Verse 2:5 leads to today’s passage: ‘Don’t you remember that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things?’ Then, moving on to today’s passage: ‘So brothers, stand firm, and hold on to the teachings I passed on to you, whether by mouth or by letter’ (v2:15). The ‘these things’ Paul is referring to pertain to the second coming of Christ (2:1-2:4), about which there is quite a lot of confusion in the Church today!

The problem of the Thessalonians regarding this topic had been roundly dealt with by Paul in his first letter to them.  Here Paul commended their faith and love but they were muddled about the Second Coming and therefore muddled in their hope for the future. This hope elsewhere is commended by Paul as absolutely essential for the Christian, which he could not put more strongly when he said that, if we have not hope beyond death and clear understanding of the Second Coming, then we, among all people, are most to be pitied.

The hope of resurrection and a clear understanding of the Second Coming are pivotal to the Christian faith. Paul’s first letter did not achieve this: ‘May our Lord Jesus Christ…who gave us encouragement and good hope…’ 2:16. His ‘teachings’ on this topic have not sunk in.

Instead false ideas about the Second Coming have crept into the church at Thessalonica, just as they are rife in the Church today. Some believed he had already come (2:2), others that he was coming imminently, so what was the point of going to work? Chapter 3 warns against such idleness (3:10) as well as re-directing the Thessalonians to what they should be doing: ‘…the things we command’ (3:4).

Two perils face the Church in its teaching on the topic of the Second Coming:  people can get completely obsessed with it to the point at which their walk of faith is affected, or in the absence of clear teaching, they are ill-equipped to face the future, whatever it might hold, and left with the same deficit of hope Paul recognised in the Thessalonians.

Paul advocates balance. We are not in the dark, we are children of light: as 2:3 explains: Christians should be aware of when the event will happen. The thief in the night comes only to the unprepared.  This should not be the Christian. First, the ‘rebellion’ or ‘man of lawlessness’ must be revealed. Other signs are already being fulfilled (2:7).

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Let us seek to encourage one another with a balanced view of the Second Coming of Jesus, as the world’s and, ultimately, our only source of hope.