II Thessalonians 2:1-17
Paul’s long sentences and parenthetical expressions often make for difficult reading. I posted in part on this difficulty yesterday. This happens twice today, in verses 1 and 2, then immediately again in verses 3 and 4. Look below at how these verses can be more easily understood when you read the entire verses through, then when you read a second time reading only the bold words:
First, verses 1 and 2: Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. There’s nothing wrong with Paul’s extra words; they contain additional information for the reader. Everything that is not in bold in these verses has to do with how the Thessalonians might be “quickly shaken”, so those are valuable insights that Paul is offering them – things to watch out for. However, their addition does confuse Paul’s main point – that the day of the Lord has not yet come. It takes reading and re-reading to see through these sentence constructions.
Second, verses 3 and 4: Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that [when] he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Again, those words not in bold help us to understand something about this “man of lawlessness” – his opposition to others and his exaltation of himself. But a quick read through these verses and you could easily miss the main point, that this “man of lawlessness” is claiming to be God.
Again, as I said in the first paragraph, read these verses through, recognizing that there are those additional words not in bold, and you will follow the meaning much more clearly. By the way, I recognize these sentence structure issues whenever I find myself troubling over something that Paul has written that I don’t understand. It may well be the same with you!
Verses 6 and 7 talk about a “restrainer”, someone or something that is restraining the “man of lawlessness”, presumably limiting ?him? from accomplishing even more evil. Who is this restrainer? My NKJV has the restrainer pronouns capitalized, implying that it is Jesus or His Holy Spirit. My Study Bible goes further, suggesting that the restrainer might be “the Roman state with its emperor, Paul’s missionary work, the Jewish state, the principle of law and government embodied in the state, the Holy Spirit or the restraining ministry of the Holy Spirit through the church, or others.” I certainly don’t know – take your pick!!
Enough for today – I am not an eschatological (end-times) scholar!!
Slava Bohu!