Thessalonians 1 & 2

What may be The First Written Books of The New Testament begin with 1 Thessalonians:

1:1 Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, to the Church in Thessalonica which is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace.  We will see why St. Paul gives the incredible heavenly location for the City of Thessalonica that he does not appear to have given to any other place on earth!

1:2 wishing you grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

St. Paul gives Thanks and encouragement as the people of Thessalonica prepare for The Last Judgement:

1:3 We feel we must be continually thanking God for you, brothers; quite rightly, because your faith is growing so wonderfully and the love that you have for one another never stops increasing; (Paul shares God’s joy in Faith that keeps growing!)

1:4 and among the churches of God we can take special pride in you for your constancy and faith under all the persecutions and troubles you have to bear.  (Everyone who remains “constant and faithful” is appreciated by God, His Church, and all fellow Catholics.)

1:5 It all shows that God’s judgment is just, and the purpose of it is that you may be found worthy of The Kingdom of God; it is for the sake of this that you are suffering now.  (For 2,000 years, the rewards of faithful obedience are so clear that they allow us to withstand “suffering now”.)

1:6 God will very rightly repay with injury those who are injuring you,  (As we suffer for our Faith, we must remember the far worse fate those anti-Catholics who persecute us bring upon themselves for eternity.)

1:7 and reward you, who are suffering now, with the same peace as He will give us, when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with the angels of his power.

1:8 He will come in flaming fire to impose the penalty on all who do not acknowledge God and refuse to accept the Good News of our Lord Jesus.  (We must all be, and encourage others to be, ‘As Catholic as we can.’)

1:9 It will be their punishment to be lost eternally, excluded from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His strength  (The punishment for attacking Catholics and our Church is permanent!)

1:10 on that day when He comes to be glorified among His saints and seen in His glory by all who believe in Him; and you are believers, through our witness.

1:11 Knowing this, we pray continually that our God will make you worthy of His call, and by His power fulfil all your desires for goodness and complete all that you have been doing through faith;

1:12 because in this way the name of our Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified in you and you in Him, by the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2:1 You know yourselves, my brothers, that our visit to you has not proved ineffectual.  (They knew, more quickly than anyone else on earth, how important it is to “Be Catholic!”.)

2:2 We had, as you know, been given rough treatment and been grossly insulted at Philippi, and it was our God who gave us the courage to proclaim His Good News to you in the face of great opposition.  (Philippi was only 85 miles, or 137 km, away.  Paul, Sylvanus, and Timothy all knew the anti-Catholic persecutors were only a few days away, but they had the courage to reach out to the people of Thessalonica.)

2:3 We have not taken to preaching because we are deluded, or immoral, or trying to deceive anyone;

2:4 it was God Who decided that we were fit to be entrusted with the Good News, and when we are speaking, we are not trying to please men but God, Who can read our inmost thoughts.  (These three men suffered great persecution but loved God so much they would withstand it.  Few people on earth have as much credibility.  May God let more of us “be fit” enough to “please God”.)

2:5 You know very well, and we can swear it before God, that never at any time have our speeches been simply flattery, or a cover for trying to get money;

2:6 nor have we ever looked for any special honor from men, either from you or anybody else,  (Instead of looking for money and fame, they chose to not behave as the Profiteers of Protestantism in every age described below:)

2:7 when we could have imposed ourselves on you with full weight, as apostles of Christ.

Instead, we were unassuming. Like a mother feeding and looking after her own children,

2:8 we felt so devoted and protective towards you, and had come to love you so much, that we were eager to hand over to you not only the Good News but our whole lives as well.  (Catholics see how similar The Disciples were to Jesus, ready to die, as He did, for the sake of leading souls to God, His Church, and to have “the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven”. 

For 2,000 years, Catholics have understood those “keys”  were given by Jesus Christ, Himself, to The First Catholic Pope of the Only Church Spoken Into Being by The Only Church-Creating Word of The Second Person of The Holy Trinity:   “And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.”)

2:9 Let me remind you, brothers, how hard we used to work, slaving night and day so as not to be a burden on any one of you while we were proclaiming God’s Good News to you.  (Catholics have been amazed by that sentence for 2,000 years!  A staggering miracle that Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus had full-time, manual labor jobs to support themselves while preaching The Good News of Jesus and His Church to all blessed to hear God’s Message!)

2:10 You are witnesses, and so is God, that our treatment of you, since you became believers, has been impeccably right and fair.  (Since they worked closely with those they converted, every mistake and error they made in every aspect of their lives was closely examined in the most minute detail. No faults could be found that kept them from their great work.)

2:11 You can remember how we treated every one of you as a father treats his children, (This reminds us how every parent should treat every child!)

2:12 teaching you what was right, encouraging you and appealing to you to live a life worthy of God, who is calling you to share the glory of his kingdom.  

The Thessalonians did something remarkable!

2:13 Another reason why we constantly thank God for you is that as soon as you heard the message that we brought you as God’s message, you accepted it for what it really is, God’s message and not some human thinking; and it is still a living power among you who believe it.  (This is so amazing it is a miracle:  the Thessalonians thought so intelligently they knew God’s Miracle was available to them “as soon as they heard the message”!  The Apostles did nothing to distract from the perfection of God’s Miracle by seeking personal benefits.)

2:14 (Paul points out the universal hatred for God’s Church-Creating Word among members of every religious establishment):  For you, my brothers, have been like the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judaea, in suffering the same treatment from your own countrymen as they have suffered from the Jews,

2:15 the people who put the Lord Jesus to death, and the prophets too. And now they have been persecuting us, and acting in a way that cannot please God and makes them the enemies of the whole human race,

2:16 because they are hindering us from preaching to the pagans and trying to save them. They never stop trying to finish off the sins they have begun, but retribution is overtaking them at last.  (The priests of pagan gods made things as hard for the new Catholics of Philippi as those in The Jerusalem Establishment made it for the thousands of people who became Catholics in their area.  One wonders if non-Catholic clergy have a greater affinity for each other than for God.)

Paul was very concerned after he left Thessalonica:

2:17 A short time after we had been separated from you – in body but never in thought, brothers – we had an especially strong desire and longing to see you face to face again,

2:18 and we tried hard to come and visit you; I, Paul, tried more than once, but Satan prevented us.  (Like every Catholic Bishop, Paul was kept from doing much of the work he wanted by pressing demands for his time and talent in other places.)

2:19 What do you think is our pride and our joy? You are; and you will be the crown of which we shall be proudest in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes;

2:20 you are our pride and our joy.  (The speed and comparative ease with which the people of Thessalonica were able to become Catholic was both the “pride and joy” of St. Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus.  They were an exceptional people, located on trading routes that stretched to the Northwest, all the way to Scandinavia; West into Europe;and South into Greece.)

Timothy’s mission to Thessalonica was to confirm the Faith they had left with her people.

3:1 When we could not bear the waiting any longer, we decided it would be best to be left without a companion at Athens, and

3:2 sent our brother Timothy, who is God’s helper in spreading the Good News of Christ, to keep you firm and strong in the faith

3:3 and prevent any of you from being unsettled by the present troubles. As you know, these are bound to come our way:

3:4 when we were with you, we warned you that we must expect to have persecutions to bear, and that is what has happened now, as you have found out.  (Established religious groups hated those who led their best people into The Living Truth brought to earth by The Son of God in Fulfillment of Prophecies that had more credibility than any teaching provided by religious group on earth.)

3:5 That is why, when I could not stand waiting any longer, I sent to assure myself of your faith: I was afraid the Tempter might have tried you too hard, and all our work might have been wasted.

Paul thanks God for good reports on how Faithful the Thessalonians have remained.

3:6 However, Timothy is now back from you and he has given us good news of your faith and your love, telling us that you always remember us with pleasure and want to see us quite as much as we want to see you.

3:7 And so, brothers, your faith has been a great comfort to us in the middle of our own troubles and sorrows;

3:8 now we can breathe again, as you are still holding firm in the Lord.  (Paul was so worried about his beloved Catholics in Thessalonica that he was literally “holding his breath”.)

3:9 How can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel before our God on your account?

3:10 We are earnestly praying night and day to be able to see you face to face again and make up any shortcomings in your faith.

3:11 May God our Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, make it easy for us to come to you.

3:12 May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you.  (In few other places are Christ’s Disciples loved as much as St. Paul loved the early Catholics of Thessaly.)

3:13 And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all His saints.

4:1 Finally, brothers, we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus to make more and more progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live: the life that God wants, as you learnt from us, and as you are already living it.  (This Teaching of St. Paul is profound.  We can, and we must, strive to be better Catholics until the day our soul is called from earth.)

4:2 You have not forgotten the instructions we gave you on the authority of the Lord Jesus.

4:3 What God wants is for you all to be holy. He wants you to keep away from fornication, (Of all the sins, this is the one St. Paul chose to encourage focus and avoidance.  He had surely seen the results of fornication on people, faith, and souls.  We may pray to be blessed to realize:  “St. Paul is warning me of a particularly deadly sin.”)

4:4 and each one of you to know how to use the body that belongs to him in a way that is holy and honorable,

4:5 not giving way to selfish lust like the pagans who do not know God.

4:6 He wants nobody at all ever to sin by taking advantage of a brother in these matters; the Lord always punishes sins of that sort, as we told you before and assured you.

4:7 We have been called by God to be holy, not to be immoral;

4:8 in other words, anyone who objects is not objecting to a human authority, but to God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

4:9 As for loving our brothers, there is no need for anyone to write to you about that, since you have learnt from God yourselves to love one another,

4:10 and in fact this is what you are doing with all the brothers throughout the whole of Macedonia. However, we do urge you, brothers, to go on making even greater progress

4:11 and to make a point of living quietly, attending to your own business and earning your living, just as we told you to,

4:12 so that you are seen to be respectable by those outside the Church, though you do not have to depend on them.

The dead and the living at the time of the Lord’s coming

4:13 We want you to be quite certain, brothers, about those who have died, to make sure that you do not grieve about them, like the other people who have no hope.

4:14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that it will be the same for those who have died in Jesus: God will bring them with him.

4:15 We can tell you this from the Lord’s own teaching, that any of us who are left alive until the Lord’s coming will not have any advantage over those who have died.

4:16 At the trumpet of God, the voice of the archangel will call out the command and the Lord himself will come down from heaven; those who have died in Christ will be the first to rise,

4:17 and then those of us who are still alive will be taken up in the clouds, together with them; to meet the Lord in the air. So we shall stay with the Lord for ever.

4:18 With such thoughts as these you should comfort one another.

We must be Watchful while awaiting the coming of the Lord

5:1 You will not be expecting us to write anything to you, brothers, about ‘times and seasons’,

5:2 since you know very well that the Day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night.

5:3 It is when people are saying, ‘How quiet and peaceful it is’ that the worst suddenly happens, as suddenly as labour pains come on a pregnant woman; and there will be no way for anybody to evade it.

5:4 But it is not as if you live in the dark, my brothers, for that Day to overtake you like a thief.

5:5 No, you are all sons of light and sons of the day: we do not belong to the night or to darkness,

5:6 so we should not go on sleeping, as everyone else does, but stay wide awake and sober.

5:7 Night is the time for sleepers to sleep and drunkards to be drunk,

5:8 but we belong to the day and we should be sober; let us put on faith and love for a breastplate, and the hope of salvation for a helmet.

5:9 God never meant us to experience the Retribution, but to win salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

5:10 who died for us so that, alive or dead, we should still live united to Him.

5:11 So give encouragement to each other, and keep strengthening one another, as you do already.

Some demands made by life in community

5:12 We appeal to you, my brothers, to be considerate to those who are working amongst you and are above you in the Lord as your teachers.

5:13 Have the greatest respect and affection for them because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

5:14 And this is what we ask you to do, brothers: warn the idlers, give courage to those who are apprehensive, care for the weak and be patient with everyone.  (The first “idlers” and others mentioned that we should warn are ourselves!  We ask God to let us do for much Him as we can.)

5:15 Make sure that people do not try to take revenge; you must all think of what is best for each other and for the community.  (We must not let our personal differences about Bible meanings lead us to insult those who disagree with us.)

Catholics are blessed to see:  These next 13 Verses may be the longest collection of short verses in The Bible.  They are very important to the saving of every soul:

5:16 Be happy at all times;

5:17 pray constantly;

5:18 and for all things give thanks to God, because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus.

5:19 Never try to suppress the Spirit

5:20 or treat the gift of prophecy with contempt;

5:21 think before you do anything – hold on to what is good

5:22 and avoid every form of evil.

Closing prayer and farewell

5:23 May the God of peace make you perfect and holy; and may you aall be kept safe and blameless, spirit, soul and body, for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

5:24 God has called you and he will not fail you.

5:25 Pray for us, my brothers.

5:26 Greet all the brothers with the holy kiss.

5:27 My orders, in the Lord’s name, are that this letter is to be read to all the brothers.

5:28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

The First Book of Thessalonians has ended with a wonderfully helpful list of short verses to march through our mind and keep it in order.  Now, we are ready for The Amazing Prophecy that follows in 2 Thessalonians!

The Amazing Prophecy is coming up in The Next Chapter!

1:1 From Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, to the Church in Thessalonica which is in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ;

1:2 wishing you grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving and encouragement. The Last Judgement:

1:3 We feel we must be continually thanking God for you, brothers; quite rightly, because your faith is growing so wonderfully and the love that you have for one another never stops increasing;

1:4 and among the churches of God we can take special pride in you for your constancy and faith under all the persecutions and troubles you have to bear.  (His “special pride” is about to take form in The Prophecy!)

1:5 It all shows that God’s judgment is just, and the purpose of it is that you may be found worthy of The Kingdom of God; it is for the sake of this that you are suffering now.  (This passage refers specifically to what Jesus promised those of The Only Church He Spoke into Being with His Church-Creating Word to The First Catholic Pope: “And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.”

1:6 God will very rightly repay with injury those who are injuring you,  (May everyone who works against any Catholic in any way be blessed to fully understand that simple, declarative Promise.)

1:7 and reward you, who are suffering now, with the same peace as he will give us, when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with the angels of his power.

1:8 He will come in flaming fire to impose the penalty on all who do not acknowledge God[*a] and refuse to accept the Good News of our Lord Jesus.

1:9 It will be their punishment to be lost eternally, excluded from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength.  (The agonies of hell include eternal reminders of what is being lost by those “excluded” therefrom.)

1:10 on that day when he comes to be glorified among his saints and seen in his glory by all who believe in Him; and you are believers, through our witness.

1:11 Knowing this, we pray continually that our God will make you worthy of His call, and by His power fulfil all your desires for goodness and complete all that you have been doing through faith;

1:12 because in this way the name of our Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified in you and you in Him, by the grace of our God and The Lord Jesus Christ.

2:1 To turn now, brothers, to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we shall all be gathered round him:  (Take a deep breath and get ready!)

2:2 please do not get excited too soon or alarmed by any prediction or rumor or any letter claiming to come from us, implying that the Day of the Lord has already arrived.

2:3 Never let anyone deceive you in this way. It cannot happen until the Great Revolt has taken place and the Rebel, the Lost One, has appeared.  (One specific manifestation of The Great Revolt took place in Jerusalem in 70 AD.  Rebels had seized control of many cities, including Jerusalem.  They used their victory over the Roman General Cestius as an excuse for a nationwide uprising against Rome.)

2:4 This is the Enemy, the one who claims to be so much greater than all that men call ‘god’, so much greater than anything that is worshipped, that he enthrones himself in God’s sanctuary and claims that he is God.  (This
“enthronement” took place after “rebels” like John of Giscala, John Son of Dorcas, John the Essene, and others had seized The Temple and places from which they attacked people and other “Rebels” in “The Great Revolt.”)

2:5 Surely you remember me telling you about this when I was with you?  (“Surely” no one could forget such a Prophecy.  It would be less than ten years from coming true when Nero would choose Vespasian to destroy those involved in “The Great Revolt” and “not one stone was left standing” when “Jerusalem” would be literally and truly “flattened” when the Prophecy of Jesus came true.)

2:6 And you know, too, what is still holding him back from appearing before his appointed time.

(An important explanation:  The following Passages are an often overlooked Prophecy of The Most Important Historical Fact in Jewish History:  The Destruction of The Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, less than 20 years after St. Paul wrote The Letters to The Thessalonians.  Some Catholics see the connection:

2:7 Rebellion is at its work already, but in secret, and the one who is holding it back has first to be removed  (“The rebel’s” work was being done openly done throughout Judea as millions of Jewish people were prepared to wage war on Rome and the Caesars who ruled between Britain and Pakistan.)

2:8 before the Rebel appears openly. The Lord will kill him with the breath of his mouth and will annihilate him with his glorious appearance at his coming.  (That Prophecy from Jesus and St. Paul describes exactly what happened when Titus destroyed both Jerusalem and the Temple.  Rebels had taken over both, and The Jewish Faith could no longer be practiced.)

2:9 But when the Rebel comes, Satan will set to work: there will be all kinds of miracles and a deceptive show of signs and portents,  (Reading Josephus, author of The Jewish Wars and other writings, shows us The Complete Truth of the next Verse:

2:10 and everything evil that can deceive those who are bound for destruction because they would not grasp the love of the truth which could have saved them.

2:11 The reason why God is sending a power to delude them and make them believe what is untrue  (Why did God allow evil to take over Israel and “make the Israelites believe what is untrue”?  The next verse explains the eternal profundity of that verse!)

2:12 (God’s Reason for putting down The Great Revolt: “is to condemn all who refused to believe in the truth and chose wickedness instead.  (This Passage Prophesies what happened and why God empowered Rome to destroy Jerusalem and The Temple that Solomon had built:  “All who refused to believe in the truth and chose wickedness instead” were more than “condemned”, but also, destroyed.  Nearly 2 million Jewish people, most of them innocent of treason against Rome, were put to death between Cyrene, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and many cities in The Roman Empire in at least three “Jewish Wars”, the last of which ended in 135 when Rome destroyed Bel Kochbar’s rebellion, all of which were led by “rebels”.  Most survivors were sold into slavery.)

2:13 But we feel that we must be continually thanking God for you, brothers whom the Lord loves, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctifying Spirit and by faith in the truth.  (Their souls were saved by God’s Grace from the suffering that comes to those who willfully reject The Teachings of The Church Founded by He Who Fulfilled over 300 of God’s Prophecies.)

2:14 Through the Good News that we brought He called you to this so that you should share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2:15 Stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

2:16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who has given us his love and, through his grace, such inexhaustible comfort and such sure hope,

2:17 comfort you and strengthen you in everything good that you do or say.

3:1 Finally, brothers, pray for us; pray that the Lord’s message may spread quickly, and be received with honor as it was among you;

3:2 and pray that we may be preserved from the interference of bigoted and evil people, for faith is not given to everyone.

3:3 But the Lord is faithful, and He will give you strength and guard you from the evil one,

3:4 and we, in the Lord, have every confidence that you are doing and will go on doing all that we tell you.

3:5 May the Lord turn your hearts towards the love of God and the fortitude of Christ.

Against idleness and disunity

3:6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we urge you, brothers, to keep away from any of the brothers who refuses to work or to live according to the tradition we passed on to you.  (This Truth is so universal that many Protestants also apply this teaching to their groups.)

3:7 You know how you are supposed to imitate us: now we were not idle when we were with you,

3:8 nor did we ever have our meals at anyone’s table without paying for them; no, we worked night and day, slaving and straining, so as not to be a burden on any of you.

3:9 This was not because we had no right to be, but in order to make ourselves an example for you to follow.  (There is no better example for us to follow than to work and use spare time to encourage neighbors to live by The Church-Creating Word of He Who Fulfilled The Prophecies to His First Catholic Pope!  “And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.”)

3:10 We gave you a rule when we were with you: not to let anyone have any food if he refused to do any work.  (This sums up the difference between Catholicism and the popular thinking of the world.)

3:11 Now we hear that there are some of you who are living in idleness, doing no work themselves but interfering with everyone else’s.  (Condemning parasitic living is another way of saying “Thou shall not steal.”, “Thou shall not bear false witness.”, and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”)

3:12 In the Lord Jesus Christ, we order and call on people of this kind to go on quietly working and earning the food that they eat.  (We must recognize that being parasitic is insulting to the God Who made us!   He gave us ability, and it is up to us to put it to the best possible use.)

3:13 My brothers, never grow tired of doing what is right.  (Only the devil wants us to “grow tired of doing what is right.”)

3:14 If anyone refuses to obey what I have written in this letter, take note of him and have nothing to do with him, so that he will feel that he is in the wrong;

3:15 though you are not to regard him as an enemy but as a brother in need of correction.  (This is important!  Those who are not as good as they can be are their own enemies, not ours!)

Prayer and farewell wishes:

3:16 May the Lord of peace himself give you peace all the time and in every way. The Lord be with you all.

3:17 From me, PAUL, these greetings in my own handwriting, which is the mark of genuineness in every letter; this is my own writing.

3:18 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

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