey the gospel, and the glory Jesus will receive among his people on that day. The chapter closes with a prayer that God will count the readers worthy of his call and complete every good purpose and work of faith in them.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy are the senders of this letter.
   • The letter is addressed to the church of the Thessalonians.
   • That church is in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. 1:2
   • Grace is wished to the recipients.
   • Peace is wished to the recipients.
   • The grace and peace come from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. 1:3
   • The senders are obligated to thank God always for the recipients.
   • The recipients are addressed as brothers.
   • Such thanksgiving is fitting.
   • The recipients' faith is growing exceedingly.
   • The love of every single one of them toward one another is increasing.
4. 1:4
   • The senders themselves boast about the recipients in the churches of God.
   • They boast about the recipients' endurance and faith.
   • The recipients undergo persecutions and afflictions.
   • The recipients are enduring those persecutions and afflictions.
5. 1:5
   • This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God.
   • The purpose is that the recipients be counted worthy of the kingdom of God.
   • The recipients are suffering for the kingdom of God.
6. 1:6
   • It is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict the recipients.
7. 1:7
   • It is righteous with God to give rest to the recipients, who are afflicted.
   • That rest is given to the senders along with the recipients.
   • This happens at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven.
   • The Lord Jesus is revealed with the angels of his power.
8. 1:8
   • The revelation occurs in flaming fire.
   • He inflicts vengeance on those who do not know God.
   • He inflicts vengeance on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9. 1:9
   • Those persons will pay the penalty of everlasting destruction.
   • That destruction is from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
   • Whether 'from' means separation away from the Lord's presence or issuing out of it is not specified.
10. 1:10
    • He will come to be glorified in his saints.
    • He will come to be marveled at in all those who have believed.
    • The senders' testimony to the recipients was believed.
    • This occurs on that day.
11. 1:11
    • To this end the senders always pray for the recipients.
    • They pray that our God would count the recipients worthy of the calling.
    • They pray that God would fulfill every good pleasure of goodness.
    • They pray that God would fulfill the work of faith with power.
12. 1:12
    • The purpose is that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in the recipients.
    • The purpose is that the recipients be glorified in him.
    • This is according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

Silvanus is the fuller Latin form of the name shortened to Silas in Acts, and Timotheus is the Greek form of Timothy; these are Paul's two coworkers, both known to the Thessalonians from the founding of the church there. Thessalonica was a large port city and the administrative capital of the Roman province of Macedonia, on the main road east from Italy. The word translated "church" is not a building but simply an assembly or gathering of people.

1:2

"Grace unto you, and peace" is the standard opening of Paul's letters. It reshapes the ordinary Greek letter greeting, chairein, into charis, grace, and adds the Hebrew greeting shalom, peace, which meant wholeness and well being rather than only the absence of conflict. Grace is a favor given to someone who has not earned it.

1:3

"Charity" in 1611 English simply meant love of any kind, and had not yet narrowed to mean giving money to the poor. The Greek word is agape, the ordinary early Christian word for committed love between people. "Meet" is the old word for fitting or proper. "Brethren" was used of a mixed group of men and women, not of men only.

1:4

"Glory in you" means boast about you, speak of you with pride, and carries no sense of worship. "Patience" translates hypomone, which is not calm waiting but holding your ground under pressure, staying put when something is trying to push you off. "Tribulations" translates a word whose root image is crushing pressure or being squeezed; it covers hardship of any kind, not only formal persecution.

1:5

A "manifest token" is a plain, visible proof or piece of evidence. The Greek sentence is compressed and does not say exactly what the evidence consists of, so it can be read either as the persecution itself demonstrating that God will judge rightly, or as the Thessalonians' endurance under it being the sign.

1:6

"Recompense" means to pay back in kind. The phrase is a legal one about a judge giving what is due, and it plays on the same word in both halves: trouble returned to the troublers.

1:7

"Rest" here translates anesis, the loosening or slackening of something stretched tight, so relief from pressure rather than sleep or inactivity. "Revealed" translates apokalypsis, an unveiling or uncovering, the pulling back of a curtain on something that was already there but unseen.

1:8

"Taking vengeance" renders a judicial phrase, giving out the penalty that is due, rather than acting on a personal grudge. The Greek leaves it open whether "them that know not God" and "that obey not the gospel" describe two groups or one group twice over. "Gospel" is the old English for good news, an announcement of something that has happened.

1:9

The little word translated "from" can mean either separation, shut out and away from the Lord's presence, or source, the destruction coming out from his presence. Both readings have been held since antiquity and the Greek does not settle it. The phrase echoes the wording of Isaiah 2, where people hide from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty.

1:10

"Admired" in 1611 meant wondered at or marveled at, with a note of astonishment; it did not mean looked up to fondly, which is the modern sense. "Saints" translates hagioi, holy ones, meaning people set apart for God; in the New Testament it is a term for all believers rather than a title for a distinguished few.

1:11

"Good pleasure" means settled good purpose or desire, not enjoyment. The Greek phrase "the good pleasure of his goodness" is ambiguous about whose goodness is meant: God's own good purpose that he carries out, or every good intention of the readers that God brings to completion. "Calling" refers to the summons by which God invited them in, and "with power" attaches to God's doing of it.

1:12

In this culture a person's "name" stood for the person themselves, along with their reputation and character. Honoring the name means the person is being honored, not that the word itself is treated as sacred.