Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Thessalonians · About this commentary
Do Not Be Quickly Shaken
2 Thessalonians 2:1-2
1 Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you · WEB
Something claiming apostolic authority had told them the day had already come, and the whole chapter exists to steady people that claim had knocked over.
The subject is announced: the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him. The second phrase is the one the first letter had described, when the dead in Christ rise and the living are caught up together with them 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17. That is what the chapter is about, and it is raised because someone had told them it had happened.
Verse 2 catalogues how the report may have arrived — by spirit, by word, or by letter as if from us. Paul does not say which, and the range is the point: a prophetic utterance, a spoken message, or a forged document were all live possibilities, and the church could not sort them. It is why the letter ends with a handwritten signature 2 Thessalonians 3:17.
The verbs describe real damage. Shaken is used of a ship torn from its moorings, and troubled is a continuing state. People who had buried friends and faced courts had been told they had missed the day.
settled What this mark means