{"id":22820,"date":"2023-07-15T12:46:19","date_gmt":"2023-07-15T17:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/sermon\/second-thessalonians-001-introduction\/"},"modified":"2023-09-13T13:59:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T18:59:13","slug":"second-thessalonians-001-introduction","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/second-thessalonians-001-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Thessalonians 001 – Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[98],"series_event":[561],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-22820","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-2-thessalonians","series_event-second-thessalonians","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Second Thessalonians 001 - Introduction","sermon_date":"20230716","sermon_month":"07","sermon_year":"2023","sermon_notes":22818,"sermon_slides":22824,"sermon_mp3":23109,"sermon_id":"71623250484480","series_or_event":561,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":98,"chapter_and_verse":"1:1","sermon_transcript":"053_2 Thessalonians Arg<\/a>\r\n\r\n \r\n

Second Thessalonians 001 \u2013 Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

2 Thessalonians 1:1 \u2022 Dr. Andy Woods \u2022 July 16, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\r\nThe handout that we put back there[1]<\/a>.\u00a0 Did anybody not get that?\u00a0 Okay, Pastor Jim, can you grab those handouts for people that have their hand up?\u00a0 Okay, so if you didn't get one, put your hand up.\u00a0 I should clarify that when we say handout, we're not talking about financial, because my hand is up too.\u00a0 We don't believe in handouts, we believe in hand-ups, amen?\u00a0 But so if you didn't get one, just put your hand up and you guys have all got your hands raised like your Charismatics or something.\r\n

PRAYER<\/h4>\r\nAll right, let me open us in a word of prayer and we'll get started.\u00a0 Father, we're grateful for today, \"This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.\" (Psalm 118:24) \u00a0We're grateful for Sugar Land Bible Church, the opportunity to meet in freedom, to worship You.\u00a0 We're thankful Lord for these books, 2000 years old yet they speak so mightily into our lives.\u00a0 We're thankful for 2 Thessalonians which we're going to start to study today.\u00a0 I do pray Father for the illuminating ministry of the Spirit of God, whereby the Spirit of God can take the things of God, even the deep things of God, and make them applicable to Your people.\u00a0 Only You can do that ministry.\u00a0 I do pray that You will use this human teacher as Your instrument today, but at the end of the day we want to get out of the way, and we want to let You have Your way in Your church with Your Word and Your people.\r\n\r\nIn preparation for that ministry of illumination, we're just going to take a few moments of private silence to confess personal sins to You, if need be, not to restore our position which is eternally secure, but sometimes or when we sin, we can break fellowship with You, and when that happens, we can't receive from You the way that You would like.\u00a0 So we're just going to take a few moments privately.\r\n\r\nWe remain thankful Lord for the promise of 1 John 1:9[2]<\/a> which says, \"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.\" \u00a0We're grateful Lord for the fact that our provision in You is so comprehensive that You've taken care of our position and that You even take care of the issue of enjoyment and fellowship.\u00a0 We do pray Lord that at the end of the day that Your name would be glorified today at Sugarland Bible Church not just in the main sanctuary but in all the classes and all the meetings that are happening in this church from the moment the doors opened to the moment the doors close right into meetings that are going to take place even at Your church this evening.\u00a0 We'll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus' name and God's people said amen.\r\n

2 THESSALONIANS<\/h4>\r\nWell if you could kindly open your Bibles to the book of 2 Thessalonians.\u00a0 Oh let's see, there's a few more people up here that need a handout.\u00a0 I think there's a couple up here.\u00a0 Are we out of handouts?\u00a0 We're out of handouts guys, I'm sorry.\u00a0 We'll have more next week.\u00a0 Online people don't hit the panic button, we'll have one posted for you next week also.\u00a0 Me saying that saves me from 10,000 emails I'll get this week.\u00a0 I think Martin, there's some people up here that needed a handout.\u00a0 I think Mikey needed a handout.\u00a0 Anybody need a handout?\u00a0 Put your hand up.\r\n

Handout \u2013 Overview of 2 Thessalonians<\/h4>\r\nAll right, well what you've got there is a kind of just an overview that I did back in my seminary days of 2 Thessalonians.\u00a0 I had to do this for all 66 books of the Bible.\u00a0 So if you think my sermons are a little too long, you can blame that assignment because I just took that assignment and I use it with you guys.\r\n\r\nSo we finished 1 Thessalonians last week and today we're moving into 2 Thessalonians.\u00a0 There's our new \u2013 what do you call these things?\u00a0 Oh, I don't know.\u00a0 Opening slide[3]<\/a>, how's that?\u00a0 There's our new\u2013 I know there's a more technical word for it.\u00a0 Opening slide to 2 Thessalonians.\r\n

2 Thessalonians \u2013 Balance Between Working and Waiting<\/h4>\r\nIt's the balance between working and waiting.\u00a0 That's really the theme of the book, as we'll see.\u00a0 If you can't find 2 Thessalonians in your Bible, it's right after 1 Thessalonians.\u00a0 How's that for clarity?\r\n\r\nSo, whenever I start a new book of the Bible, rather than just jump into the verse-by-verse stuff, I like to kind of give you the background of the book.\u00a0 So that's what we're doing now with 2 Thessalonians.\r\n\r\nWhen I study the Bible, I have my five best friends with me.\u00a0 You guys didn't know I had five best friends.\u00a0 Some of you are saying, \"We didn't know you had any friends at all.\"\u00a0 Who are my five best friends?\u00a0 Here they are: \u00a0who, what, when, where, why<\/strong>, and then sometimes there's a sixth guy that joins.\u00a0 The sixth man, we call him \"how<\/strong>.\"\u00a0 So those are the journalistic questions<\/strong>, as you know, and those are great questions to ask whenever you study any book of the Bible.\u00a0 If you can answer those, you're way ahead of the game in terms of studying a biblical book.\r\n

AUTHORSHIP<\/h4>\r\nSo the first question really relates to who, and we would call this authorship.\u00a0 Who wrote this particular book?<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, if you look at 1 Thessalonians 1:1, it says Paul, and Silvanus and Timothy.\u00a0 So most take Paul as the author of this book, he's the first name mentioned, if you go to the end of the book and look at 2 Thessalonians 3:17, it gets clearer.\u00a0 The author says, \"I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter; this is the way I write.\" \u00a0So very clearly Paul is the author.\r\n\r\nPaul, as the author of 2 Thessalonians, was accepted by scholarship for 1900 years.\u00a0 And it wasn't until the higher critical movement started in Europe that liberal scholarship began to second guess Paul is the author.\u00a0 Why would they second guess Paul as the author?\u00a0 Because Paul says, \"I'm the author.\"\u00a0 So they obviously want to go the opposite direction on it, and if Paul never said, \"I was the author,\" they would be fine with Paul being the author.\u00a0 That's how these scholars work.\u00a0 But it's not until these people started to play games with the text and second guess everything, German rationalism, higher criticism, that Pauline authorship was even challenged.\u00a0 So we accept Paul as the author of the book.\r\n

AUDIENCE<\/h4>\r\nAnother who question, number two, is the audience.\u00a0 Who is Paul writing to?<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, he is writing to the Thessalonians, and if you look at 2 Thessalonians 1:1, it says, \"Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:\"\u00a0 So he's writing to the group known as the Thessalonians.\u00a0 He's not just writing a letter to Thessalonica in general, but he's writing to the church in Thessalonica.\u00a0 It says it right there in Verse 1.\r\n\r\nWe think that these Thessalonian Christians were in fact believers.\u00a0 There's Thessalonica there[4]<\/a>.\u00a0 It's a church that Paul had planted when you studied the book of Acts, Chapters 17 and 18.\u00a0 It's a church that he had planted on his second missionary journey.\u00a0 He was with them for about six months to a year we think, and then he was forced out of it by unbelieving Jews who were jealous of his fruitfulness amongst the Gentiles.\u00a0 And he gets down into Corinth, which I'll show you in a second.\u00a0 And it's there he writes to this struggling church.\r\n\r\nBut you'll notice there in 2 Thessalonians 2:1 the pronoun \"our<\/strong>.\"\u00a0 \"Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our<\/strong> Father ...\"\u00a0 So there wasn't any doubt in Paul's mind that these folks were believers, because Paul uses the word \"our<\/strong>.\"\u00a0 So Paul is identifying with his audience.\u00a0 Just as Paul was clearly a Christian and regenerated, so was this Thessalonian church that he was addressing.\r\n\r\nPLACE OF WRITING<\/strong>\r\n\r\nAnd then you move into the subject of where.\u00a0 Where was Paul writing this from?<\/strong>\u00a0 He was writing it from a place called Corinth.\u00a0 Why do we think that Paul wrote this from Corinth?\u00a0 Well, if you look at 2 Thessalonians 1:1, he mentions there, all together at the same time, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy.\r\n\r\nOver in the book of Acts 18, is Paul's ministry in Corinth after he ministered in Thessalonica, and in Acts 18:5, which is clearly in Corinth, it mentions all three together.\u00a0 It says in Acts 18:5, \"But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.\" \u00a0\u00a0So, Silvanus is another name for Silas.\u00a0 So you have Silvanus there, Timothy, and Paul, all together in Corinth, Acts 18:5.\u00a0 So when Paul mentions all three and his missionary team together, we would put that together with the book of Acts, which indicates that he was writing this letter from Corinth.\r\n\r\nSo there's where Corinth is[5]<\/a>.\u00a0 There's kind of a little isthmian land bridge that separates Corinth from sort of the mainland there, and this is where Paul wrote the two Thessalonian letters.\u00a0 He wrote First Thessalonians from Corinth, and he wrote Second Thessalonians from Corinth.\r\n\r\nSo here's the big picture[6]<\/a>.\u00a0 He's writing from Corinth, the circle at the bottom, to this struggling church there in Thessalonica that he had planted.\u00a0 So he's writing to them very, very quickly after he planted the church.\r\n\r\nSo this is not like the letter to the Philippians, for example, where he addresses the church at Philippi ten years after he had planted that church.\u00a0 This is very, very different in the sense that there's a very short distance of time between Paul planting the church in Thessalonica and when he actually wrote to the church.\u00a0 So he's writing from Corinth to the church that he had planted on Missionary Journey 2, and he's still on Missionary Journey 2 when he wrote this letter.\r\n

DATE<\/h4>\r\nAs far as the date of the book, this kind of gets to the when question<\/strong>, we basically believe that this is his second letter.\u00a0 This letter arose out of concerns that he surfaces in his first letter.\u00a0 So when you study the first letter, First Thessalonians, you start to get aware of issues, and it's obvious that when you get to Second Thessalonians, those issues have gotten worse.\u00a0 That's probably one of the main reasons most people put First Thessalonians first and Second Thessalonians second.\u00a0 So the second letter arose out of issues or concerns raised in the first letter.\r\n\r\nSo let me give you some examples of that if I could.\u00a0 You might remember First Thessalonians 4:11-12, and I know this one well because my mother used to hang this verse on our refrigerator when I was growing up, and it says this, \"and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life [that's why she put it up there] and attend to your own business [no wonder she put it there] and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.\" \u00a0So obviously there's a problem in 1 Thessalonians of people kind of becoming lazy and not working a regular job.\u00a0 That problem, as I'll show you, gets way worse in 2 Thessalonians.\r\n\r\nThen if you go over to 1 Thessalonians 5:14 Paul says, \"We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.\" \u00a0\u00a0And so when he says admonish the unruly, obviously there's some unruly people that need to be admonished.\u00a0 I'm glad that never happens in modern-day Christianity.\u00a0 I'm being a little sarcastic there.\u00a0 Well, these unruly people, the problem gets way worse in 2 Thessalonians.\r\n\r\nSo it's obvious the problems that he's dealing with in 1 Thessalonians, he's got to deal with them in more detail in 2 Thessalonians.\u00a0 So just to show you how bad things got, now go to 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15.\u00a0 And you can see how this problem of unruly people and unproductive people got compounded.\r\n\r\nPaul says over there beginning in Verse 6, \"Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother ...\" so in other words even a Christian or a brother can act this way, \"... that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us.\" \u00a0\u00a0So the unruliness obviously got worse.\r\n\r\nVerse 7 he says, \"For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, 8<\/sup>nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you; 9<\/sup>not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example.\"\r\n\r\nAnd then verse 10, \"For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. \u00a011<\/sup>For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.\"\u00a0 So that's kind of the problem when you have too much time on your hands because your productive energy should be spent supporting yourself and your family, and if you're not doing that, you've got to do something with your time.\u00a0 So these people were constantly inserting themselves into the affairs of other people.\u00a0 He calls them busybodies, you know, people that are busy, but they're not doing anything productive with their lives.\r\n\r\nI think it's John Wooden and his pyramid of success, the famous basketball coach, he said something, he's got these different, you know, things in the pyramid.\u00a0 I went to the John Wooden basketball camp when I was really young, and they taught this pyramid of success, but one of the things he said in there is don't confuse effort with success.\u00a0 Don't confuse the use of energy with success.\u00a0 I mean, there's a lot of people that are very energetic, but it's channeled the wrong way, and we have a tendency to do that when we're not doing what it is God has called us to do, to live an economically productive life.\u00a0 Paul calls them busybodies.\r\n\r\n2 Thessalonians 3:12, \"Now such persons we command ...\" and Paul could give commands because he was an apostle.\u00a0 \"Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. \u00a013<\/sup>But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good.\"\r\n\r\nVerse 14, \"If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame.\"\u00a0 And then verse 15, \"Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.\"\u00a0 He's dealing with church discipline.\r\n\r\nSo obviously the unruly and unproductive nature of people that he kind of hints at in the first letter, it obviously got a lot worse in the second letter.\u00a0 So the second letter kind of grows out of concerns raised in the first letter.\u00a0 So we basically believe that the second letter was written about 6 to 12 months later after the first letter.\u00a0 You'd be really safe to date the letter in late AD 51 or early 52.\u00a0 The first letter was written in AD 51, and this one is written in late AD 51 or early AD 52, which means that this is the third, only the third letter Paul wrote.\r\n\r\nSo he hasn't written the Corinthian letters yet.\u00a0 He hasn't written Romans yet.\u00a0 He hasn't written Ephesians yet.\u00a0 He's still on Missionary Journey No. 2, and he's writing these letters to deal with this church that he had just planted about a year, six months to a year later.\r\n

Paul's 13 Letters (Chart)<\/h4>\r\nSo whenever we talk about Paul's letters[7]<\/a>, one of the things I like to do is just to sort of teach you how to put Paul's letters together because there's 13 of them.\u00a0 It's hard to understand the background of Paul's letters unless you watch what he's doing in the book of Acts.\u00a0 But when you put the book of Acts together with Paul's 13 letters, you can put an easy order to them.\u00a0 It's very easy to memorize this, believe it or not.\u00a0 It's a mnemonic device that we've shared before.\r\n\r\nIt's like this, 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 1.\u00a0 Easy, right?\u00a0 So you guys want to repeat that with me?\u00a0 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 1.\u00a0 Now, that makes you an expert on the New Testament right there.\u00a0 Because if you can remember that mnemonic device, you know exactly which letter Paul wrote when.\r\n

Missionary Journey 1 = 1 Book (Galatians)<\/h4>\r\nSo Paul is going to go on three missionary journeys in the book of Acts.\u00a0 In his first missionary journey into southern Galatia, one first journey, he wrote one book<\/strong>.\u00a0 And that's the book of Galatians.\u00a0 He wrote that after he had gone into southern Galatia.\u00a0 He got back to Syrian Antioch, which is on the northern tip of the nation of Israel, and that's where he launches all three of his missionary journeys, by the way, Syrian Antioch.\r\n\r\nHe notices that the churches that he had planted on missionary journey number one, which is described in Acts 13 and 14, AD 48 and 49, had been completely overtaken by legalism.\u00a0 He planted the church, or churches, left and the legalists came in and took over.\u00a0 So that's why he writes the Galatian letter to those churches that he had planted, trying to free them from legalism.\u00a0 So the point of the book of Galatians is you're free.\u00a0 You were justified by faith alone, and that's how you're going to grow in Christ, by faith alone, through the power of the Spirit alone, not through someone putting you under a \u00a0maze of rules and regulations where you're trying to produce your personal sanctification through your own energy.\r\n

Missionary Journey 2 = 2 Books (1 and 2 Thessalonians)<\/h4>\r\nThen he goes on Missionary Journey No. 2, and you can see in the book of Acts where that missionary journey happened, end of Chapter 15 through most of chapter 18, he's on that missionary journey from AD 50 to 52.\u00a0 So we're now on number two, second missionary journey.\u00a0 So how many books is he going to write?\u00a0 Two.\u00a0 And those are our Thessalonian books.\r\n\r\nThe first one written from Corinth to the Thessalonians within six months to a year of planning the church.\u00a0 Because they didn't understand that the rapture, when it occurs, because he had taught them about the rapture, what's going to happen to our deceased loved ones in Christ?\u00a0 Are they going to be raptured too?\u00a0 How do they fit in?\u00a0 And so he writes 1 Thessalonians to explain that issue and other issues.\u00a0 And you know about all those other issues because we just completed 1 Thessalonians in our study.\r\n\r\nWell then you get to the book that we're studying here, 2 Thessalonians, and now they're all confused because they think they're in the tribulation period, because they had received a forged letter (I'll talk about that in just a second) allegedly coming from Paul indicating that they were in the tribulation period, and they were panicked.\u00a0 The reason they were panicked is because Paul had taught them the opposite, that they would be spared from the tribulation period.\r\n\r\nWhich, by the way, proves that he taught them pretribulationalism.\u00a0 Because if he had taught them post-tribulationalism, you're going through the tribulation, they would be saying, \"All right, thumbs up.\"\u00a0 This is what Paul said would happen.\u00a0 But that's not what's going on.\u00a0 They're scared out of their minds.\r\n\r\nSo Paul writes 2 Thessalonians primarily to explain to them that you are not in the tribulation period right now, because five things haven't materialized.\u00a0 And he identifies those five things in Chapter 2.\r\n

Missionary Journey 3 = 3 Books (1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans)<\/h4>\r\nThen he goes on Missionary Journey No. 3.\u00a0 You can see in the book of Acts when that happens, there's the years about AD 53 to 57.\u00a0 And this is third missionary journey, so he's going to write how many books?\u00a0 Three, and those are 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and Romans.\r\n\r\nNow you'll notice that your organization of the New Testament, the Protestant organization, doesn't help you with this chronology at all, because Romans is the first book in that section, when chronologically Romans is the sixth book.\u00a0 So our organization of the New Testament gives you no clue on how to put these books in order, because our Protestant New Testament is organized by, you know, kind of like the major prophets, minor prophets, as you see in the Old Testament.\r\n\r\nI mean, you would think reading through the Old Testament that Isaiah was the first prophet.\u00a0 He was not.\u00a0 It was a man named, let's see, Obadiah.\u00a0 He's the first chronological prophet.\u00a0 Well, why does the Old Testament put Isaiah first then?\u00a0 Because he's a major prophet.\u00a0 He wrote the biggest book, so they stuck him first.\u00a0 They did that with Paul's writings.\u00a0 Romans is his most famous book, so we'll put that first.\r\n\r\nBut really, if I was going to come up with my own study Bible, for example, I would just mess everybody up.\u00a0 That's why I'm not going to do this.\u00a0 I's just get so much hate mail.\u00a0 I would put Galatians first, the two Thessalonians books second, the two Corinthian books third, then Romans, so people could understand the chronology.\r\n\r\nBut when he's in Ephesus on Missionary Journey No. 3, he discovers immorality and things of that nature taking place in Corinth, and he therefore writes First Corinthians to straighten them out on that issue.\u00a0 As he continues to travel into Macedonia, he discovers that there are people in Corinth challenging his authority as an apostle, so he writes Second Corinthians.\r\n\r\nThen he gets down into Corinth, which is by the way is the same place where he wrote the Thessalonian books.\u00a0 What was Corinth known for?\u00a0 Immorality.\u00a0 I think what happened, I can't prove this, but I think Paul looked out the window and he saw one of these LGBTQU type parades going by.\u00a0 And it really got under his skin and so he writes Romans 1.\u00a0 That's how I think it happened, I can't prove that.\r\n\r\nBut he's writing to the Church of Rome to lay out systematically the doctrine of salvation because the Church of Rome was one of the few churches that was started without the help of an apostle.\r\n