Lesson 9

I.       Observation

A.     Outline

B.     Key Words/Phrases

Salutation (1:1-2)

Thanksgiving (1:3-4)

God’s Righteous Judgment (1:5-10)

Prayer (1:11-12)

Grace, peace, thank God, faith grows exceedingly, love, abounds, patience and faith, persecutions and tribulations, endure, manifest evidence, righteous judgment, worthy, when the Lord Jesus is revealed, taking vengeance, everlasting destruction, glorified, admired.

II.    Segment Analysis

1a. Paul gives thanks to God because their faith grows exceedingly and their love abounds toward each other (3). He is also thankful for their patience and faith in all their persecutions and tribulations that they endure (4).

1b. In his first epistle, Paul prayed that he may perfect the faith of the believers and that the Lord may make the believers increase and abound in love. He also urged the believers to abound more and more in living to please God. Now, as he writes the second epistle, he has heard of the spiritual growth of the Thessalonians—an indication that God has heard his prayer and the believers have obeyed his exhortations.

2. The words “we are bound” indicate that thanksgiving is a personal obligation to God. A strong sense of gratitude compels us to thank God. “Always” tells us that thanksgiving must be constant. “For you” reminds us to always remember our brethren and to acknowledge the work of God in their lives.

3. A growing faith means greater dependence on and trust in the Lord and His word (cf. 1Cor 16:13; 2Cor 5:7; Gal 2:20; Heb 11:1,6). A growing faith is also accompanied by growing works (cf. Gal 5:6; 1Thess 1:3; 2Thess 1:11; Jas 2:17;26).

4a. God will repay them with tribulation (6), take vengeance on them (8), and punish them with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power (9).

4b. God will count them worthy of the kingdom of God (5), give them rest when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels (7). When the Lord comes, He will be glorified in them and admired among them (10).

5. The believers’ patience and faith in persecutions and tribulations is evidence of the righteous judgment of God. The present endurance of the saints is a demonstration that God’s future reward of the saints is just.

6. Being counted worthy of the kingdom of God does not mean earning our way to the kingdom by our own merits. Rather, it means that God makes us fit for His kingdom. He does so by enabling us to endure sufferings—a test that all disciples of Christ must go through. In other words, the believers’ endurance is a sign that God has indeed chosen them into His kingdom.

7. God will take vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (8). These include both the gentiles and the Jews who persecuted the Thessalonian believers.

8. This prayer is a reminder that through the believers’ patient endurance in persecutions, God is accomplishing His good purpose in them and that His name is glorified in them.

9. The phrase literally means “every resolve for goodness.” It is God who inspires the resolve in believers to do good, and it is God who will fulfill this resolve (cf. Php 1:6).

10. When God’s good purpose is accomplished in the believers through Christ, the name of Christ will be glorified. We, in turn, will share the glory of Jesus Christ when He appears (cf. Col 3:4).

11. Paul’s requests in prayer are based on the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ (12). It is by God’s mercy and the atonement of Jesus Christ that believers are called into God’s kingdom and that God’s glorious purpose is accomplished in the believers.