In today’s world many people laugh at the idea of a literal Satan.
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In their mind, he’s a myth, a holdover from a superstitious and prescientific era. They feel that good and bad are simply the random consequences of cause and effect; or, in some people’s minds, good and bad are only culturally constructed concepts relative to specific times and places, nothing more.
But the Bible clearly asserts that Satan is real. And it is often […]
The language of this section recalls the prayer at the beginning of 1 Thessalonians.
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It is almost as if Paul is returning to the place where he began, creating a natural conclusion to this pair of letters. Paul here expresses his concern that the believers in Thessalonica not deviate from the path on which he has placed them.
Read 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17. Why does Paul thank God for the Thessalonians? What does he ask them to do […]
Read for This Week’s Study: 2 Thess. 2:13-3:18, Acts 17:11, Luke 10:25-28, Matt. 7:24-27, 18:15-17.
Memory Text: “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15, ESV).
Key Thought: Even with all the grand and glorious promises for the future, we have to deal with daily challenges and struggles in the church. The Thessalonian church was no exception.
Churches are a lot like plants. If a plant does not grow, it will […]
“The apostle Paul warned the church not to look for the coming of Christ in his day.
‘That day shall not come,’ he says, ‘except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed.’ 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Not till after the great apostasy, and the long period of the reign of the ‘man of sin,’ can we look for the advent of our Lord. The ‘man of sin,’ which is also styled ‘the mystery of iniquity,’ ‘the son […]
My name is Christian, and I live in Denmark.
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My family has no real relationship with Christ; but when I was a child, my grandmother had taught me to pray and to trust in God.
My faith in God wasn’t popular with my classmates, and often they teased and tormented me. So when I was ready to enter high school, I didn’t want to attend a public school. My parents helped me find a Christian school, […]
[Thought questions for The Antichrist September, 19, 2012]
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1. Are we there yet? Living two thousand years ago with the recent memory of a Christ Jesus crucified and resurrected, what earthly reason did our Thessalonian brothers and sisters have for assuming Jesus would come that soon? What about us today? Why are we so sure that Jesus is coming within just a few more years? Are the wars and horrible displays of nature convincing us that […]
Read 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12.
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Why does God allow so many to be deceived? According to this passage, what have the wicked rejected?
Verse 11 is a text that many people find extremely challenging. Paul states very directly, “God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie” (2 Thess. 2:11, NIV). The knee-jerk response to this text is something like, “How can a God of truth send deception? How can He act the same as Satan […]
Read 2 Thessalonians 2:8-10.
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How do we understand these events? What’s especially important in all this about the phrase, “they received not the love of the truth”?
The man of sin was introduced in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4. Through much of Christian history he has operated to undermine God’s law (particularly the Sabbath) and to usurp powers that belong only to Christ. In passages such as Daniel 7:20-25 (the little horn) and Revelation 13:1-7 (the beast from the sea), this same power operates […]
Key Thought: The only protection against being overcome by Satan’s deceptions is loving the truth of God’s word.
[Teaching plan for The Antichrist September 17,2012]
1. Have a volunteer read 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4.
A. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
B. Why did Paul warn the Thessalonian church members against those who would “deceive” them by announcing the second coming? Have people been deceived by that announcement in these latter years? […]
According to Paul, what two things characterized the world situation at the time he wrote?
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How do we see the great controversy revealed in these verses? 2 Thess. 2:6-7.
Combining these verses with the previous ones, we can see that Paul is outlining three stages of history from his time until the end. The final stage begins at the Second Coming. Before this stage is the revelation of the man of sin (2 Thess. 2:3),also known as the lawless one (2 […]
