Pastor's Ponderings: Tuesday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 (June 3, 2025)

June 3, 2025:  Tuesday Bible Study on Paul’s letter, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Good morning and may Christ's gifts of forgiveness, life, and Salvation abound in your life today and always.

Yesterday we prayed for Caleb for healing, and today the news is even better. He was to start the fire academy here in Tucson as one of the thirty who were selected out of 200 applicants. We had concern that his finger injury might remove him from the program, but yesterday, the first day of his classes, Caleb was told that he would be able to continue. Praise the LORD who answers all our prayers!

The nature of this second chapter of II Thessalonians takes quite a turn from the kind of prayers of thanksgiving to God for His faithfulness, and praise of God who is the Alpha and Omega of all things in creation, and for the joyful love of Jesus that is being lived out and proclaimed by these newest of Christians in Thessalonica.  We know about persecution and struggles, the history of our own denomination's beginnings, with guidance and care from Luther, and others, during the reformation in the 1500s was fraught with troubles from those who only saw themselves as having the knowledge to make things right.  But there is something much more insidious about which Paul is speaking in this part of his letter. Paul believes that someone, or some entity (perhaps an army) who will be a destroyer of faith and life in Christ, or who will lead many who are faithful, yet not very strong in their faith, astray with alternative "truths" about what is happening.  Paul speaks about this when he indicates that the bearers of this alternative "truth" tell believers that the day of the Lord has already come, which Paul has already shared with this new Christian community by letting them know that Christ will return at some time in the future.  No one knows when that day will arrive, but the parousia is before all Christians as we wait for the reign of Christ to be restored at some time in the future of our world. Paul may be thinking of the Pharaoh and Moses, when the Pharoah becomes so consumed by his anger that he can no longer understand how the God of Moses would act by sending plagues upon His own people and on the Egyptians too. There was in the history of the Romans and the Jews a time when the Roman Emperor thought himself to be God, his name was Gaius Caligula. He sought to place his own statue in the Temple in Jerusalem. The outrage of the Jews was moving them to a possible civil war against Rome, but as luck would have it, or perhaps someone who saw the insanity of Gaius' move, Gaius was murdered before that could happen. That was some 25 years before the outbreak of the Roman Jewish war which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. What we don't know is exactly who Paul had in mind for this title of restrainer of the faithful. In fact, Paul may not have had anyone in mind, other than just knowing that there were always people like this exerting their power, and sometimes their madness over those who would live peacefully and gently in the world. What Paul is trying to get across to us is that the world is filled with people who are unable, unwilling, or uncaring to such a point that even though the Spirit has worked on their lives to convince them of the goodness and kindness to which the LORD calls them, they remain unable to respond to the gifts of God for their lives, and they live their lives filled with anger, hate, and violence towards others.  For these people there will be a time of judgement when their lives of unresponsiveness to the goodness and love of God will be set aside to be separated for eternity from the LORD.

We might even think that this seems unfair, but we must always remember that God is the Sovereign of all of Creation, including all people, and one day God will put all things to right, and bring all human empires under the rule and judgement of His own saving Kingdom.  I will be back with you on Thursday as we are moving into a new Psalm for study and my commentary. With Love for you in Christ, Pastor Kim