2 Thessalonians 1: One Sentence From Verse 3 to Verse 10

Brother Tate stopped me in the parking lot after church today, keys already in his hand. He'd seen me with the Thessalonians open last week and wanted to know where I was now. I told him I'd read 2 Thessalonians 1 this morning, and he said, "Oh, that's the one where God gets even." He said it pleasantly, the way you'd name a movie you half remember. I said partly, and then his wife honked from the car.

Partly was about right, though I went back through the chapter twice after church to see how much of the rest I'd left out.

Where does the getting even start?

In the King James text there's no full stop between the start of verse 3 and the end of verse 10, so what Brother Tate remembered sits in the middle of one eight-verse sentence. It begins with thanks and ends with Christ being admired in the people who believed. The vengeance is wedged between the two.

The thanks is specific, and it's the first thing in the sentence: "We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth" (2 Thessalonians 1:3). Paul, Silvanus and Timotheus are all three saying it, and the sentence goes on to say they brag about this church to other churches (verse 4). That's a small thing and I'd have missed it if I hadn't counted the clauses. People being mobbed in their own city are told that word of how they're holding up has traveled. I wrote earlier about the first letter, where the Thessalonians were the ones doing the talking, and verse 4 reads like the other end of that conversation, with the report coming back to them.

Then the sentence turns, and it turns on the word "which." Their patience and faith in "all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure" is "a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God" (verse 5). Their holding up comes first and the judgment gets pointed to by it. I don't know exactly what a token is doing there and I won't pretend to. What I can say is that Paul reaches for the Thessalonians' conduct as the evidence and doesn't reach for anything about the people causing it.

Verse 10 is where the sentence finally lands on the part Brother Tate hadn't mentioned. Christ comes "to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe," and Paul tucks a parenthesis into the middle of it, "because our testimony among you was believed." That's the Thessalonians again, being counted in. The last thing the sentence says about them is that they were believed and that it mattered, which is a very different note from where the summary left off.

Who does the repaying?

Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

2 Thessalonians 1:6

God is the subject of that verse and the one who recompenses, while what the Thessalonians do in the whole chapter is endure (verse 4), get prayed for (verse 11) and be counted worthy of something (verse 5). Nobody in these twelve verses is told to answer back or report anyone or keep a list. Paul's own verbs are thank, glory and pray.

Paul says the same thing outright to the Romans, in nearly the same register. "Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not" comes in Romans 12:14, and a few verses later, "avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19). Put those next to 2 Thessalonians 1:6 and it looks to me like one instruction given twice, with the repaying assigned to somebody else.

Acts 17 supplies the background, with the mob going to Jason's house looking for Paul and Silas, and when they didn't find them, "they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city" (Acts 17:6). Jason was put under bond and let go. So the Thessalonians had watched a neighbor dragged in front of the magistrates for having houseguests. When Paul writes that God will do the recompensing, he's writing to people who had every practical reason to want somebody to do it quickly.

A man in my old ward who never sued

Years ago I helped a flooring contractor named Walt Brannigan haul subfloor on a Saturday, and his partner had left that spring with the customer list and the deposits for two jobs that hadn't started. Walt told me the number in the truck, a little over thirty thousand dollars, and then he didn't mention it again all day.

He never sued, and the partner's last invoice was folded in the visor of the truck, and I could see the corner of it every time he flipped it down against the sun. Late in the afternoon I asked whether he'd made peace with the whole business. He thought about it for a good while and said he couldn't tell me whether that was patience or whether he'd just never found a lawyer he liked.

I never found out which, and I doubt he did.

Rest with us, and when

"And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels" (verse 7).

"With us" puts Paul and his two companions inside the trouble, so they're offering rest they haven't received either, and they're counting on it as much as the Thessalonians are. Then there's the date. The rest comes "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed," and the chapter doesn't promise that the pressure lifts sooner than that. I'd have liked one line saying it would ease by spring, or that the next mob would be smaller. There isn't one, and Paul doesn't seem to think the letter is the worse for it.

The prayer at the end asks that God "would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power" (verse 11). Paul doesn't ask them to qualify, he asks God to do the counting, and I'd guess that's why verse 5 can say "counted worthy" to a church that was plainly worn out. Nobody there is being graded on stamina.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does 2 Thessalonians 1 say God takes revenge on people who persecute believers?

Verse 8 says "taking vengeance," so I'm not going to tell you it doesn't. What I'd point out is who the actor is, and that the chapter doesn't hand the Thessalonians any part of it. They're told nothing about retaliating, and a good deal about how they're holding up.

What does "manifest token" mean in verse 5?

I don't know the Greek well enough to give you more than the English gives, and in the English a token is a sign you can see. The thing Paul says can be seen is their patience and faith under pressure (verse 4). So the token is something you could watch them do.

Is this chapter about every hard thing that happens to a person?

I don't read it that way. Paul says they're counted worthy of "the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer" (verse 5), which ties it to what they believe. A layoff or a diagnosis is hard in its own right and I'd be careful about stretching a verse about mobs over it.

Where should I start if I want to read these letters in order?

Acts 17:1-10 for the mob and the night departure, then 1 Thessalonians. I went through how Paul keeps pointing the Thessalonians back to what they'd seen for themselves in 1 Thessalonians 2, if that's useful.

I still don't like verses 8 and 9. "Flaming fire taking vengeance" and "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" sit in the same sentence as the thanks, and I've just spent a page arguing they belong there. I wish the sentence had been allowed to stop at "rest with us." Paul had been in that city when the crowd came, so I understand why he kept going.

— D.