The Apostle’s exhortations and prayer
There is nothing very particular in the Apostle’s exhortations. His great concern was the explanation which we have been considering. He prays that God and the Lord Jesus Himself, who had given them the sure and everlasting consolations of the gospel, would comfort their hearts and establish them in every good word and work. He asks for their prayers that he may be preserved in his labors. He could not but expect to find men unreasonable and animated with enmity, for faith was not the portion of all. It was only a case for the protecting hand of God. With regard to them he counted for this end on the faithfulness of the Lord. He reckoned also on their obedience and prays God to direct their hearts towards these two points, of which we have spoken when studying the first epistle, the love of God and the patient waiting with which the Christ waited-the two points in which the whole of Christian life is summed up with regard to its objects, its moral springs. Christ Himself was waiting-sweet thought! They were to wait with Him, until the moment when His heart and the hearts of His own should rejoice together in their meeting.
It was this which they needed. On the one hand, they had believed that the dead saints would not be ready to go and meet the Lord; on the other, they had thought the day of the Lord already come. The enjoyment of the love of God, and peace of heart in waiting for Christ, was necessary for them.
Neglect of their ordinary labors and refusal to listen to his admonitions rebuked
This excitement into which they had been led had also betrayed itself in some among them by their neglect of their ordinary labors, “working not at all, but being busybodies,” intermeddling in the affairs of others. The Apostle had set them a very different example. He exhorts them to be firm and to withdraw from those who would not hearken to his admonitions, but continued to walk disorderly and in idleness; not, however, in such a manner as to treat them as enemies, but to admonish them as brethren.
Decline apparent, but Paul prays for them for peace always and by all means
It will be observed here that there is no longer the same expression of the energy of communion and of life as previously (compare chapter 3:16 with 1 Thessalonians 5:23). Nevertheless, the Lord was still the Lord of peace; but the beauty of that entire consecration to God, which would shine forth in the day of Christ, does not present itself to the Apostle’s mind and heart as in the first epistle. He prays for them, however, that they may have peace always and by all means.
The authenticity of Paul’s letters assured
The Apostle points out the method by which he assured the faithful of the authenticity of his letters. With the exception of that to the Galatians, he employed other persons to write them, but he attached his own signature in order to verify their contents to the church, adding the prayer or blessing.