Persevere in persecution; Paul addresses his impostors (2nd Thessalonians)

Paul writes a second letter to the Thessalonians.  This letter is shorter, but more complicated than the first.

Persecution, Impostors, and the Day of the Lord

The letter begins by acknowledging that the Thessalonian church is being persecuted.  We do not know the details, but it could be either an (1) external threat such as the Jews that kicked Paul out of Thessalonica, or (2) an internal threat which is a theme of the letter.

In the first letter, he cautioned them to test everything.  This would include prophecies and letters from himself.  In the second letter, Paul refers to someone giving them false instruction, letters, or prophecies in Paul's name.  One of these ideas is that the Day of the Lord has already happened.  

Such an idea could easily rattle the church if they believed that they were supposed to be taken up in the sky when it happened, but yet they are still living their normal lives.  The church would probably either (1) panic and think they are not believing in the right things about Jesus, or (2) discount Paul's first letter as not coming from him.  

Either way, this idea that Jesus has already returned would unravel these fledgling churches in Macedonia.

Since a main issue was whether Paul even wrote these letters, Paul concludes the second letter by saying it was a hand written in is distinctive style, or at least includes a handwritten stylistic mark by Paul.  Presumably, the audience in Thessalonica would have seen Paul make a similar mark when he was there in person.

Day of the Lord

Paul gives a few details on the timing about the Day of the Lord.  However, these details are nebulous and the least straightforward part of the letter.  In fact, I think anything the Bible says about this topic is charged in nebulous language.

Jesus' return will happen after some agent of Satan is uncovered.  The NIV refers to this person as the "Man of Lawlessness".  This man will create problems, even do false miracles, and people will worship him as God.

The language is not straightforward, nor details explained.

It also touches on false miracles, which we saw before while Jesus talked about the apocalypse.  False miracles presumes the existence of true miracles.  I think further discussion on this should wait until discussing what the Holy Spirit does in 1 Corinthians, I.e., true miracles.

Philosophy majors (idleness)

Paul also discusses idleness among the believers.  He refers to the time that he was there in person and worked for his own food.  This statement would offer further credibility that this letter came from Paul.

As for the substance of the statement, it contrasts the situation early in the Book of Acts where the believers in the new church sold their belongings and gave to everyone else.  Paul must have noticed a trend of idleness arising in the established churches and wanted to nip them in the bud in the churches he was planting.  So, in addition to preaching, him and his group did manual labor to earn their food.

Paul bluntly states that he who does not work, should not eat.  If this were a parable from Jesus, then we could probably think it was a metaphor about the Gospel and the relationship of God.  If that were the case, i think it would easily fall in line with the parables about the fruit and the talents.

But it is coming from Paul who tends to be a lot more straightforward and here he is playing the role of the manager of a church.

The statement has a lot of social implications and raises interesting questions.  How does this fit with Jesus dealing with the poor and beggars?  Even, how does it square with the early church practice of sharing their resources?  We all have different talents and abilities, so what kind of work - manual labor?  I.e., do "philosophy majors" count as being idle?  These questions remain outstanding.

Paul even takes a harder stance against idleness, he says that people should be disassociated from the group.  The stated purpose is to cause shame, but it also has a functional, pragmatic purpose directed to the problem - if they are disassociated from the group then they will stop receiving handouts and start working.

On another level, I think these ideas idleness is not so much a way for people to justify shame on deadbeats, but to enable people.  People need to work and be productive.  People need to stay busy otherwise they get depressed or crazy.  I think this is something hardwired into the human brain and people need to feel that they are contributing for their own survival and those of others.