No one should be surprised at how this chapter is used to reinforce middle-class materialism. There are countless commentaries singing the praises of wage slavery and striving after the hedonistic lifestyle of the West. There is no excuse for worshiping Mammon, and this passage is not supporting the American dream.

Did you notice how Paul invested a lot of space discussing eschatology in these two letters? Apparently the Thessalonians were so taken with enthusiasm about the return of Christ that they talked of little else. The city was known for frequent small volcanic tremors, and this message was in itself so earthshaking that it caused a very substantial shift in thinking about life itself. The speculation was that, since Christ was going to return so soon, it was necessary to revamp their whole lives. It would have been very easy to get lost in it.

Envision how young teenage believers act when they first get consumed by the notion of Jesus coming back any day now. They can't get enough of it. It could easily be a distraction from just about everything else. Teenagers are always looking for a distraction. Apparently, some of the residents of the city were like this, and they quit their jobs.

They became experts in every detail about the doctrine of Christ's return, and perhaps imagined themselves prophets, having wild dreams and so forth. Instead of minding their own business, they intruded into everyone else's business, always eager to tie up everyone with chatter about this wonderful thing just around the corner.

Paul reminds his readers (vv. 6-15) that, when he first passed through the city, he also taught them a number of "traditions" (Greek: paradosis), a term specifically referring typically to Jewish Law. In this case, Paul referred to those elements from the Covenant of Moses that were universal, not contextual to Israel alone. Christian teaching includes a bit of law code to indicate something about the heart of God. One of those traditions was that a rabbi should always develop a trade or skill that could earn him a living.

Thus, when Paul was there for those three weeks in Thessalonica, he paid his own way, partly with money donated for the journey, and partly by working, and helping out in general, as did the rest of his party. The image he draws in this passage is that he avoided having his entourage become a burden on what began as a rather small community. While the same traditions included community support for those who brought the gospel, something Jesus Himself took advantage of, the situation in Thessalonica against the number of people traveling with him made Paul uncomfortable claiming it.

Thus, no one still there in the city could use his example as an excuse for becoming parasites. These people were not ministers. The Greek word typically translated as "busybody" was peri-ergazomai, and was based on the concept of avoiding "work" (ergazomai) by dodging around it -- doing lots of stuff that isn't work and isn't helpful, but keeps you "busy". He says almost literally "no loaf for the loafer" (v. 10). It was not God who told you to quit working.

It's one thing to help someone in need, but it's another to encourage silly exuberance that embarrasses the Lord. Uphold the community standard as people who carry their own load. A wealthy middle-class lifestyle was not the objective here, working overtime and keeping up with the Jonses. In other letters, Paul hammered the churches for allowing ostentation in dress. The word "modest" meant not showing off material wealth.

However, Paul took the line that these busybodies were not demonic, just brothers and sister who caught a case of the sillies. This was a busy port city; there were plenty of jobs. They needed to get back to work and build up the community, so that when the Lord comes back, He will find them faithful in keeping His Word.

This is just a personal note about what is happening behind the scenes, not so much the teaching stuff, but the presentation of it.

Everyone can see that the latest series of Bible lessons is about to end. When you see me commenting on John's Revelation, you know we are there. It will mean publishing another book. The whole theme has been showing the continuity between the Old and New Testaments by chasing down the law and doctrinal passages. It's been an organic study, meaning that it centers on what is called "Biblical Theology" (what is clearly stated in the text) versus "Systematic Theology" which is collating things in the text and trying to organize it logically. The latter often results in sheer nonsense simply because the structure tends to be artificial, drawing out assumptions that simply aren't there in the Bible.

I'm not sure what direction I'll go after this current series is finished. What I do know is that publishing it has suddenly gotten very easy. My previous publisher -- Smashwords -- has merged with a company based right here in OKC: Draft2Digital (D2D). While the old Smashwords website is still there and my books are still available there, the process of publishing has been moved completely over to D2D, and their handling is way more polished. An awful lot of work I used to do in preparing a manuscript is now automated. Most of the fussy details are obviated completely, but then, so are my choices.

Not to worry. The point is that I no longer need to keep old copies of MS Office around; D2D accepts the current Word format, or even plain text if I feel like it. I don't get to choose fonts, subheadings, etc. The title page is automated, as are the Table of Contents, etc. And these books are published to Amazon. I haven't chased it all down yet; things are still in process. Still, it will be a lot less work for everyone, as the whole thing is far more automated. All I have to worry about is content and some organization. For me, this means I can do the work on all of my devices, if I feel like it, because I have an MS 365 account that works on all of them -- Office in the clouds.

D2D promises the same uncensored openness as before. Let's hope they can keep it that way.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Good daily report on the general weather funny business. I know you've been keeping an eye and noticing things. Ben mentions the recent tornados and flooding:

Paul writes this second letter to the Church at Thessalonica in celebration that their faith is working. This is a church that knows how to tribulate. As I've previously noted: Finding yourself on the outs with those still clinging to this world is expected and desirable. It reveals who is His and who is not. It reveals how just His justice is. In the paradoxical realm of God, it is justice that His people suffer in a world that is hostile to Him.

The issue that Paul wrote to address shows up in this second chapter. It seems that someone had been teaching the folks there that the reason for their persecution was that Christ had already returned and they had missed it. Paul warned them not to believe such nonsense, regardless where they claimed such teaching came from. He mentions a bogus letter claiming to be from him, along with supposed words of revelation. There are certain events that must precede the Day of the Lord.

Paul reminds them in outline what he had previous taught in detail. Sadly, those details are not recorded anywhere.

First, there must be an apostasy, a rebellion against genuine faith in Christ among church folks. There have always been a certain portion of church members who are fake in various ways, not part of the Elect. Jesus warned about this in the Parable of the Tares. At some point near the Day of Harvest, they will distinguish themselves.

Connected to this will be the rise of the Antichrist. He will mislead the churches from within. The return of Christ will be shortly preceded by a fake Christ, someone whose false claims will be quite plausible, except he won't come to meet us in the air, as noted in the previous letter.

This person will claim to be God Almighty in the flesh, seizing control of all organized religion. Paul is clearly referring to Old Testament warnings in Isaiah 14:13-14, Daniel 11:35, and Ezekiel 28:2-9. He will come with signs and miracles, but not the real power of the Cross. Instead, his ministry will deceive everyone who is not Elect. God will have sent this one precisely to for that purpose. There will be something critical missing, something obvious to those who walk in their convictions, by their faith and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

In previous commentary, I wrote: There is a clear distinction between those who embrace the Cross and those only pretending. The Cross is death and those who don’t quite grasp the nature of mortification aren’t there yet. The Antichrist will come with an easy gospel, signs and wonders; a solid majority of humanity will embrace whatever he’s selling. It’s not as if this hasn’t been offered in numerous packages already, but it has never gained a universal following in any sense. The final revelation of the Antichrist will provide the context that will so clearly separate those who willingly give all for Christ versus those who seek something else, because the reign of Antichrist will seek to destroy those who really do know the truth and recognize him.

If possible, the Antichrist will not allow the Elect to live in peace. Yes, we will certainly know it, we won't miss it when that Son of Lawlessness arises. His persecution will be very specifically targeted at faith itself. That hasn't happened yet. Paul refers to some force that restrains this creature until the time is right, a teaching we would dearly love to find, but is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture. All we can say is that it is some unknown work of the Holy Spirit. At any rate, when He actually returns, Christ will snuff him out with no effort.

Paul ends this chapter giving thanks that the Elect at Thessalonica aren't so easily fooled. He encourages them to continue in the faith they learned from Paul, and from Christ Himself in their hearts.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Photo I took on a hike yesterday...full blog post here. I like how this turned out.

The last two chapters of Colossians, and the first three chapters of this letter are either encouragement or personal matters between Paul and readers. We note in passing that this was likely the first apostolic epistle of Paul's career. He wrote from Corinth back to Thessalonica because they had only three weeks of ministry before Paul was chased out of town.

In the first part of this chapter, Paul recounts some basic guidelines for walking in Christ. The sexual restraint Jesus and His apostles taught came as a cultural shock to Gentiles in that part of the world. However, the moral purity of caring for each other was not so foreign, and with the energizing guidance of the Holy Spirit, the church had learned sacrificial love very quickly. But because the Macedonians were not known for working all that hard, it would be too easy for them to decide that brotherly affection meant they could sponge off each other. Thus, Paul warns them to provide for themselves.

The big issue is the Resurrection. Keep in mind that for most pagans in the old Greek Empire, there was no such thing as a Spirit Realm. For them, this realm of existence is all there is. Should there be an afterlife, it would have to be some place in this world that most mortals never see. Thus, it's quite natural that they would assume those who came to Christ, but then died, were gone forever. The teaching of a Spirit Realm was simply too new.

Paul says that, if Jesus died and rose again, then so could all their fellow believers who lay in the grave. Paul even uses the term "fell asleep" to make this point. Not only will the dead believers rise at Christ's return, they get to join Him first. Then, those who see Him come while still alive will get to watch them all rise from their graves, to follow behind them to meet Him in the air.

As to when that Day will be, no human can possibly know. Paul uses the image of a thief in the night. The prompt for such a thing comes completely from the outside, as does all the planning and execution. Nothing you can imagine as making sense of such a thing has any bearing on the matter. The only thing we can do is be ready because we've been warned that it will happen.

Sleeping in the grave is one thing; sleeping on the job is a huge mistake. Paul beats that into the ground here so it doesn't move from their sight. Faith is our armament against being caught off guard.

The chapter ends in a laundry list of what faith moves us to do in preparation.

I created Photos, so feel free to dump any photos or videos that you've taken into there. Also, I moved all the relevant posts that I could find to that subforum already.

No damage to our house, but Nick's school went to remote learning-only today because of some damage from that short, crazy storm last night: Lawn of Westmoreland County school littered with debris following late night storms

The report doesn't mention it, but there was some damage to the school that already got fixed, so school will resume as normal tomorrow (sorry, Nick!).