f. Paul’s prayer (3:11–13)
4. The relationship of Paul to the Thessalonians (2:17–3:13)
a. Paul’s desire to return (2:17–18)
17. The adversative But puts Paul in contrast with the Jews, as does his use of the emphatic we (hēmeis). The apostle strongly desires to return to the scene of his labours, a desire arising from his deep regard for his converts. He calls them brothers and his word for torn away (aporphanisthentes) means literally ‘having been orphaned’. The verb is used with some degree of freedom and is applied to other things than literal orphaning, but it is a strong word and fastens attention on Paul’s sense of desolation. Already in this chapter he has compared himself to a mother (v. 7) and a father (v. 11); this is another example of his cheerful readiness to mix his metaphors if only he can make his point. His verb is used only here in the New Testament, but cognate words are used both metaphorically and literally (John 14:18; Jas 1:27); the use of the aorist may point to the sudden separation (Acts 17:10). The thought of being orphaned emphasizes his affection for those to whom he writes, as does the following in person, not in thought, where Phillips brings out the meaning with ‘though never for a moment separated in heart’ (LB ‘our hearts never left you’).
The longing is further expressed in the word translated we made every effort. The verb spoudazō combines the ideas of speed and diligence, and conveys an impression of eagerness, of making a quick and serious effort. In conjunction with this Paul uses the comparative adverb perissoterōs, ‘exceedingly, more abundantly’. But, as the comparative has practically taken over the functions of the superlative in the New Testament, the meaning is probably ‘very abundantly’ or ‘most abundantly’ (though Milligan thinks that here the comparison is genuine; he paraphrases, ‘we were exceedingly desirous to see you again face to face, and all the more so because of the hindrances we encountered’). The apostle’s great eagerness to see his friends is further emphasized with the phrase out of our intense longing. The word epithymia means a strong passion, so that it is often translated ‘lust’ or ‘covetousness’. This is one of the few places in the New Testament where it is used in a good sense.
18. For introduces the evidence for the longing just mentioned, namely that Paul eagerly wanted to come. The verb wanted (thelō) means ‘willed’; clearly Paul is employing another word that will convey his strong desire to visit his friends. He slips in an exclamation that looks like a sudden outburst of personal feeling, being one of the few places in these two letters where the first person singular is used (see on 3:1), and the only place where the emphatic egō is found (kagō occurs in 3:5). The expression translated again and again (kai hapax kai dis) is unusual and appears to mean ‘more than once’ (so JB; see Introduction, p. 23); NIV is perhaps a little too strong. Paul is not speaking of a passing whim.
But he and his companions had been prevented from doing what they so much wanted to do. Just how Satan stopped them Paul does not say; evidently the Thessalonians would recognize the allusion. Modern suggestions are not convincing. Some speak of illness, but it would be remarkable if this applied to all three of them. Others think that Satan inspired the politarchs to demand such surety as would keep the three away. But the Thessalonians would know more about this than Paul, and it would seem scarcely worth mentioning (there is also the difficulty of this happening ‘more than once’). We should admit our ignorance and understand the term in the most general sense.
Paul has no doubt about the activity of the evil spirit he calls Satan. He is ‘the tempter’ (3:5), and probably ‘the evil one’ (2 Thess. 3:3; see commentary, ad loc.). Satan is a Hebrew word meaning ‘accuser’, ‘adversary’; he is opposed to our best interests. Elsewhere Paul refers to ‘the god of this age (or world)’ (2 Cor. 4:4) and to ‘the ruler of the kingdom of the air’ (Eph. 2:2). It is clear that Paul thought of Satan as having real existence; he is not using the term figuratively.
b. Paul’s joy (2:19–20)
19. At this point Paul is almost lyrical in his expressions of esteem for his converts. Our hope shows his confidence in them, and he also calls them our joy and the crown in which we will glory. He comes back to glory and joy in the next verse; he cannot find words too strong for what he has to say.
The crown of which he speaks (stephanos) is the laurel wreath given to the victor at the games, or the festive garland, rather than the diadēma, the royal diadem (though the distinction must not be pressed, for stephanos is sometimes used of a royal crown). In which we will glory renders kauchēseōs, sometimes translated ‘boasting’; it means that the joy was expressed outwardly as well as felt inwardly.
We should probably take the question Is it not you? as a parenthesis, to give the meaning ‘What is our hope … (is it not you?) in the presence …’.We should also notice an ambiguity. There is a kai (= ‘even’ or ‘too’) before you; Paul may be asking whether his joy, etc., is not the very people he is accused of abandoning (‘even you’, ‘you of all people’), or he may mean ‘you as well as others—you are no special case’. Notice further that Paul combines the title Lord (the one who is in the highest place) with the human name Jesus (Christ is not in the older MSS and should be omitted). ‘Lord Jesus’ or ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ occurs twenty-four times in the eight chapters of these two letters, which is more often than anywhere else in the New Testament. Acts, for example, has it seventeen times and Romans sixteen. This frequent use of ‘Lord’ may well be because in these two letters the second coming is so much in mind. This is certainly the case here, for Paul goes on to refer to it immediately (when he comes). This is the first occurrence of parousia in Christian literature. It means basically ‘presence’ (as in 2 Cor. 10:10, where NIV has ‘in person’), but it came to be used as a technical expression for a royal visit.15 In the New Testament it became the accepted term for the second coming of the Lord, and this is a typical example of its use.
20. There is emphasis on both you and are. The Thessalonians (and no other) are (not will be) Paul’s cause for pride and joy. Of the two words he uses, glory refers to their giving him cause for honouring them before other people and joy to his own feelings of delight. Outwardly and inwardly the Thessalonian converts crowned his ministry.
c. Timothy’s mission (3:1–5)
This passage, with its obvious and deep concern for the spiritual well-being of the converts, is a revealing glimpse of Paul’s pastoral concern (‘the very essence of the spirit of the pastor’, Barclay).
1. The chapter division here is unfortunate. So links what follows to what has preceded. It is because of the things just mentioned that Timothy’s mission was undertaken.
To whom does we refer? The first person plural is a problem not only here, but throughout the epistle. On the one hand, Silvanus and Timothy are associated with Paul in the opening salutation; on the other, the style seems just as Pauline as in any letter accepted as coming from the great apostle’s hand, and some of the things said seem to refer to Paul alone. The difficulty is especially great here. The singular is rare in these letters (1 Thess. 2:18; 3:5; 5:27; 2 Thess. 2:5; 3:17), from which it is possible to infer either that in most places Paul uses the epistolary plural (meaning ‘I’) but has an occasional lapse into the singular, or that his plural is genuine, meaning all three, and that his ‘I’ is a personal comment added in a few places. There is an emphatic use of the singular in verse 5, which some take to mean the same as the plural here, while others see it as in contrast, which would mean that this is a genuine plural. There is an immediate difficulty in the way of a genuine plural; it is hard to see Timothy as sending himself (v. 2). This leads to the suggestion that Paul and Silvanus are meant (Ward, Hendriksen). I cannot think this an attractive solution. A plural applying to all three authors is understandable, as is an epistolary plural that means Paul only. But a plural meaning two out of three is far from easy. Moreover ‘alone’ at the end of the verse is also plural (monoi; NIV by ourselves), though it seems to refer to Paul alone, and the natural assumption is that the verb also refers to him alone. It seems best to take the we as epistolary, though we need not think that Paul took the decision without consulting his helpers.
He speaks of his anxiety becoming intolerable. His verb, stegō, basically means ‘to cover’, then ‘to hide by covering’, ‘to conceal’, a meaning some accept here. But it also means ‘to ward off by covering’ and thus ‘to bear up against’, ‘to endure’, which gives the better sense in this passage (it is also the meaning in 1 Cor. 9:12; 13:7, its only New Testament occurrences outside this chapter).
Paul uses a strong term, kataleipō, to describe his being left in Athens; it can be used of abandoning (as in Eph. 5:31 of a man leaving his parents when he marries), and often of dying (e.g. Mark 12:19). It expresses a sense of desolation, reinforced by the emphatic ‘alone’. It was with a very real sense of deprivation that Paul had said goodbye to Timothy. Though he knew that his helper’s departure had been necessary, he had felt himself abandoned. He had had to face the cultured philosophers and idolaters of Athens—and to face them alone.
2. Something of Paul’s regard for Timothy comes out in his unusually elaborate reference to him (he is generally ‘our brother’). We see, too, something of his high regard and deep concern for his friends in Thessalonica, in that he was ready to part with such a beloved friend and valued colleague at such a time. A complicated textual problem makes it difficult to be certain of the exact terms Paul uses. Timothy … our brother is certain, but some MSS add ‘and minister of God’, some ‘fellow-labourer of God’, some ‘fellow-labourer’, and there are other readings. Our choice seems to be between ‘minister of God’ (with better MSS attestation) and ‘fellow-labourer of God’, a startling expression (despite its occurrence in 1 Cor. 3:9), which scribes would be more likely to alter to ‘minister’ than vice versa. On the whole, it seems slightly more probable that ‘minister’ (diakonos) is original, but we cannot be sure. This word was used of the service of a table waiter, then of service in general, and so of the specifically Christian service of God and man, the sense in which it is used here. (It came to mean a ‘deacon’, but that cannot be its meaning here.) Timothy is a minister ‘in the gospel of Christ’ (the Greek does not say spreading; it is serving the gospel, however that is done). Notice that it is Christ’s gospel; it is also called God’s (2:2, 8, 9), that of our Lord Jesus (2 Thess. 1:8), and ‘ours’ (1:5; 2 Thess. 2:14).
The purpose of sending Timothy was to strengthen and encourage you in your faith. The verb strengthen seems to have been a technical term in the early church (so Best; Swete on Rev. 3:2). It occurs often in the New Testament and brings home to us that it is not sufficient to have had a spectacular conversion. We must go on and be established and strengthened in the faith. The verb translated encourage is akin to the noun ‘Counsellor’, used of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16, 14:26, etc.); it emphasizes the ideas of strengthening and helping. The preposition hyper (in) probably retains something of its original force of ‘for the advantage or benefit of’ (so Milligan).
3. There is some difficulty about the meaning of sainesthai, translated unsettled. Many take it as NIV, but Homer and others use the verb of a dog wagging its tail, whence it comes to signify ‘to fawn upon’, ‘to flatter’. If we accept this meaning (and the usage of the word seems to indicate that we should), then Paul is saying that Timothy’s mission was in order that the converts should not be cajoled with smooth talk when they were in the midst of persecution. It is likely that, while the Gentiles were persecuting them, the Jews were urging them to abandon the Christian way and accept Judaism, which would, of course, immediately free them from their plight. This is supported by Paul’s use of en, ‘in these trials’; the word can mean by (as NIV), but it seems that the apostle is referring to the smooth talk of the Jews ‘in’ the trials rather than to the trials themselves.
The concluding part of verse 3 is a sobering reminder that afflictions are not to be taken as something strange and unusual for the believer: we were destined for them. Paul links himself with the Thessalonians with his use of we and he uses an expressive verb (keimai, practically the perfect of tithēmi), used for example of ‘a city set on a hill’ (Matt. 5:14), and of Paul as being ‘put here’ for the defence of the gospel (Phil. 1:16). There is a sense of immovability about it, of unchangeable divine appointment. Affliction, then, is no accident, but an integral part of the life of the Christian (cf. John 16:33; Acts 14:22).
4. Paul’s certainty about the reality of tribulation was not a new discovery, but had already had its place in his first preaching to the Thessalonians. We should probably regard the use of the imperfect tense (proelegomen) as significant, and translate ‘we repeatedly foretold’ (NIV we kept telling you), which harmonizes with his repeated statement that the converts knew these things. There is another hint at the certainty and divine ordination of tribulation in the verb rendered would (mellomen, not the simple future; there is a similar note of divine assurance in Rom. 8:13, 18, etc.). Paul had not only made a prediction; he had seen his words fulfilled, as the Thessalonians could testify.
5. Paul repeats the thought of verse 1, though with a greater emphasis on his personal feeling and activity; he takes the unusual course in this letter of using the first person singular (kagō only here; egō in 2:18). Those who hold that we in verse 1 includes Paul’s friends take this to mean, in contrast, Paul’s personal action. But if we regard that ‘we’ as an epistolary plural, this repeats and gives emphasis to what Paul has already said.
T. W. Manson understands pistin here as ‘faithfulness’ rather than faith,16 but it would seem on inadequate grounds. The word can have that meaning, and it would not be inappropriate here. But in the New Testament its more usual meaning is ‘faith’, and, as it seems to have that meaning in verse 2, it is better to take it in the same sense here. Paul had sent to make inquiry about their faith, i.e. whether it had survived the time of testing, whether it included the grace of perseverance. The Greek does not read I was afraid; the word is mē and we should translate it in some such way as ‘lest’.
There is an interesting change of construction. Paul uses the indicative when he says, the tempter might have tempted you, which leaves the impression that he thinks this has probably happened. But his change to the subjunctive in our efforts might have been useless makes this proposition open to doubt. Paul thinks it probable that Satan has applied pressure to his converts, but improbable that they have given way. The tempter, of course, is Satan (see comment on 2:18). The word translated efforts (kopos) means wearisome toil. His ministry at Thessalonica had been no perfunctory one.
d. Timothy’s report (3:6–8)
6. But … just now introduces a new section, marking a break in the Greek. It shows that Paul was writing not long after Timothy had made his report. Moffatt renders ‘a moment ago’, which is a trifle too strong, but clearly Timothy’s arrival was very recent.
Timothy brought good news, where the verb (euangelizomai) is that generally used for ‘preach the gospel’; it shows how remarkably Paul had been affected by Timothy’s news. This seems to be the only place in the New Testament where the word is used of any other news than God’s saving work (Rev. 10:7 may be an exception; Heb. 4:2, 6 include that work in Old Testament times). Masson reminds us that Paul never speaks of faith without thinking of Christ; thus the good news of the faith and love of the converts is not unlike the good news of Christ (v. 2). The news was a veritable gospel for Paul, reminding him of the faithfulness and the power of God. It put new heart into him and enabled him to go about his work with vigour and certainty. The Thessalonians had shown faith and love; they had not been wanting in the right attitude either to God or to man.
But the good news did not stop there. Not only were the converts sound in doctrine and impeccable in conduct; they also retained warm feelings towards Paul. They had pleasant memories of the preachers and longed to see them again, where the verb epipotheō marks an intensity of feeling (as it nearly always does; cf. 2 Cor. 5:2; Phil. 1:8; 2:26). The yearning for a reunion was mutual and reveals once more something of Paul’s tender regard for his Thessalonian converts.
7. The address brothers expresses affection, and Paul goes on to speak of being encouraged (cf. v. 2) on the basis of (epi) the faith of his friends. The same preposition (epi) is used with all our distress and persecution. But this time the meaning is closer to the word’s literal sense ‘over’, and hints at rising ‘above’ the difficulties. These are serious troubles, distress (anankē) being basically ‘the choking, pressing care’, and persecution (thlipsis) ‘the crushing trouble’ (Lightfoot). They combine to emphasize that Paul’s situation was far from a happy one when the encouragement he speaks of reached him (see Introduction, p. 20).
8. This leads to the thought that it is life to him to know that his converts are standing fast. Now is probably temporal, ‘at the present time’, though the logical sense ‘this being so’ is not impossible (and in this case perhaps not so very different). Paul uses the present tense in the verb live; it was not a passing burst of inspiration he got from the news from Thessalonica, but something that remained, and would remain with him. This is more than physical life; it is all the fullness of the Christian life. Translations like ‘now we can breathe again’ (JB; cf. NEB) seem to miss this.
Paul uses the emphatic pronoun you, which may indicate that he attached special importance to the Thessalonians’ endurance. In a sense they were a test case, and the successful propagation of the gospel in other places depended on their standing firm as a living testimony to the power of God. Certainly Paul is stressing that for him a lot depended on them. His verb for standing (stēkō) is not the usual one, but a late form which has something of the idea of firmness about it (standing firm). The construction in the conditional clause is unusual; ean usually takes the subjunctive, but here has the indicative, which adds a touch of definiteness. Findlay says that it ‘states the hypothesis more assertively’, and the clause ‘is a virtual appeal; “You must show that my misgiving was needless; you will go on to justify my confidence” ’ (CGT). The conviction that ‘you will go on’ is noteworthy. It is important that the standing is in the Lord. They have a right relationship to Christ and are not standing in their own strength.
e. Paul’s satisfaction (3:9–10)
This leads to an expression of Paul’s pleasure at the turn of events in Thessalonica; first he asks a rhetorical question, and then prays that he might be able to come and see his friends.
9. How can we thank God enough for you? he asks. By human standards what has happened was a tribute to the work Paul had done and was something of a personal triumph (so Neil). The church had been so well established that, though the believers were young in the faith and had been subjected to such stern tests, they had come through with flying colours, and their founder might well feel proud of his work. But Paul realized that what had happened was due to the divine power in the believers, and thus he gives thanks to God for his goodness in this matter. AV translates more literally ‘what thanks can we render …?’ (so NASB), where the verb ‘render’ (antapodidōmi) carries the notion of something due (cf. 2 Thess. 1:6; Luke 14:14, etc.). There is probably a similar recognition of what is due in that Paul’s joy is in the presence of our God, where he deepens his joy by ‘referring it to its true author’ (Milligan).
10. Paul’s fervent longing to see the Thessalonians again finds expression in constant and fervent prayer. Praying night and day is emphatic enough, but he adds an expressive and unusual adverb (hyperekperissou; elsewhere in the New Testament only in 5:13; Eph. 3:20). It is a double compound, giving a twofold addition to the original ‘abundantly’; one gets the impression of a man struggling to put into words a feeling too deep for words. Of the verbs meaning ‘pray’ he chooses deomai, which expresses need or lack (rather than proseuchomai, with its stress on devotion to God). Combined with the adverb it draws attention to Paul’s sense of loss in his separation from his friends and thus to his regard for them.
There are two points in his continual prayer: the first that Paul may be reunited with the Thessalonians, the second that he may supply what is lacking in their faith. The verb katartizō means ‘to make complete’, and it is used of such an activity as mending nets (Matt. 4:21), though in the New Testament it is more often metaphorical. It is translated ‘restore’ (Gal. 6:1), where the thought is that of correction, not punishment. The meaning may be equipping (Heb. 10:5, ‘prepared’; 11:3, ‘formed’), or, as here, of supplying what is missing for the full discharge of the functions for which a thing or person is designed.
What is lacking translates the noun hysterēma, ‘deficiency’, ‘shortcoming’. In spite of his great enthusiasm for the spiritual achievement of these converts, Paul recognizes that they come short of what they should be. Even here, when he is giving full rein to his desire to see them and his joy in their stand, he yet finds a prominent place for this pastoral work of building them up wherever their faith is defective. It is a mark of Paul’s tact that he speaks first of the things wherein he can sincerely praise them, and only then indicates that there are other things to be taken into consideration. Calvin found in this verse an indication of the importance of Christian teaching: ‘From this also it appears how necessary it is for us to give careful attention to doctrine, for teachers were not appointed merely with the view of leading men, in the course of a single day or month, to the faith of Christ, but for the purpose of perfecting the faith which has been begun.’
f. Paul’s prayer (3:11–13)
From a rhetorical question Paul now turns to an actual prayer (not many agree with Hendriksen that this is not a prayer but ‘the devout utterance of a wish’). His petition is twofold, first that he might be brought to Thessalonica, and secondly that the Christians there might increase in love.
11. Some have seen in the opening words, Now may our God and Father himself, an emphatic contrast, either with human activity (i.e. prayer, v. 10), or with Satan (understood; cf. 2:18). But this seems unnecessary; we simply have the introduction of a new section, together with what Lightfoot calls ‘an outburst of the earnest conviction which was uppermost in the Apostle’s mind of the utter worthlessness of all human efforts without the divine aid’.
Notice that our God and Father is linked in the closest fashion in the address of this prayer with our Lord Jesus (again in 2 Thess. 2:16, in the reverse order), and that the verb (kateuthynai) is in the singular. There could scarcely be a more impressive way of indicating the lordship of Christ, and his oneness with the Father (cf. EGT, the singular ‘implies that God and Jesus count as one in this connection’). From a very early time (this letter is dated about AD 50) Christians accepted the deity of our Lord without question. (Prayer is not the place for the introduction of argument.) Prayer is offered to God alone; only one who was divine could be bracketed in this way with the Father. The prayer is that God and Christ may clear the way, i.e. remove the obstacles that Satan has put in the path.
12. The second part of the prayer is introduced with an emphatic ‘But you’ (hymas de). Whatever the Lord may have in store for Paul and his companions, he prays that spiritual blessing may abound for his readers. By the Lord he almost certainly means Jesus, but as we see from the preceding petition he is making no great distinction between the Father and the Son. For him both were God and the two were in some sense one. His prayer is for spiritual enlargement for his friends, and more particularly for enlargement in love, a quality in which they were not lacking (1:3; 4:9–10). The two verbs, increase and overflow, are more or less synonymous and together constitute a petition for the most abundant blessing. Some understand increase to refer to numerical increase, but this is not the meaning. Rather the two verbs are to be taken together and the following ‘in love’ goes with both (RSV ‘make you increase and abound in love’).
It is characteristic of the Christian outlook that the prayer is for love for each other and for everyone else. Neil comments that, while love for each other was ‘no more than the Gentiles practised’, love for all men was more difficult and ‘could only come as a gift from God’. But the specifically Christian quality denoted by agapē is never natural to man; it comes only to those who have been transformed by the power of God. Whether it is exercised towards believers or non-believers, agapē is the gift of God. This, indeed, is implied in the fact that Paul makes it a matter for prayer. He speaks first of love within the brotherhood and then of that for outsiders (cf. Best, ‘It is easier to love those who love us and loving within the Christian community may then be a school for learning to love those outside’; cf. Gal. 6:10, and for a similar thought about peace, Rom. 12:17–18). Paul is, of course, well aware that, if he would teach others, he must first teach himself. As he does elsewhere in these epistles, he appeals to the example he and his companions had set; their love for the Thessalonians was plain.
13. The purpose of this abounding love is now given. The verb strengthen is used in verse 2 (where see note). In LXX it is also combined with ‘heart’ (Ps. 104:15; 112:8). Hearts, as in 2:4, does not refer simply to the emotional side of human nature (as with us), but is the comprehensive term for the whole of our inner states, thoughts, feelings and will. It stands for the whole personality. Paul is saying that our whole personality is established on a firm foundation only when there is a basis of abundant love. The self-centred person at best will have an element of weakness and instability. But where anyone has learned to love the Lord his God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself, then he has firm foundation for life
Paul prays that God will ‘establish your hearts unblamable in holiness’ (RSV, where ‘holiness’ is the state of sanctity rather than the process of becoming holy). In LXX this word is used only of God; it is the very highest degree of holiness that Paul wants for his friends. It is holiness in the presence of our God; a person may have high moral standards, even humanly speaking to the extent of being blameless, and yet not be holy. This had been Paul’s state in his pre-Christian years (Phil. 3:6, where ‘faultless’ is the word he uses here). Holiness has an essential God-ward reference; it denotes the quality of being set apart for God, and the Christian should display it in pre-eminent measure.
Paul reinforces this with a reminder of the second coming of the Lord with all his holy ones. Who are these holy ones? The word ‘holiness’ in the Bible means being set apart for God, and, as that is a characteristic of all who believe, the usual New Testament name for believers is simply ‘holy ones’ or ‘saints’. ‘Saints’ are not people who have won the special approbation of the church because of their outstanding goodness; they are ordinary church members. But it does not seem likely that the term here means ordinary church members, for it is to ordinary church members that the words are addressed and the ‘holy ones’ in question will be coming to them at the parousia.
Two suggestions are offered. ‘Holy ones’ may be angels (so, for example, Masson; cf. Mark 8:38), or they may be the saints who have departed this life (cf. JB, RSV, etc.). In favour of the first suggestion is the fact that angels seem sometimes to be meant by the expression ‘the holy ones’ in the Old Testament (Ps. 89:5; Dan. 4:13 [Th.]; 8:13; Zech. 14:5). Further, angels are more than once associated with the Lord at his coming again (Matt. 13:41; 25:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; 2 Thess. 1:7). On the other hand, angels seem never to be referred to simply as ‘the holy ones’ in the New Testament. There the term almost invariably refers to people (albeit people here on earth, ‘the saints’).
But it seems clear that there will be believers associated with Christ at the parousia (4:14; cf. their part in judging, 1 Cor. 6:2). Most favour the view that ‘the saints’ are in mind (though without a convincing explanation of why the Thessalonians are not included). But the term is comprehensive and it may be better to see it as including all who will be with the Lord when he returns; all seems difficult to restrict to one group (cf. Neil, Milligan, etc.).