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The Second Letter to the |
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Christians in Selma |
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1. From Paul, Silas and
Timothy; 3. We feel bound to thank God continually for you, brothers, which is nothing but right. Your faith is growing and the love of each one of you for one another is getting bigger and bigger. Why, we ourselves are singing your praise throughout God’s fellowships, telling about your tenacity and faith in the face of all your persecutions, and the terrible things you’re putting up with. It’s an indication of the rightness of God’s decision to count you worthy of his movement 1 for which you are suffering so. It would be only right if God dished out some trouble to those troubling you, and gave a breathing spell for you and us who are being mistreated. It’ll happen, too, on that day when Lord Jesus, with his mighty angels about him, will bust out of the spiritual realm and with roaring fire will mete out justice to those who ignore God and won’t live by the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They’ll be sentenced to spiritual exile from the presence of the Lord and from the mighty display when he shall come to be honored by his devout ones and to be amazed himself at all the believers. Because our position on this was accepted by you we are always praying for you, that our God may make you worthy of the call and may make a reality of every intention of goodness and every work undertaken in the power of faith, so that the Name of our Lord Jesus may be held in honor by you, and you by him, according to the unmerited favor of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Brothers, let us speak earnestly to you about the coup 2 of our Lord and our gathering together around him, so that you may not be easily thrown for a loop nor upset by a "spirit" or a message or a letter supposed to be from us stating that the Lord’s era 3 has "arrived." 4 Don’t let anybody bag you with that kind of foolishness. For unless there first comes the reformation, 5 and the mask is pulled off the Man of Tyranny, the damned bastard, who opposes and lords it over everything called God or sacred; in fact, he sits in God’s house and claims that he himself is God... 6 Don’t you remember that while I was with you I was telling you these things? Even now you know the Despot, so he may be unmasked in his own time. For already the secret of tyranny is working only until the Despot can be gotten out of the way. And then the Tyrant shall be unmasked and the Lord Jesus will smash him with a sneeze and make him powerless for the ushering in of his coup. 7 His coup is the result of Satan’s energy expressed in much activity and charts and phony programs and in much crooked slick talk by those who are going to hell because they spurned the love of the truth whereby they may have been rescued. And that’s why God is bringing upon them a "generator of error" that leads them to put stock in the outright lie, so that all who don’t trust the truth but delight in wickedness might be brought to judgment. 13. Now my brothers whom the Lord loves, we should be f or-ever grateful to God for you, because God chose you, by the dedication of your spirit and your trust of the truth, to lead the Freedom Parade. He also called you, through our preaching, to be an ornament of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand your ground, and sink your teeth into the lessons we taught you, both orally and by letter. And may our Lord Jesus Christ personally, and our Father-God who by his grace loved us and gave us a charge that’s out of this world and who provided us with a solid footing—may he charge your hearts and pep you up in every good deed and word. 1. Lastly, brothers, pray for us, that the Christian faith may spread rapidly and be respected even as it has and is with you. Pray also that we may not fall into the hands of extreme [or unbalanced] and evil men, for not all are Christians. Surely the Lord will put starch into you and guard you against evil. And we have no doubt whatsoever that you are doing and will continue to do as we tell you. And may the Lord home your hearts in on the love of God and on the steadfastness of Christ. 6. On the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, we direct you, brothers, to part company with every brother who bucks out of the harness and refuses to live by the instructions you got from us. For you yourselves know how important it is to imitate us, because while we were with you we didn’t buck out of the harness nor freeload on anybody. Instead, in hard labor and sweat we worked far into the night so as not to be a burden on any of you. It wasn’t that we didn’t have the right to eat off of you, but that we might set ourselves as an example for you to copy. For even while we were with you we kept insisting that if a man were unwilling to work he shouldn’t come for chow. Now we hear that some there are not pulling their load, working at nothing but getting out of work. We are both ordering and urging those guys to quietly go to work and earn their own bread. 13. Brothers, don’t you all ever lose your zest when you’re doing what’s right. And if anyone doesn’t do what we’ve said in our letter, single him out and don’t associate with him, so he’ll be ashamed of himself. In other words, treat him, not as an enemy, but as a brother to be corrected. Now may the Lord of peace personally give you peace—always and in all ways. The Lord be with you all. 17. Now the greeting, written in my (Paul’s) own hand, which is the way I sign every letter. Thus I am writing: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Paul, Silas and Timothy 1 The Greek word is "kingdom". The word here is παρουσια, "appearance" or "presence." Here it seems to indicate the sudden appearance of one leading a coup.3 The Greek word is "day" but it can refer to a period, or age, or era, as in our "day of the automobile." Thus Paul’s thought is that while Christ’s era reaches into the past and is also a present reality, it is not yet over. It stretches toward its future consummation. Its root is in the past; its trunk, in the present; its crown, in the future. 4 Or "is an accomplished fact," "has fully dawned and has run its course," "has had its day," the implication being that it is now the "post-Christian" era. The verb is third person singular, perfect indicative of ένιστημι, "to be present," and represents the action as having been completed. The "train" has arrived, reached its destination, and will go no further. The action is over. It is a past event. We are done with it.5 The word is άποστησια (English "apostasy") and refers to a revolt, primarily a religious one; hence, reformation. 6 Paul does not complete this sentence.7 Παρουσια, the same word as in v. 1. Thus the world is faced with the prospect of two coups, that of the Lord and that of the Tyrant. But the outcome is already certain.
©1968 by Clarence
Jordan. Used by permission of Koinonia
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