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2 Thessalonians

Kingdom 3 ’25

As Paul moves into the final part of his letter his attention turns to the second of the issues he wants to address, work. Whilst he’d mentioned it in passing in a few places in his first letter, here he dedicates the second longest section to this topic, clearly it is becoming an issue. There are some in the Thessalonian congregation who are idle. And here Paul doesn’t just mean lazy as we might assume, although there is that, but he also means they are not or are slow to follow the teaching they have been given. They’re not working, instead they are relying on the generosity of others to sustain them.

Kingdom 2 ’25

Every year when I come to preach on Remembrance Sunday, without fail, there is more violence, war and innocent blood shed than the previous year I had preached. So the end must be near right? Jesus is coming back soon, look at all the signs, right?
We’re in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians again, one of Paul’s earliest letters and therefore one of the earliest texts in the New Testament. And having spoken into the suffering of the Thessalonians in chapter 1, assuring them of God’s justice and care for them, Paul now turns to the first of two issues which are troubling the church there; the question of Jesus’ return.

Kingdom 1 ’25

What does it mean for us and our lives to be a citizen of God’s Kingdom? How should we live as members of a kingdom that is both now, it has come with the Lord Jesus, and not yet, awaiting its fulfilment at his return. These are themes that are key to this Kingdom Season which we now begin, and they are also themes which are core to Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians which we are going to be reading through in this season.
And the first question posed and answered by this letter is this: what does being part of this kingdom mean for suffering? And how does this relate to God’s perfect justice?