Today’s passage: 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5
Helpful thoughts:
- It is good to pray that people will hear the Word of God, believe and repent.
- It is good to pray that people would be delivered from persecution.
- Paul was writing God’s authoritative Scripture. If a pastor today thinks verse 4 gives him authority to tell everyone in the church what to do as a command from God, they are wrong. That would be an abuse of the office of the pastor. Pastors are not apostles.
Questions to consider:
- How does verse 5 reveal the motivation for the “doing and will do” in verse 4? Are these Christians being motivated by guilt into obedience or is it something else?
- Did Paul choose not to continue preaching the word in order to avoid persecution? What is the difference between avoiding persecution and praying for deliverance from persecution?
- How could these prayers for the proclamation of the Word and for deliverance from/through persecution apply to you? Who else could you be praying for today?