Sunday School | 2 Thessalonians

Introduction

Melissa, you're so nice and quiet. So great. Alright. If you don't have one, anybody not have one of these on second Thessalonians? You should have one of these. There's a stack of them up here. If not, you can come grab one. We can pass them around.

Alright. Welcome back. Chad, you need something? I need a packet. Need a packet. Get what you need.

So, what we've been doing here is looking at one New Testament book a week for the last couple of months. Come on and grab everything. And we are up — well, we're not really going in order. We're kinda skipping around in a particular order that I recommend. I haven't hit that lately. So here's the deal: the reason we're doing these is to help you facilitate your own personal time reading the Bible.

It's my contention that if you just spend, if you read five pages a day of New Testament, you can read the entire New Testament in fifty days. Right? It's not that long. If you read ten pages a day, you can read it in about twenty-five days. And my suggestion is you don't just go Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and walk your way through, but you skip around a little bit. I think it's a good idea to begin with Luke, then Acts, then Romans. Luke, Acts, Romans. That would give you kinda the foundation of who Jesus is, then the kinda part the sequel to Luke, and then the theological framework you find in Romans.

Luke, Acts, Romans. And then read a couple of letters, whatever you want. And then go back and read a gospel, and then read, you know, four or five letters, then read another gospel, four or five letters, another gospel, four or five letters. But then save Hebrews and Revelation for the end because they're just really complicated. They're probably the most difficult two books in the New Testament.

So Luke, Acts, Romans, and then you kinda intersperse gospel and letters, and then end with Hebrews and Revelation. And you could jump in. You could do that. You could if you wanted to do the ten pages a day, there's still enough time to get done by Christmas, and we’d love to see you do that.

The Background of 2 Thessalonians

What we're looking at this morning is 2 Thessalonians, which is the continuation — well, it's not a continuation, but it's a follow-up letter to the first Thessalonians that we looked at last year. And the thing that I'd love you to see — well, actually, let's pause there. Just to remind us, where we were, what was 1 Thess about? If you've got your sheet, you're welcome to cheat. If you don't have your sheet and you want to look at your Bible, you're welcome to do that. But what was 1 Thess? What was going on in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians?

First letter to the Thessalonians. You remember this one? Michael? Love for them, like kindness and love for them, and then the return of Christ. Very good. Okay. And then, the return of Christ — is that what you said? Yes. Okay. So first Thess, I would contend that 1 Thess is Paul's warmest letter, that he loved the Thessalonians. You see, the whole letter is just permeated with really affectionate language. He loved these guys. They’re very important to him.

One of my favorite verses in the New Testament is 1 Thessalonians 2:8. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well because you had become so very dear to us. Right? And the whole letter is permeated with that. And Michael is also correct on his second point: that a major theme in that book is the return of Christ. Every chapter ends with an allusion to Christ’s return. And then there's a really significant section in chapter four about the particulars of his return. It’s often misunderstood, I believe, but it’s not about his 1.5 coming. It’s not about him coming and then not quite coming and pulling us away, but it really is about him coming, we meeting him, and him beginning to — no, beginning? No. His completion, his return, our resurrection, and the restoration of all things. That’s a major theme in 1 Thess.

So, excellent. Anything else that Michael didn’t mention here that is important from 1 Thessalonians that you remember?

First Thess. First Thess. Okay. Well, the good news is 2 Thess is gonna be a replay of all kinds of things that happen in 1 Thess. So when we look at it, we’re gonna see more. Before I give you all mine, I know you probably already began to read it. Walking in this room this morning, before you got here, what did you know about 2 Thessalonians? Are there any passages that kinda leaped to you or anything you learned or heard about 2 Thess that you want to throw in here before I start laying it all out?

Second Thess. Well, you got anything? It’s not necessarily the a particularly well trod letter. Yeah. Coming and how it’s gonna happen and how it happen. It’s okay. So more second coming — that’s exactly right. So, first Thess, it permeates the letter. And there’s chapter four. Second Thess probably actually has more content about the second coming. It’s a major issue in this letter as well. Very good.

Anything else you guys know about 2 Thess? 2 Thess, 2 Thess, 2 Thess. Go. Yep. Idleness. Idleness. Yes. Okay. What about idleness? It’s not gonna be an idol, but it’s — exactly right. So, it’s a little bit more of a rebuke letter because the Thessalonians are just kinda lazy. Right? And that’s — we’ll talk more about that. Return of Christ, them being idle. Anything else strike you that you remember from this letter?

You guys just hit two of the main, two of the three main points of this letter. The third main point is that they’re dealing with persecution. And we’re gonna see that in here. But here’s what I want you to notice:

What in the New Testament — there’s a number of like multiple letters — who gets multiple letters in the New Testament? The Corinthians? You got 1 and 2 Corinthians? Timothy? You get 1 and 2 Timothy? Peter? You get 1 and 2 Peter. Now that’s not what’s interesting about that, you’re right exactly. Peter gets two letters. It’s not clear that he’s writing to the same audience in both letters. It’s even clear who he’s writing to in either letter. It’s a little bit of a funny thing; you’re right. There’s a double tap on Peter’s letters very much.

Anything else? John? John writes his 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Again, it’s not entirely clear who he’s writing to, but he gets 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, then Revelation — he gets a bunch. And so, with Peter’s letters, the first and second is the first and second letter of Peter, from Peter. With John’s letters, it’s the first, second, and third letters of John from John. But we name Paul’s letters because there’s some we would name if we named Paul’s letters the same way we named John and Peter’s letters. It would be 1st Paul, 2nd Paul, 3rd Paul, 4th Paul, 13th Paul. Right? So it’s a little bit like the numbering system could kind of throw you off. When we look at the letters that are double numbered by the recipient, we only do that with Paul because Paul wrote a whole slew of letters. Right? Any other double sets from Paul? We got Corinthians, we got Thessalonians, and that’s pretty much it. Okay.

Oh, yeah. Michael? Could you argue Ephesians and Colossians because they’re supposed to change them? Yeah, interesting. Okay, Michael’s right. So, kind of the end of Colossians is like, “Hey, read the letter I wrote to the Ephesians.” And in fact, if you read them, they’re like, there’s a lot of similar content. And you could throw Ephesians into the Timothy pot because Timothy is the leader at Ephesus. So, it’s 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Ephesians are all part of that set.

Okay? So who cares? Right? All that. That’s all true. But here’s what I want you to notice: of these double sets, there’s by far more correspondence between 1 and 2 Thess than between the other letters. Pretty much everything that happens in 2 Thessalonians already happened in 1 Thessalonians. And I want you to — there’s a significance to this, okay?

Before we get into what are the particular issues, the thing that gives me some hope and encouragement in that is that Paul writes to the Thessalonians in the first letter, and he’s like, OK, I love you, you’re the best, just totally love you. However, you’re wrong about this, and you’re screwing this up, and I really want to see a little bit change over here. Okay? He’s writing Bible. This is the Word of God; it’s powerful. It’s this two-edged sword. And it’s going to produce a change in his life. And then it doesn’t, because he’s got to write another letter and be like, hey, let’s go over that again, and let me update what I said here, and what I said here, and what I said here. And isn’t that helpful news? Is there anything in your life that was like, you know, it’s all jacked up, and then you read the Bible that corrects it, and then you’re still all jacked up? Is anyone else? Okay?

So I think it gives us hope that there’s patience, that we don’t — nobody turns on a dime. Nothing ever goes from like, here’s your situation right now, and then bam, tomorrow everything is all better. Has anybody — I mean, maybe every once in a while, literally, maybe there’s some moment in your life where there was some major pivot and everything just flipped and everything got better. But in my experience, man, it’s a long, slow road to things slowly getting better. And the fact that Paul had to write them back again, I think is good news for us because it means that we might get another letter, we might have another opportunity. And it might be OK that we grow incrementally and not just turn on a dime. Yes, yes. Robin, do you want to respond to that? It’s just like parenting? Like, he’s very much parenting them. Yes. That’s part of that process. Yeah, you’re telling me that you had to tell your kids the same thing more than once? Kris, what was she doing the whole time? She’s no good at this game, I guess, you know?

Paul’s Continuing Love and Patience

Okay, so here’s what’s going on. Let’s make this a little more personal. You guys know I was on staff at Campus Crusade for Christ for twenty years, and I love crew. There are things about crew that frustrate me, of course. Like, there’s things about you that frustrate me. Right? But I loved it. And last week, crew got put in the crosshairs. I don’t know if you would have any reason to know this, but Rosaria Butterfield, who I admire enormously, I love Rosaria. I think she’s brilliant.

Rosaria was a lesbian college professor in the Northeast who came to faith through a very gracious couple. She has since written a number of books about her journey from living in a homosexual lifestyle to living consistent with the sexual integrity that God calls us to. And it’s really brilliant. It’s wonderful. She’s so, so smart. And she kind of tells the whole story of her transformed life. Last week, she was speaking at Liberty University at the convocation. They had this, you know, convocation — like 10,000 students come to this thing. And she went after crew, and she went after a guy named Preston Sprinkle, whom I also really like. Preston is not part of crew, but he’s a believer; he’s a Bible teacher, and he’s produced a curriculum to help the church think about LGBTQ issues. I really like Preston. I think he does a really good job of being faithful to the text, of being gentle and compassionate towards sinners, and living in the right space.

And Rosaria Butterfield, fascinatingly, who is herself come out of that lifestyle, went after Preston and went after crew for being biblically unfaithful. And as I read this guy’s video, this expose on crew, I watched it this weekend or Friday. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like, he’s busting crew essentially for this, for being really nice to sinners and sufferers. And he acknowledges begrudgingly that, like, alright, okay, they hold to the actual faithful sexual ethic — that gay sex is a sin and that we are called to live lives of sexual integrity. The only place for sexual expression is within a marriage between a man and a woman, a lifelong commitment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They say that. They do that. But they’re just so really gentle on the way that they communicate it that they’re compromising the Word of God. And I’m like, what are you talking about? We are called to be — we even have this curriculum that is called compassionate and faithful. This is the crew curriculum, the stuff that we do in partnership with Preston. Compassionate and faithful. And my only issue with that — hear this — is when they say, we are about, we are about to be compassionate to sinners, that’s our perspective that we should be compassionate to sinners, and we should be faithful to what God has said in His Word. Okay?

There’s only one problem with that, and that is being compassionate to sinners is not distinct from being faithful to God’s Word. Being faithful to God’s Word includes and requires being compassionate to sinners. He is the Lord, the Lord. He’s gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love. And the guidelines that the crew has set forth of how to approach this, how to do this, is that we tell them what is true in God’s Word, of what He’s called us to. And we’re patient, and we are kind, and we are gentle, and we are thoughtful while people with homosexual attractions work out their own disordered loves, just as we are patient and gentle with people with heterosexual attractions who screw that up too.

The vast majority of sexual sin in the world is heterosexual in nature. Have you noticed this? And just as we are patient with one another on this side of the line, we’re patient with those on the other side of the line. And these guys were just advocating for something that I just did not recognize as consistent Christianity. Do this for me, and then we’re gonna get back in a second.

Go to Nehemiah 9. Okay. Nehemiah 9 is an absolutely extraordinary chapter in the Bible. I love Nehemiah 9. It’s one of several places where the history, where the whole story of Israel is recapped in a prayer. And one of the things that happens here, you guys may remember me saying this, what is the Old Testament’s favorite verse? What passage in the Old Testament is repeated more often than any other? The Fifth Testament? The final testament? Yes. That’s it. You’re exactly right. It’s Exodus 34:6. Okay. And I actually just quoted it a minute ago.

The Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. — Exodus 34:6

And then it goes on to say, right, remembering your covenant love for a thousand generations, and then it says, but you don’t punish, you don’t leave the guilty unpunished. And there’s a — he’s not only merciful and loving, but he’s also just. Okay?

Exodus, look it up. Exodus 34:6. It shows up over and over throughout the rest of the Old Testament, including several times in Nehemiah 9. But when we approach Exodus 34, or when we approach Nehemiah 9, when we consider who God is and how who He is interacts with sinners, the answer is: He’s so patient with us. You don’t just get one swing at this. He comes around again, and he says it again, and he’s gentle again, and he’s kind again because we’re working it out. And there’s something wrong with us.

When you — we’re going to come to Nehemiah 9 in a second. When the fall entered the world and everything broke and the whole world fell all to pieces, two main things entered the human experience. We became bad, and we became broken. Okay? You became a sinner, and you became a sufferer. You became guilty, and your life became marked with grief. And these are different things.

The fact that some of you are going to get cancer is a result of the fall, but it is not a result of your sin. Now, maybe it will be. Maybe you’re doing really stupid things that are leading to this. But by and large, you’re a sinner, and you’re a sufferer. Your life is marked by both of these. They’re both fallenness, but they’re not exactly the same thing. Sin leads to suffering, to be sure. Have you noticed this? And suffering leads to sin. Often because you’re hurting, you do something stupid to try to make it better, and it doesn’t work, and that leads to suffering, which then leads to sin. But they are distinct things.

Everyone in this room has disordered loves. And if you are gay and have disordered loves, or if you are straight and have disordered loves, we all need to take everything that we are, all that we are, and surrender to Christ. But the very fundamental nature of the way you’re wired may be, and in fact more of your brokenness than your badness. And the risk that we all have, and the thing that we do all the time, is that we allow our brokenness to excuse our badness. We allow our brokenness to lead to badness, and then we rest in that.

And what we need to do is approach people the way that Paul is approaching people in 1 Thess or in 2 Thess. We come again, and we come again, with the mercy and grace of God to help address the places in our lives that are broken.

So far so good? You with me? Look at what happens in Nehemiah 9. He’s describing the goodness and kindness of God. We’ll pick it up. Gosh, he does this so many times. I’m not sure it’s hard to pick a place. We’ll just start in verse 13. But you should go back and read the whole chapter. It’s so — you did this, then we did this, and then you did this, and then we did this.

You came down on Mount Sinai, you spoke to them from heaven, you gave them regulations and laws that are just and right and decrees that are good. You made known to them your holy Sabbath and you gave them commands, decrees, and laws through your servant Moses. And in their hunger, you gave them bread from heaven. And in their thirst, you brought them water from the rock. And you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them. — Nehemiah 9:13–15

Right? The blessing of God, the goodness of God, the kindness of God. And then verse 16:

But they, our forefathers, became arrogant and stiff-necked. They did not obey your commands. They refused to listen, and they failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. That’s right. You get it? God is so kind to them, and then they just screwed it all up.

But look at it, verse 17:

They became stiff-necked, and in their rebellion, they appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. Therefore, you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies. They did all kinds of wrong things, and yet the gracious and compassionate God gave them another chance. Ray Dyraley constantly calls God — where’s Ray? Are you in the room? — what is Ray Dyraley’s favorite name for God? The God of second chances. How many times have I heard him say that?

So look at verse 19:

Because of your great compassion, you didn’t abandon them in the desert. By day, the pillar of cloud didn’t cease to guide them on their path, by night, the pillar of fire. So he does this again, and then he’s merciful to them, gives them kingdoms in verse 22, made their sums numerous in verse 23, captured the lands. But then in verse 26, for crying out loud, they were disobedient and they rebelled against you. They put your law behind your backs. They killed your prophets who had admonished them in order to turn them back to you. They committed awful blasphemies.

So you handed them over to their enemies who oppressed them. Right? But when they were oppressed, they cried out to you, and from heaven you heard them. And in your great compassion, you gave them deliverers who rescued them from the hand of their enemies. It goes on and on like this.

Every time they become stiff-necked and rebellious, look at verse 30:

For many years you were patient with them, and by your Spirit you admonished them through your prophets. They paid no attention, so you handed them over to the neighboring peoples. But in your great mercy, you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are once again a gracious and merciful God. Right? This is the gospel. It’s not merely, hey, straighten up, fix it, get better. It’s that we call people, and we’re called to one another to the standards that God has set, and the God who is slow to anger, abounding in love, compassionate, merciful, faithful, allows us to begin again.

If you ever — if you want to go back, you should. Go online. Go find this YouTube video ripping on crew for being so nice. Just drives me insane. They are faithfully representing the Christian sexual ethic, and they are faithfully representing the grace and compassion and patience of God. And if He was not like that, where would anyone in this room be?

Can you imagine if He was not the God of second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth and fifty-seventh chances? Right? That’s what I want you to see in 2 Thess — that He’s going again.

Recap of 2 Thessalonians Themes

Let’s recap. Let’s go back and look at it again. Okay? You with me? Praise God that He is merciful and patient with us.

Look at the things that He’s going to talk about: the way that I designed this thing is just so you can see it’s pretty simple. He talks about persecution in 2 Thess, which are also the same things He talked about in 1 Thess. He talks about the return of Christ in 2 Thess, which are the same things He did in 1 Thess. And then He talks about idleness in the second book, which is the same stuff He talked about in the first. He just had to hit it all again.

And probably, we could have a 3rd Thess, and a 4th Thess, and a 5th Thess. Don’t we, Helen? The God of second chances. Right? Okay, so let’s take a look at it. How much time do I have? Did I burn it all? Most of it. Okay.

Persecution in 2 Thessalonians

Just take a look. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul refers to all that they are suffering, all the things that they’re hurt by, they’re unsettled by. And Paul writes back in this one, he’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It’s still going on. But there is a — there is a — there’s a tweak. Do you know what happens in 2 Thessalonians that he adds to help them deal with their persecutions? It might be obvious as you look at it. It might be familiar, maybe not.

In the midst of their suffering, what does he make very, very plain in 2 Thess? It is the punishment that awaits the wicked. Why would knowing that the wicked will be punished in the final analysis — those that refuse to bend the knee to Christ — how does their future suffering impact those that are currently being persecuted?

Yeah, Chris? It would help me with justifying grace to them. Yes. Say, I don’t need to worry about this because it’s a battle that’s already — that I don’t need to work. That’s right.

So, see, if you’re suffering and you’re particularly suffering unjustly from somebody that’s hurting you, there’s an overwhelming impulse. Is there not to hurt them back? You know, you hurt me, that’s fine, but I’m gonna hurt you back. Right?

What Paul is doing is he’s trying to undercut that impulse because it is crucial that Christians turn the other cheek. It is crucial that Christians, the imitators of Christ, when He was cursed, He did not revile in return but patiently endured. What Paul said in His path. We hate that. If you hurt me, I want to hurt you back.

And so, what Paul is doing is he’s anchoring them to the reality that God is just, and the final punishment that He metes out against those that never bend the knee to Him is so great, so severe — you don’t have to do it. It is the justice of God that facilitates the pass, not the pacifism, not the passivity, the pacifism of Christians. I do not need to be jury, judge, executor because somebody already is. That’s what he’s going on.

So, when you read through it — if you feel it — there can be a sense when we read what we would call imprecatory passages, passages that call upon God’s judgment, that we could think, “Okay, yeah, God is bloodthirsty,” and so am I. That is not where we’re supposed to take this. We’re supposed to say that God is just, and therefore I do not have to be; I can be an agent of mercy, even to the people that are causing me to suffer.

Because God will sort it out. If you did not believe that God was going to, like, ultimately be just, then you would feel like, well, better it’s now or never, baby. And it’s gonna be now. Right? You know that phenomena? So, when you read it, don’t let the imprecatory nature of 2 Thess — let it stir you to wrath. It should make you grateful for mercy, and it should stay your hand.

Does that all make sense? That’s what he’s doing with the prescreen. So, watch that.

Anybody thoughts on that or anything you want to comment on what you see with the persecution in 1 Thess? I’m self-conscious that I’m talking an awful lot today. Not giving you guys much shot. Gina? You’re just playing with your pen? Okay. Yeah, bro.

The Returning Justice and Mercy of God

Also, the strengthening of self to say, you know, I’m not gonna go the way it was. There will be reckoning. That’s right. Or it’s like, well, if they’re doing it, why can’t I do it? Because there’s gonna be a reckoning, and you don’t want to be counted in that reckoning. Yeah. You’re exactly right.

So, I don’t know if we’ve done it in this room, but Psalm — you, you remind me of Psalm 1, which essentially says, the good guys win and the bad guys lose. Right? There’s a man. He loves the word, and he stays away from the bad guys, and he’s like a tree that flourishes. And then there’s the bad guy that does all these things, and he becomes like chaff, and the wind blows away. It’s a promise that ultimately the righteous prosper and the wicked perish. But then, there are numerous places throughout the scriptures where it says, wait a minute —

Psalm 37 and Psalm 73 are two particular reflections on Psalm 1 that say, Psalm 1 is bogus, someone’s not working. Psalm 1 isn’t true. Like, the bad guys win all the time. But the way that we work through Psalm 37 and Psalm 73, Jeremiah wrestles through this very significantly. The ultimate answer in all these things is: wait. Wait. Psalm 1 will be true. Wait. And it doesn’t look true in the middle.

So what was happening in chapter 2 of 2 Thess that’s particularly relevant? He’s telling you the second half of Psalm 1, it’s gonna happen. Just wait for it. You do not want to switch teams and be like, oh, I’m gonna be on the prosperous wicked team. Paul’s like, no, no, no, no, because I promise you someone is coming to pass. It just may be a little while. Right? And that is how it works. Right? It’s coming. But right now, sometimes someone doesn’t feel real true. And if you’re in that spot, and you’re like, man, I read Psalm 1 and I’m not buying it, then go read Psalm 37 and Psalm 73. They are specifically designed for the people that are having a hard time believing in Psalm 1, and that’s really what 2 Thess is as well.

Alright. Good enough? Alright. Flip the page. What’s the other one? Return of Christ. What do you guys know about the return of Christ in 2 Thess? Is there anything in here that you’ve ever studied or had a dialogue about? I think it’s super weird. You familiar with this? You got anything? Anybody wanna say? Again, I’m just talking an awful lot. Anybody wanna steal the mic? What’s going on with 2 Thess? There were people there that thought it had already happened. Yes. Yes. Okay. And why did they think it had already happened? Question.

So Paul is gonna say, I don’t know if I included it here. Let’s see. I didn’t include it in this in my notes. But they’ve gotten a letter here. Go to an actual Bible. All right. Hang on. So I’ll quote it right. Probably would have meant to have 2 Thess up on my Bible before we started this. Sorry. Look at chapter 2, verse 1.

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy report or letter supposed to have come from us saying that the day of the Lord has already come. — 2 Thessalonians 2:1

So, somebody is like faking a letter, signing it with Paul’s name, and telling them that they missed it. And he’s like, no, no, stop. Right? So it’s like you get an email from some credit card company telling you you’ve got to call us to do this thing, so we can get your passwords or whatever. Right? This is that. This is somebody’s writing a letter in Paul’s name. He’s like, don’t buy it. It’s not true. You haven’t missed anything. It’s kind of impossible that you could have missed anything because it’s not a missable event, essentially. Like, when Jesus comes, it’s going to be really obvious. And then he lays in — he kind of puts all this very strange language about this.

Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. — 2 Thessalonians 2:3

That has, as you can imagine, produced a lot of speculation through the centuries. Who is he talking about? You guys have, you ever sat through a Bible study that answers that question? What do you think? What’s the sense of what he means here? The Antichrist? Okay. So, the Antichrist. Yeah. But do you have like his first name? Like Caesar or something? Yeah. I mean, throughout the centuries, it’s Caesar, it’s Saddam Hussein, you know, it’s right? It’s amazing how like every generation, there’s like somebody that’s like, oh, it’s definitely Saddam Hussein. Right? And it was not Saddam Hussein. It was Reagan. This is so funny. Reagan? Anybody know Reagan’s middle name? Yeah. Wilson. Wilson. Okay. So, you remember his first name? Ronald Wilson. Yeah. Do you know why that’s significant? 666. Yes. Exactly right. Ronald has six, six letters; Wilson has six letters; Reagan has six letters. Ronald Wilson Reagan is the 666 Antichrist. I mean, there’s just an endless line of this. Right? And of course, it’s funny. People on the left tend to tend to think it’s like the Republican presidents. People on the right tend to think it’s the liberal. It’s like just everybody calm down. Okay? So, like, but throughout the centuries, there’s some sense of who is this? What do you think is the right answer? Who is this? What is he talking about? You’re gonna stick with the Reagan theory? Yeah. Don’t think it was Reagan. My favorite of those theories, because of the numerology and like how each letter means a number, it would be the role of the papacy. So like the Vicar Filii Dei — those three words amount to 666 in three different alphabets. I’ve never heard that. Yeah. Okay. And this is a great example. We could run this through. You know, in fact, we actually, with a high degree of certainty, know that this isn’t — this is Paul, not John. But what John wrote about the number of the beast being 666, we actually knew that. That genuinely, honestly, was Nero. He’s long since come and gone. There is real numerology on this. It was Nero who, at that time, had enormous power to bring an incredible amount of pain.

The question, though, is: Nero’s gone and came, is there an ultimate fulfillment to this? And I do think there will be an ultimate fulfillment to this. And I don’t know who it is, and neither do you. Okay? But what Paul is saying is that there is going to be, before Christ returns, things are gonna both get better and they’re gonna get worse. Right? There’s a degree to which this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. There will be more and more people around the world that know the name of Christ, and as the world spins on, there will be more and more evil. It gets better and it gets worse. That’s exactly what we see throughout all of history. Things are getting better, and things are getting worse. But in chapter 2, he’s reminding them of the things that he had taught them in the past.

What’s that? That something has to happen for the one that holds back evil to stop holding back the evil. There will be some degree — I don’t know the particulars of it — some degree, to which the God who restrains sin, who holds back wickedness, is gonna give the world over. And this is not new. This is what he’s been doing. It’s in Romans 1. Right? That God gives us over to our sin. He’s like, alright. Have at it. And that’s gonna happen on a more cosmic scale. He’s gonna step back and allow sin to have this reign until He ends the game.

Look at verse 8. Then the lawless one, which I do take to be an antichrist figure, the final antichrist figure, the lawless one, will be revealed — whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of His mouth and destroy by the splendor of His coming. The picture here is that things are gonna get bad, and they’re gonna seem so bad that there’s no hope. And then, when Jesus comes, it’s like no contest. It’s just no contest.

I would say the best cinematic depiction of this probably that I’ve seen would be what happens in Lord of the Rings. You know the scene at Helm’s Deep? How many of you guys have either read or seen Lord of the Rings? Do you remember the Helm’s Deep thing? That’s the castle fortress thing, and there’s a million orcs — just like infinite numbers of orcs — and they’re coming over the wall with ladders, and there is no hope. And Legolas is shooting arrows; McGinley is swinging an axe. But there’s just too many, and they’re going to lose. And then, what happens? Gandalf. Gandalf. Look to the east. Gandalf comes over the thing. He’s no longer Gandalf the gray; he’s Gandalf the white. And it’s like everybody dies. It’s just instant victory from the edge of defeat. I’m sure Tolkien — Tolkien likes to not write what? Allegory. He would say it’s not an allegory. But come on, Tolkien. We know what you’re doing here. Right? That scene is the return of Christ. I mean, it’s nothing else besides that. And that’s what we see here. In 2 Thess 2, it is — man, it’s gonna get really bad. It’s gonna be really rough. And then, when Christ comes, it’s just over, and wickedness is put down. And that’s what he’s — that’s what he’s writing. He’s writing to people for whom this isn’t theory. They are suffering, and they are feeling the power of wickedness in their midst. They’re being persecuted in really painful ways. And he’s encouraging them that when the game ends, it’s gonna end really, really well. And it’s gonna be glorious.

And maybe there are times in our lives, too, that we need to read these passages and be reminded that at the end of the day, someone will be true. At the end of the day, He will be victorious. Even when you’re experiencing the way that the righteous suffer.

God’s Mercy and Patience

Make sense? Okay. That’s all very cheerful and encouraging for them. It’s all good news. But there’s one more thing — and that’s what the Thessalonians are getting wrong. We start in the first letter. Look at the first letter. Go to the bottom of the back page.

Here’s from 1 Thess. Paul says, surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship. We worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. Paul’s not just bragging about how hard he works; he’s modeling, he’s drawing their attention to what they’ve observed so they’ll notice it.

Then he says, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, to work with your hands just as we told you so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and you will not be dependent on anybody. We ask you, brothers: respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord, and who admonish you. And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

First Thess, which is all that — that is to say that First Thessalonians had a large number of warning statements about you being lazy. It had a large number of admonitions to work hard. It had things about noticing our example that we work hard.

Do you guys happen to know why were the Thessalonians not working hard? Or what was the — how does that link to other aspects in the letter? Kelly?

Because Jesus is coming back. That’s exactly right. If Jesus is coming back, like, tomorrow, why bother to plant crops today? Right? So, they’re living in a sense of — their kind of jacked-up eschatology is producing this, they’ll just hang out. It’s fine. Jesus is coming. You don’t need to mess with it, don’t need to do anything.

He’s like, no, He is coming, but in the meantime, get to work. And it doesn’t fix it. Okay, Robin?

Does it have anything to do with back in Acts when the church was coming together and people were selling land and everybody was taking care of everybody?

Yeah, this. And do you think they had that kind of attitude? Yeah. You’re right. So Robin’s referring to in early Acts, as Peter begins the church, they had this — sometimes the claim is made that the Bible was communistic or the New Testament church was communistic or socialistic. And it’s a reasonable thing to think because what you’re seeing is the pooling of resources. It’s not really accurate because socialism and communism are state-enforced phenomena where the state is redistributing the wealth.

What Peter experimented with was not that the state or even the church leadership is like re-dividing wealth, but that everybody is just person-to-person sharing with one another. And so, that was the way it started there. You never see it again after, like, Acts 5. It never — it, it never shows up in Paul’s letters. It’s pretty clearly a failed experiment. The level of sharing of resources, it just doesn’t work. Human nature is such that it doesn’t work. It didn’t work then, and it really hasn’t worked anywhere since.

So, rather than that, what we’re called to is a life of generosity. The duty that we share with one another. We’re mindful of the needs of others. We consider others’ needs more important than our own. But we still maintain private ownership of our stuff. The Thessalonians were probably trying to live in that, and they were certainly dependent on others. Paul said, stop it. You’re all wanting to be the receivers and not nobody — nobody can be the givers if nobody’s gonna work. So, you need to work not just so you’ll have things for yourself, but you need to work so that you’ll have things for other people to have.

Look at how he’s gonna do it in the second letter. All these things are said, but listen to the second letter. He says, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers: keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you.

We did this not because we do not have a right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: if a man will not work, he shall not eat. And then he says: we hear that some among you are idle. They’re not busy; they’re busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.

Right? So there was a culture in Thessalonica where Paul’s like, even when we were there, you guys were like this. We talked about it when we were there. Then I wrote you a letter about it, and apparently, it’s not gotten any better. So, here’s another letter. Right?

It just takes time. It just takes it takes multiple taps to finally break through and try to fix us. You get multiple taps, but we need them. And we are to be these kinds of people. We are to work not just so that we are not dependent on others, but so that we ourselves can be generous. So we will have something that we can share with others who are in genuine need.

And look at what it did. We didn’t talk about this last week, but look at that first Thess 5:14. The very last thing on the page. It says:

We urge you, brothers: warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. — 1 Thessalonians 5:14

That’s a really— there’s a lot of wisdom in that. Some people need to be warned: “Hey, knock it off.” Like, “Stop it.” Right? But some people need to be encouraged, and some people need to be helped. And in fact, probably you, in different circumstances and at different times, sometimes you need a warning. Right? Hey, tighten up. Sometimes you need some help. Sometimes you need to be encouraged. Different things at different times in our lives. But for the Thessalonians, they had a pervasive inclination away from work. And this is gonna be more on the warn-them, kind of put a boot up their butt a little bit, you know?

Culturally, was this written just to men? No. I’ve never thought that. That’s interesting. What makes you ask that? I don’t think so. Why do you ask? Now, we ask you, brothers, to respect the work, but were men the workers? And women the stay-at-home, or how did that work?

So, Paul’s letters, he very often will use just the term that we translate as brothers. I have to look. I don’t remember offhand if that is actually a gender-ambiguous term, kinda like we would say:

Yes, all men are created equal. — In the Declaration of Independence

And we know, or like when Neil Armstrong steps on the moon, and he says, “One small step for man,” you’re included in that. Right? So there’s a sense in which we use “men” to represent the humanity. But his letters frequently make reference to specific women. Sometimes they’re actually Phoebe who delivers it. So I don’t think we would say that it’s just to men. So I would assume that brothers — we could rightly say “brothers and sisters.” I wouldn’t assume that he’s advocating for a nineteen-fifties kind of a division of labor within the Bible.

You’ll see, maybe the most famous text that we tend to apply to women is Proverbs 31, and that she has a job. She’s purchasing property. She’s engaging in things. So, I don’t think Paul is making that kind of a case in that passage. But I can look to see if the brothers there are actually male persons or just the gathered community of believers.

Closing Remarks

Alright. We’re over time. I gotta stop talking. So read 1 Thess, read 2 Thess. Next week, we have no Sunday school upstairs or downstairs for Thanksgiving break, and so we will pick it up with Timothy the week after. Thanks for coming.