2 Thessalonians 1:11 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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2 Thessalonians 1:11

Comments

Here in verse eleven Paul prays for them, and while there is a strong desire to proceed into chapter 2 and what may be thought of as the primary theme, yet this is such a remarkable prayer here. Just in a single verse the apostle Paul prays for the Thessalonians and for their threefold calling, three aspects of their Christian lives.Paul prays that they would be considered worthy, and it is about salvation. The first part of the prayer is that they will be sure to be saved. The word ‘calling’ here refers primarily to the call of the Gospel. The call of the Gospel to lost souls to believe and to come to Christ. The expression ‘count you worth of this calling’ means that you will be saved by grace. Of course, you can never be worthy – you trust in Christ and his atoning death and his offered up righteousness and his shed blood – but you are counted worthy of this calling. The church had grown rapidly but some of them are perhaps deluded with regard to their salvation. He therefore prays that all will know the grace of God.Secondly he prays that God would ‘fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness.’ First of all, when you are saved, you receive understanding, understanding of the Word, of the way of salvation, of the being and the character of God, of human nature, of the kindness of God expressed on Calvary and in Christ, of the great doctrines of the faith, of God’s plans and purposes. Then there is cleansing, not just the taking away of guilt but God’s goodness in purging us, in rebuilding us and remaking us. The negative part is the removing of the stain and the guilt of sin, and the positive part is the reconstruction of the person beyond pardon. Also we have communion with God, not that we sense the divine presence, but we have assurance of the divine presence, and as we pray we know and we have the conviction that he is there and that he hears. Then again there is anticipation of future glory and of future blessing. The third blessing is ‘the work of faith with power.’ He is referring to the things we do for the Lord, to the great work of God throughout our Christian life to build up faith and trust in himself. One of the great things that God is building within us is faith, throughout life building our trust and our faith. So these refer to God’s work in us.

Application

The sense in which the apostle Paul prays always is that he does it daily. Repeated prayer is received by Almighty God. Never be afraid to repeat prayer. Of course, be afraid to repeat prayers mechanically because we are too lazy to think or we do not feel our prayers, so we pray the same form of words that we used before but do not be afraid to pray repeatedly for the same thing. Keep matters before the Lord and by so doing you express your earnest desire. We do not understand it, but the Almighty, ever-living God is ready to be prevailed upon by his people in prayer.

Why what happens when you are truly saved and you hear the Gospel is that you feel a great need, you feel it desperately. I am the person being addressed, I am cut off from God, I am a lost soul. I do not walk with him, I do not know him. I am convicted of my sin. I am aware. I never thought along these lines before. I thought I was a reasonable person, no worse than anyone else, but I have caught a glimpse of my heart and my real condition, and I am just overpowered by it. I am under conviction of sin; I feel my great need of salvation. When you were converted, did you give up the world? Did it go stale on you and sour? And the things you used to love, you did not love anymore.

What are the hindrances to receiving the blessing of God? Obviously if you yield to sin. You cut off the flow of God’s benevolence. If there is a failure of self-searching – how have I lived today? Or self-will – I want my way. I know what is right but I want what I want. That spirit cuts off the flow. Complaints, how easy it is for the devil to get even a believer to get into a complaining spirit. Surrender your mind to something, some worldly thing or to pop music. You always have got to have a mood-lifter, something else your mind is lent out to.

You will have trials. See every trial as a trial of faith. It is designed or permitted to you to build up faith. Many bad things happen, God allows them to happen even to his beloved children. Things the world inflict on us or sin and God permits them to enter into our lives. But his objective is to strengthen faith. Every shortage is not just something to moan about, it is something to bring to the Lord, to ask for strength to endure, to honour him and praise him no matter what. Every insult is permitted to come to us so that it deepens our faith. Somebody may insult us, they may do us down, they may gossip about us, but we think of our blessings and our benefits and our standing and the help of God, and it serves to strengthen our faith.

Questions

Is the King James Version right in making it God’s goodness? The word ‘his’ is in italics; it is not in the original Greek. The modern translations regard this as a glaring tautology, and therefore tend towards ‘and fulfil all the good pleasure of your goodness.’ The idea is, ‘Here you are, you are now a converted Christian and you have good intentions, good desires. May God help you to bring them to pass.’ Is that right? No. You see, it is a sovereign grace verse. It is a verse about God’s work in your life. It is almost the equivalent of saying, may God bring to fruition all the good pleasure of his good pleasure. He could not possibly be talking about our good intentions? No, we are usually viewed as inadequate and sinful in our nature. When Paul uses extravagant language like this, he is talking about God’s goodness.

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2 Thessalonians 1:11 Commentary and Bible Study