The first thing to note is that a great deal of the things I have to say will have the same reasoning, with a bit of a twist. This is Paul’s second canonical letter to the Thessalonians, and because it is to the same place, and on the same subject matter, much of the same things will apply.
There are things in this book that people are of differing opinion about. I can only tell you what I am persuaded of, and I can’t even always tell you why, but it comes down to something called hermeneutics, the science of interpreting the Scriptures. I once saw a diagram that can give you a sense of how hermeneutics will affect your understanding of the Bible presented by the late Dr. Chuck Missler. It looks like this:
The further you are to the right of the diagram, the more literal your interpretation of the Bible. There are a few schools of thought on this, and none of them agree on just what this book is saying. I feel that I owe it to you to declare my bias at the beginning. I’m more to the right of this diagram. I am in the pre-millenial camp, and I admit to being undecided about pre- or some version of mid-tribulation harpazo event, spoken of in Chapters 4 and 5 of the first letter.
However, this is the second letter he has written in the space of just a few months. We know that He, and Sylvanus, and Timothy were still in Corinth when this letter was written, but another report, this time a negative one, had reached Paul, and that occasioned this letter to them. We will deal with the background as to why Paul wrote in chapter 2, because it is part of the text itself.
I’m not asking you to agree with me. As always, I’m asking you to do your own intellectual work and draw your own conclusions. What I say here will be my own conclusions from such activities.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2| Chapter 3
Chapter 1 Livestream Replay | Chapter 2 Livestream Replay | Chapter 3 Livestream Replay
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