Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 2 Thessalonians 2:13 - 2:13
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
§ 4. 2Th 2:13 to 2Th 3:5. WORDS OF COMFORT AND PRAYER
Solatium post prœdictionem rerum tristium (Bengel). Turning from the awful apparition of Antichrist, the writers with a sigh of relief join in thanksgiving for those who will “prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luk 21:36). (a) Thanksgiving for the happier lot awaiting the Christian readers (2Th 2:13 f.) passes (b) into exhortation that they should hold fast the treasure they possess (2Th 2:15), which is followed (c) by prayer to this effect (2Th 2:16 f.). With this supplication the Letter, in its main intent, is complete and might have appropriately closed at the end of chap. 2. But in praying for their readers the Apostles are reminded (d) of their need for prayer on their own behalf, to which they exhort the readers in turn (2Th 3:1 f.); and this appeal for prayer throws the writers’ thoughts (e) upon the fidelity of God to His purpose of grace in the readers (2Th 2:3 f.), for whom (f) the Apostles’ intercession is renewed (2Th 2:5). Discursiveness is natural in the free outpouring of heart between friends and friends; it is a sign of unstudied epistolary genuineness. There is nothing incoherent, nor an irrelevant word. The passage grows out of the last section, to which it forms a counterpart, beginning with δέ of contrast and marked by a train of expressions antithetical to those there occurring. The contrast delineated between the followers of Antichrist (2Th 2:10-12) and of Christ (2Th 2:13 f.) is parallel to that exhibited in 1Th 5:1-11.