What do you say to a church that’s scared?
Paul had that problem when he wrote 2 Thessalonians. The congregation was young, and it was under fire. They were enduring persecutions and afflictions, 2 Thessalonians 1:4. Someone had also been spreading word, maybe in a letter with Paul’s name forged on it, that the day of the Lord had already come. So Paul pleaded with them not to be easily upset in mind or troubled, 2 Thessalonians 2:2.
Most of chapter 2 is hard reading. Paul writes about the man of lawlessness and about the people who perish because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved, 2 Thessalonians 2:10. Then, in verse 13, he turns to the church itself.
But we ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God has chosen you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, so that you might obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14.
Loved and Chosen
Look at what he calls them first: brothers and sisters loved by the Lord. He hasn’t given them a single instruction yet. He starts by telling them who they are. The word loved is in a Greek tense that describes something done in the past with results that last. God had loved them, and nothing they’d suffered since had changed that.
Then he writes, God has chosen you. Paul’s verb here means to take something for yourself. Hebrews 11:25 uses it of Moses, who chose to suffer with God’s people when he could have stayed in Pharaoh’s house. It’s a deliberate choice. God looked at these people and wanted them for his own.1
How did that choice reach Thessalonica? Paul says it came through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth, and that God called them through our gospel. Paul had gone into their synagogue, and for three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures about a Christ who had to suffer and rise from the dead, Acts 17:2-3. Some of them were persuaded. They heard the gospel and believed it. The people Paul describes in verse 10 heard the same truth and wanted nothing to do with it.
The Glory of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Verse 14 ends by telling us where all of this is going: so that you might obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The word obtain means to gain something and keep it as your own. Paul used it in his first letter to this church: For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Thessalonians 5:9. Jesus means to share his glory with the people he’s called.
Chuck Colson tells a story in Kingdoms in Conflict about prisoners in a World War 2 Hungarian camp were forced to work in a sewage plant. It was filthy work, but they knew what it was for. Then Allied bombers destroyed the plant, and the guards ordered the men to shovel sand from one end of the camp to the other. The next day they shoveled it back, and they kept at it for days on end. An old man started crying and couldn’t stop. Another screamed until the guards beat him. A young man ran at the electric fence and was killed. Over the following months, dozens more went mad and ran to their deaths.
The sewage plant was worse work, and they survived it. What broke them was work that went nowhere.
A lot of people live their week a little like those men on the sand pile. They go to work, come home, pay the bills, and start over on Monday. Verse 14 tells us that our life is headed somewhere. The job, the dishes, the hospital visit, and the long drive to check on your mother all belong to a life God has called to glory.
Stand Firm
Paul goes straight from there to a command. So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught, 2 Thessalonians 2:15.
Those two words, so then, matter. Paul reminded these frightened Christians that God loved them and had called them, and after that he told them to hold on. Their footing came from what God had already done. Ours does too.
When you know where you’re going, a bad stretch of road is easier to take. A rumor doesn’t send you into a panic. A hard week at work or at home doesn’t get to tell you who you are, because God has already said who you are.
So where do you stand with God right now? Have you obeyed the gospel that called you? Which part of your week feels most like shoveling sand? What would change if you walked into it remembering you’ve been called to glory?
Paul’s first response to that shaken little church was to thank God for them. He knew God had chosen them and called them, and he wanted them to know it too.
He didn't stop with thanks, either. Two verses later he prays for them: May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope by grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word, 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17. Paul asked God to strengthen them in the ordinary good they did and said, day after day, while they waited for the glory to come. That prayer is still good for us. The God who loved you and called you through the gospel will steady your heart for whatever's on your list ahead.
From Fear to Faith | fromfearto.faith
Paul's language about God choosing the Thessalonians shouldn't be read as support for the Calvinist view of election, which holds that God chose certain individuals for salvation before time began, apart from anything in them, and passed over the rest. The verse itself tells us how God's choice worked: through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. God called them through our gospel, 2 Thessalonians 2:14, and they answered it by believing. Three verses earlier, Paul says others perish because they refused to love the truth, 2 Thessalonians 2:10. God has chosen to save people through the gospel, he wants everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Timothy 2:4, and he holds each of us responsible for whether we obey it, 2 Thessalonians 1:8.