2 Thessalonians 3:5

2 Thessalonians 3:5 . κατευθύναι , κ . τ . λ . Paul no longer (I., 1 Thessalonians 3:11 ) entertains the hope of revisiting them soon. “God’s love and Christ’s patient endurance” ( i.e. , the ὑπομονή which Christ inspires and requires, cf. Ignat. ad. Rom. , last words) correspond to the double experience of love and hope in 2 Thessalonians 2:16 . It is by the sense of God’s love alone, not by any mere acquiescence in His will or stoical endurance of it, that the patience and courage of the Christian are sustained. Cf. Ep. Arist. , 195, ἐπὶ τῶν καλλίστων πράξεων οὐκ αὐτοὶ κατευθύνομεν τὰ βουλευθέντα · θεὸς δὲ τελειοῖ τὰ πάντων . Connect with 2 Thessalonians 3:3 and cf. Mrs. Browning’s line, “I waited with patience, which means almost power”.

{4} And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. (4) Thirdly, he diligently and earnestly admonishes them of two things which are given to us only by the grace of God, that is, of charity, and a watchful mind to the coming of Christ.

2 Thessalonians 3:5 . And the Lord — By his Holy Spirit, whose proper work this is; direct — Powerfully incline; your hearts unto the love of God — That is, into the exercise of love to God, in return for his love to you; and into the patient waiting for Christ — Namely, the patient waiting for his second coming, or for his coming to call you hence by death, 1 Thessalonians 1:10 . Macknight, however, interprets the verse rather differently, thus: “May the Lord direct your heart to imitate the love which God hath showed to mankind, and the patience which Christ exercised under sufferings.” The patience of Christ has this sense Revelation 1:9 : A partaker in the kingdom and patience of Jesus. As the patience of Job means the patience of which Job was so great an example, so the patience of Christ may signify the patience which he exercised in his sufferings.

2 Thessalonians THE HEART’S HOME AND GUIDE 2 Thessalonians 3:5 . A word or two of explanation of terms may preface our remarks on this, the third of the Apostle’s prayers for the Thessalonians in this letter. The first point to be noticed is that by ‘the Lord’ here is meant, as usually in the New Testament, Jesus Christ. So that here again we have the distinct recognition of His divinity, and the direct address of prayer to Him. The next thing to notice is that by ‘the love of God’ is here meant, not God’s to us, but ours to Him; and that the petition, therefore, respects the emotions and sentiments of the Thessalonians towards the Father in heaven. And the last point is that the rendering of the Authorised Version, ‘patient waiting for Christ,’ is better exchanged for that of the Revised Version, ‘the patience of Christ,’ meaning thereby the same patience as He exhibited in His earthly life, and which He is ready to bestow upon us. It is not usual in the New Testament to find Jesus Christ set forth as the great Example of patient endurance; but still there are one or two instances in which the same expression is applied to Him. For example, in two contiguous verses in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we read of His ‘enduring contradiction of sinners against Himself,’ and ‘enduring the Cross, despising the shame,’ in both of which cases we have the verb employed of which the noun is here used.

Then in the Apocalypse we have such expressions as ‘the patience of Christ,’ of which John says that he and his brethren whom he is addressing are ‘participators,’ and, again, ‘thou hast kept the word of my patience.’ So, though unusual, the thought of our text as presented in the amended version is by no means singular. These things, then, being premised, we may now look at this petition as a whole. I. The first thought that it suggests to me is, the home of the heart. ‘The Lord direct you into the love of God and the patience of Christ.’ The prayers in this letter with which we have been occupied for some Sundays present to us Christian perfection under various aspects. But this we may, perhaps, say is the most comprehensive and condensed of them all. The Apostle gathers up the whole sum of his desires for his friends, and presents to us the whole aim of our efforts for ourselves, in these two things, a steadfast love to God, and a calm endurance of evil and persistence in duty, unaffected by suffering or by pain. If we have these two we shall not be far from being what God wishes to see us. Now the Apostle’s thought here, of ‘leading us into’ these two seems to suggest the metaphor of a great home with two chambers in it, of which the inner was entered from the outer. The first room is ‘the love of God,’ and the second is ‘the patience of Christ.’ It comes to the same thing whether we speak of the heart as dwelling in love, or of love as dwelling in the heart.

2 Thessalonians 3:5 . Κύριος , the Lord ) Christ.— εἰς τὴν ἀγαάπην τοῦ Θεοῦ , into the love of God ) You will thus favour the running (free course) of the word of God, and will not be ἄτοποι , unreasonable .— εἰς ὑπομονὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ , to the patience of Christ ) It is thus you will endure the hatred of the wicked enemies of Christ. Each must be taken objectively: love towards God, patience shown on account of Christ [But Engl. Vers. patient waiting for Christ ].