Introduction
Paul, and the team, touched on the παρουσία in the first letter [1 Thessalonians 1:5-12]. The imminent παρουσία was not the literal end of the world [Matthew 24:34]. They are concerned that some are not working and causing trouble because the Day of the Lord is near [2 Thessalonians 3:6-15]. This letter was probably written soon after the first letter [AD50-51]1 about 20 years before the destruction of Jerusalem. It is possible that the second letter is actually the first as NT sequences [like the Quran] are determined by length not chronology2.
Greeting
1 Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
As with the first letter [1 Thessalonians], this is not just from Paul but the team that planted the church in Thessalonica.
What are grace and peace in their biblical contexts?
Thanksgiving for…
1. the perseverance of the Thessalonian believers
3 We ought to give thanks to God always concerning you, brothers, just as it is fitting, because your faith is flourishing and the love of each one of you all toward one another is increasing 4 so that we ourselves boast in you in the churches of God about your patient endurance and faith in all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring,
What is the evidence of faith for Paul’s team?
2. the [imminent?] judgement at Jesus’ return
5 a proof [ἔνδειγμα3] of the righteous judgment of God, so that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, on behalf of which also you are suffering,
Ἔνδειγμα probably refers to the Thessalonians’ “patient endurance and faith”4 as a cause of the “righteous judgment of God” [v5]. This is something about which Paul says “[w]e ought to give thanks to God always concerning you” [v3].
Why were the Thessalonian Christians considered worthy?
6 since it is righteous in the sight of God to pay back those who are afflicting you with affliction,
Why is it “righteous in the sight of God” to pay back those who were afflicting the church [Exodus 21:24; Isaiah 66:6]? Are we to avenge our enemies [Matthew 5:38–48; Romans 12:19]?
7 and to you who are being afflicted, rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels, 8 with burning flame giving punishment to those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus,
As we have noted this παρουσία was imminent [Matthew 24:34.
Is this appearing of Jesus with his angels just for Thessalonica or a more general return to avenge the persecuted church? What historical event can we link this with [and Mark 13 and Matthew 24]?
9 who will pay the penalty of eternal [αἰώνιον5] destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength, 10 whenever he should come to be glorified on that day by his saints and to be marvelled at by all who believe, because our testimony was believed among you,
Aἰώνιον can mean eternal, as it does in modern Greek, but it is literally aeons, i.e. a very long time.
6. Who according to Acts and the NT letters was persecuting the church? What judgment came on these people? Will it be forever or a very long time [Romans 11:1-11]?
Prayer for the Thessalonian believers
11 for which purpose we also pray always for you, that you may be considered worthy of the calling of our God, and he might fulfil every desire for goodness and work of faith with power, 12 in order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
7. How is the name of Jesus glorified in us and us in him? Do you see a hint of theosis6?
More
Josephus, "The Jewish War" (also known as "Bellum Judaicum") gives a lot of gruesome detail of the Romans’ destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70AD. Here are some quotes:
"So great, indeed, were the miseries that befell the Jews, that they appear to me to have surpassed all the calamities that have ever happened to any nation since the beginning of the world." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Preface, Section 4)
"They also set fire to the priests' chambers, and to the store-houses that were around the temple, which were full of oil, of wine, and of all sorts of spices and other precious materials; and they set fire also to the archives, wherein were deposited the evidences of their families, and the genealogies of their priests and Levites." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Chapter 5, Section 4)
"And although, as I have already said, there was a vast quantity of gold in it, yet nothing was left but what was carried away by the robbers; and of the vessels there were many of gold and of silver, besides that immense quantity of brass, all which were pillaged by the Romans." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Chapter 5, Section 5)
"But when they were come in, they did not act like men, but more like beasts, letting loose upon the holy places what one would not have believed even beasts would do. For they went in, with slippers on their feet, and walked upon those holy pavements, defiling them with their impure footsteps." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Chapter 6, Section 1)
"And such was the end of the most celebrated city in the world, which took two thousand years to build, but was destroyed by its inhabitants in little more than five hours." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Chapter 9, Section 3)
"Those who were taken prisoners were seven thousand, among whom were a great many of the nobility and principal men. Some of these were slain by the Romans, some were reserved for the triumphs, and others were sent to the several cities of Syria, to be devoured by tigers and lions in their theatres." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Chapter 9, Section 3)
"The number that perished during the entire siege, according to the account of those who counted them, was one million one hundred thousand..." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Chapter 9, Section 4)
"Now this vast multitude is indeed collected out of remote places, but the entire nation was now shut up by fate as in a prison, and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was crowded with inhabitants. Accordingly, the multitude of those that therein perished exceeded all the destructions that either men or God ever brought upon the world..." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book 6, Chapter 9)
"Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done), Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple...And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down: nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change; for the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste." ( Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Book 7, Chapter 1)
"Paul probably wrote it soon after 1 Thessalonians, between AD 50–51. Second Thessalonians is well attested within the writings of early Christianity; the early church figure Irenaeus quotes it, Marcion included it in his truncated collection of Paul’s letters, and it is listed as part of the Muratorian Canon [...[a]n early but incomplete list of NT books found in a manuscript fragment that dates to AD 200–400]." Derek R. Brown, 2 Thessalonians, ed. Douglas Mangum, Lexham Research Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2013).
F. F. Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, ed. David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, and Ralph P. Martin, 16th Edition (Waco, Tex: Word Books, 1982), xli.
Ἔνδειγμα is a hapax in the NT.
Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (Grand Rapids (Mich.): Eerdmans, 2009), 253-4.
"αἰώνιος (aiōnios). adj. eternal, long-lasting. Describing the nature of something as enduring or eternal. “This adjective is related to the noun αἰών (aiōn, “age”). It describes the quality of something as lasting the eon or enduring the age. Many of the instances in which this word occurs are in reference to something eternal, especially eternal (aiōnios) life (e.g., Matt 19:16; John 4:14; Acts 13:48; Rom 2:7)." [J. A. McGuire-Moushon and Rachel Klippenstein, “Eternity,” in Lexham Theological Wordbook, ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Bible Reference Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014)].
"[D]eification (Gk. θέωσις or θεοποίησις), ‘becoming God’, the normal term for the transforming effect of *grace in Greek patristic and E. *Orthodox theology. The only explicit biblical support for the notion of deification is provided by 2 Pet. 1:4 (‘that you might be partakers of the Divine nature’), but it is closely allied to the Pauline doctrine that through the Spirit we are sons of God (cf. Rom. 8) and to the Johannine doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Trinity (cf. Jn. 14–17). St *Irenaeus develops the idea that as God shared our life in the Incarnation, so we are destined to share the Divine life and ‘become what he is’ (Adv. Haer. 5, praef.)." F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 467.