2 Thessalonians 3:2 Commentary and Bible Study

Look at the way the apostle puts this. It is maybe clearer in the Greek than it is in the English, but what he does not pray for is exemption from oppression and persecution and trouble. He prays to be delivered from it once it has come. He knows it is unavoidable. At the time that he writes this letter he is shortly on his final journey to Jerusalem. He knows that persecution and trials await him there. The Holy Spirit has witnessed it in every city. He has communicated it directly to the apostle Paul, and because they have prophets in those days, through various New Testament prophets in the churches, in the cities, it has been confirmed. Paul, they said to him, you are going to know lashes and violence and arrest. And he goes on notwithstanding. His prayer is not that these things will be averted; it is that God will uphold his witness and he will be delivered from them in his time and in his way. And he summons the prayers of others.‘That we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men.’ Actually, the Greek could be translated monstrous, utterly unreasonable and wicked men. Who were they? Well, possibly those Judaisers who got into the churches but they were not really converted, and they tried to persuade the Gentile converts that they needed to be circumcised and follow the Jewish law. And they would tell the new converts, Christ is fine but Christ is not enough. They were always on Paul’s tail, following him around, trying to infiltrate the churches more and more. Then also others: unconverted Jews who had chased him out of Thessalonica and so on. These are the unreasonable people. ‘For all men have not faith’, which suggests that some of the worst opponents were among people you might have expected to have faith, like those Jews who persecuted him, like people who had been in the churches but who had apostatised. They are not genuine in the least degree. They are not just misled; they do not really have faith in God and fear him.