H. The Prayer Report (3:11-13)
H. THE PRAYER REPORT (3:11-13)
11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus399 clear the way for us to come to you. 12 May the Lord400 make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus401 comes with all his holy ones.402
With these words the long narrative with which this letter began (in 1:5) is now brought to an end. Here at last is the prayer report,403 which in Paul’s later letters, whenever they do appear, come right after the thanksgiving.404 But one must be careful not to judge this letter in light of what Paul does later. In this earliest of his preserved letters Paul records a prayer for them that seems to have two purposes. First, he hereby concludes the narrative of his and the Thessalonians’ past and present relationships on a note similar to, and thus forming a kind of inclusio with, the prayer of thanksgiving with which the letter began (1:2-3). At the same time, second, he anticipates the matters addressed in the rest of the letter,405 where he deals with the “deficiencies” mentioned at the end of the preceding sentence (v. 10).
The prayer itself is in two parts. Verse 11, directed to both the Father and the Son, picks up the major concern of the preceding narrative, his long absence from the Thessalonian believers and his desire to see them again. Verses 11-12, directed only to Christ, anticipates the concerns of the rest of the letter: that (a) the Lord, Jesus, would cause the love Paul has thanked God for in 1:3 to increase and abound both among themselves (picked up in 4:9- 12) and for everyone else (including those who are giving them grief); and (b) the Lord will cause them to be (i) “blameless with regard to holiness” (ii) at Christ’s parousia (the first part of which is picked up in 4:3-8, and the second in 4:13-18).406
11 Paul’s first concern in praying for the Thessalonians has to do with his and their relationship — looked at from his side: this is what we pray for about ourselves; when we turn to you (v. 12), we express different concerns. The present content is basically for the fulfillment of the first part of the preceding prayer report in verse 10: “night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again.” The prayer begins with an emphatic, “may our God and Father himself.”407 The actual content of the prayer, that God and Christ will “clear the way408 for us to come to you,” appears to be in direct response to the fact that up till now “Satan [has] hindered us” (2:18).
The prayer itself, however, begins in a way that should catch everyone’s attention. Here is a Jew, born and bred in, and deeply committed to, a monotheism where a person regularly repeated the traditional “creed” of all Judaism, the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, Israel, Yahweh your God, Yahweh is one.” But a couple of centuries before Paul, Yahweh’s sacred name was no longer spoken aloud, apparently so that no one would take it “in vain” and thus break the third commandment. So in the oral reading of the Hebrew text, Adonai (“Lord”) came to be substituted for Yahweh. This in turn was taken up in the Septuagint, where kyrios (“Lord”)409 was consistently substituted for Yahweh, thus translating the oral substitution for the written word. So the oral Shema now took the form, “Hear, Israel, kyrios your theos, kyrios is one.” What Paul himself did with this most sacred tradition — and well before writing this letter410 — is remarkable indeed. He is now praying to the one theos as “our God and Father” and to the one kyrios as “Jesus,” whom he had earlier identified as “God’s Son” (1:10).411
The clue to this extraordinary dividing up of the Shema, and the clear evidence that this is not guesswork on our part, is to be found in the letter written soon after this one (1 Cor 8:6), where Paul explicitly does this very thing. In contrast to the “gods” (theoi) many of the Greek pantheon and “lords” (kyrioi) many of the mystery cults, he says, for us there is one theos, whom he identifies as “the Father,” and one kyrios, whom he identifies with Jesus. The present prayer is certain evidence that what Paul says in this next letter is already well in place by the time he writes these earlier letters to the Thessalonian believers. That he does this in such a matter-of-fact way, and without explanation or argumentation, is at the same time sure evidence that he must have previously instructed them not only on the saving work of Christ, but also on who the divine Savior actually was. So while this opening prayer (v. 11) is directed primarily to God the Father, as the emphatic “himself” makes clear, the remarkable inclusion of the Son as the compound subject of the singular verb412 seems to exist in anticipation of the rest of the prayer, which is directed solely to Christ.
Two further matters need to be noted, both christological. First, one should observe (a) that Paul can pray to both God the Father and the Lord Jesus together as one (v. 11), (b) that he can pray to both together but single out one as the object (grammatical subject) of the concerns of prayer at a given time (vv. 12-13), and (c) that in these earliest two letters he can pray to either separately (for the Father see 1 Thess 1:2-3; 5:23; for Christ see 2 Thess 3:5 and 16).
Second, even though the first emphasis in this case is on God the Father, the final focus of the prayer is altogether on the Lord Jesus, which makes the singular verb and compound subject in verse 11 seem to be more than Paul’s simply taking over “conventional liturgical language to which [he] and his readers were accustomed.”413 Indeed, this same phenomenon happens in reverse in 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, where Christ is mentioned first (including with the autos [“himself”]) while the pickup, exactly as in the present case, is with prayer addressed to the second divine person mentioned at the outset, namely God the Father. So one simply cannot be dismissive about the role of Christ in the present prayer.414
Together these realities indicate the very high place Christ had in Paul’s understanding of God’s identity. Here is a strict monotheist praying with ease to both the Father and the Son, focusing first on the one and then the other, and without a sense that his monotheism is being stretched or is in some kind of danger. One can only conjecture as to why Paul directs the continuation of the prayer to Christ rather than to the Father. Most likely it is related to an inherent difference for him between the two loves. In the later prayer in 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, the focus is on the Father’s love for them, which issued in their experiencing by his grace “eternal comfort and good hope.” Here the emphasis would tend toward the one whose love was expressed historically in his death “for us” (see on 2 Thess 2:13 below; cf. Gal 2:20). Paul wants the Lord who so loved them to cause their love for one another to abound.
12 With an emphatic “but as for you,”415 the prayer now turns from desires regarding the apostle(s) toward the Thessalonians themselves. With Christ alone as the one to whom Paul now directs the prayer, his first concern (expressed in this verse) is that “the Lord [Jesus] make your love increase and overflow.” Thus Paul picks up on the commendation in verse 6, that Timothy’s report had included “your love.” He now prays that such love will “increase,” so as to “spill over” or “abound.”416 That Paul will pick up this latter verb in 4:10 seems to demonstrate the anticipatory nature of the present prayer.
But whereas in verse 6 above we were left with making an educated guess as to the direction of the love reported back to Paul, here he clearly indicates what direction he wants that love to go — “for each other and for everyone else.” The first of these seems intentionally to anticipate what comes next, especially in 4:3-8 and 9-12. That it should also be directed toward “everyone else” is both all-embracing and ambiguous in terms of immediate concerns. It may be just a natural add-on, that Christian love must not be directed only toward one’s brothers and sisters, but must reach beyond themselves as well. If so, it might also embrace their enemies in Thessalonica. But such generalities should probably not be pressed to specifics in a context like this. In any case, the final add-on, “just as ours does for you,” brings the love back into focus, as concerned primarily for their internal relationships.
13 In this final clause of the prayer, Paul moves from their love for one another (to be taken up in 4:3-12) to what appears to be the major concern in the letter, some misunderstandings about the nature of the Parousia (to be taken up in 4:13-5:11). But the content of this clause is more certain than its immediate relationship to what has just preceded it.417 With a clause that ordinarily expresses “result,” and is undoubtedly intended to do so here, Paul in prayer desires that the Lord cause their love to increase and overflow, so that in this way Christ will also strengthen their hearts in holiness in preparation for his Parousia. Indeed, had Paul used a form of the verb “to be” or “to become,” the whole clause would have made immediately good sense: “so that your hearts might be blameless . . . ,” as a result of their abounding in love. Perhaps the best way to look at what he does is to see the whole for what it is ultimately intended to be: prayer for the very things that he needs to speak to in what immediately follows in our chapters 4 and 5. If so, then the grammar of “result” is most likely intended to be seen not as the immediate result of their increased love for one another, but as a second thing he prays that the Lord will do for them in the context of their increased love for one another.
Still addressing his prayer to Christ, Paul first asks that the risen Lord (1:10) “strengthen418 your hearts.” As the rest of the letter makes clear, Paul in typical Jewish fashion is ultimately concerned with their conduct, that it be “blameless in holiness.” But to get there he prays for the strengthening of their hearts, another Jewish expression.419 The heart needs strengthening since, as the “center and source of the whole inner life, with its thinking, feeling, and volition” (BDAG 1 b), it is the source of all purposeful conduct. The verb in this case is the same one that he had previously used regarding the reason for sending Timothy to visit them (v. 2). Now, however, he prays to the one who can ultimately cause it to happen. Timothy, therefore, could help to strengthen them and encourage them in their ongoing “faith-fulness.” But only the Lord himself can strengthen them in their inner being for the two ways necessary for them to be prepared for his coming: “blameless” with regard to their outward, visible conduct toward each other and the world;420 and “in holiness” with regard to their relationship with God and Christ.
In other contexts such prayer would be seen as putting emphasis on their present daily conduct. And while that undoubtedly is Paul’s first concern here, it turns out that his focus is on their being that way when they end up in God’s presence at Christ’s Parousia. The result is that Paul’s sentence thus concludes with four prepositional phrases in a row: “in holiness,” “in the presence of our God and Father,” “at the coming of our Lord, Jesus,” and “with his holy ones” — although the last two belong together as a single unit. We will comment on these final three in their order of appearance, beginning with “in the presence of our God and Father.”
The present locution in prayer echoes what Paul had said earlier in 2:18 about their being found together at the Lord’s coming. But that earlier clause focussed altogether on his and their being together in Christ’s own presence at his Coming. Here, in the context of holiness, and anticipating the correctives that will follow immediately, he reminds them that the ultimate goal is for them all to arrive together “in the presence of our God and Father.” In doing so, and whether intentional on Paul’s part or not, he not only echoes the way the letter began in 1:3, but also thus creates an inclusio whereby the whole narrative of chapters 1-3 is framed by this reality. At the beginning his concern was to remind the Thessalonians that they are constantly being remembered “in the presence of our God and Father” as the apostles pray for them. Now his concern is for Christ to strengthen them in holiness in preparation for their being in God’s presence at Christ’s coming.
The more significant thing about this final prepositional phrase is that — the first of many instances in the corpus — Paul applies directly to Christ language from the Septuagint, where the Lord (Kyrios) is a substitute for the name of Yahweh. Thus, with the language at the coming of our Lord, Jesus, with all his holy ones, Paul’s intertextual appropriation of Zechariah 14:5 seems certain, since the language is too close to be merely accidental.421 The two texts read:
Paul at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy onesZech and shall come the Lord my God and all the holy ones with him422
The christological import of this sentence lies with the fact that the Kyrios of the Septuagint is “Yahweh my God,” who will himself come to the Mount of Olives and carry out his eschatological victory over the nations. In Paul’s theology, the future coming of the Lord is always seen as the return of the present reigning Lord, Jesus Christ. What Paul has done seems clear enough: The future coming of Yahweh is now to be understood as the future coming of “our Lord Jesus,” who alone is Kyrios in Paul’s new understanding — resulting from his own encounter with the risen Lord (see 1 Cor 9:1). One can scarcely miss the ease with which Paul now reads the Kyrios (= Yahweh) of Zechariah as referring to Christ, the Lord. So much is this so that in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, the coming Lord Jesus Christ has altogether assumed the role of judging God’s enemies as well (see p. 257 below).
We should note at the end that the clear intertextual use of Zechariah 14:5 should resolve the final matter in the sentence, which has had a long history of debate, as to whether “the holy ones” refers to angels or Christian “saints.”423 The latter suggestion derives from what Paul says later in this letter (4:16), where “the living” will meet in the air those who have died, as they accompany Christ at his coming. But four matters would seem to settle this question decisively in favor of “angels.” First, Paul’s usage of the Zechariah text, which can only refer to “angels,” should be seen as determinative, especially since that intertextual borrowing is the only contextual reason for the prepositional phrase (“with all his holy ones”) to appear at all. As such Paul is echoing the words of Jesus found, for example, in Mark 8:38 (cf. Matt 25:31). Second, when this same language appears again in 2 Thessalonians 1:10, the fact that it appears as a doublet with “all who believe” points once again to the angelic host in that context. Third, in a similar context in 2 Thessalonians 1:7, but now with reference to the “revelation of the Lord” for judgment against his enemies, Paul specifically identifies “the holy ones” as “his powerful angels.” Fourth, since the term hoi hagioi (“the holy ones”) does not appear elsewhere in the current letter or the next as a designation for the newly formed people of God,424 it is difficult to imagine how the Thessalonians themselves could have understood it in such a way.425 Thus despite some forms of eschatological expectation among certain evangelical believers, this text scarcely serves to support their unique expression of Pauline eschatology, that either pre-raptured “saints” or “saints” who have died and are currently “with the Lord” will return to earth with Christ. Indeed, Paul says almost exactly the opposite later in this letter in 4:16, which is the passage through whose lens one must also understand 4:14.
Although the first petition of this prayer may at first glance seem to us to be less appropriate than others to carry over into the present, there are certainly many kinds of instances where it is in fact altogether fitting — especially in circumstances unlike this one, where people have had misunderstandings with each other. But the rest of the prayer seems to be appropriate for all times and seasons, both for pastors regarding the Lord’s people under their care and for parents with their children. It is hard to imagine a more appropriate prayer for all times and circumstances than verse 12; and verse 13, prayed vocally over children or congregation, may perhaps help those for whom it is prayed to become more conscious that life in the present is preparation for the life to come.