The letters of the apostle Paul feature a significant and surprising doctrine of boasting. According to Paul, there is nothing wrong with a little bragging, so long as you boast about the right thing. What we boast about reveals a great deal about the character of our religion. Churches in the West today increasingly take pride in the beauty of their buildings, the quality of their music, the dynamic personalities of their preachers, and above all their numerical size. More biblically minded churches take satisfaction in doctrinal fidelity, commitment to world missions, and sound biblical leadership. Yet when Paul writes his second letter to the fledgling church in Thessalonica, he boasts in something more surprising. Having expressed his thanks for his readers’ growing faith and increasing love, he writes: “We ourselves boast about…your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” (v. 4). If we follow Paul’s example, we will also make our boast in a faith that grows, loves, and perseveres under persecution.

During the years A.D. 49-51, the world was powerfully shaken by Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit, through the second missionary journey of the apostle Paul. One of Paul’s stops was in the large and prosperous Macedonian city of Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9). Preaching the gospel there, Paul assembled believers into a local church, which immediately suffered persecution. The apostle himself was forced to flee the city, journeying through Athens to Corinth. There, Paul received cherished news of the Thessalonians and wrote to express his thanks for their faith and give them continued teaching, especially on the doctrines of sanctification and the return of Christ. When Paul received a reply, he penned a second letter, probably within a few months of the first. Second Thessalonians thus completes the message of the first letter, centering on the church’s continued persecution, additional teaching on Christ’s return, and a forceful directive concerning members who refused to work.

Paul begins this letter in typical fashion, first identifying himself and his recipients, and then greeting them with an appeal to the grace and peace of God the Father and of Christ. He writes to “the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 1). The way in which Paul closely identifies Jesus Christ with God the Father shows his belief in the deity of Jesus.

There is a subtle difference in how Paul describes God in this letter compared to 1 Thessalonians. In the previous letter, he wrote of “God the Father,” whereas here he twice describes Him as God our Father” (vv. 1-2). In the first instance, Paul emphasized God as the Father of Jesus Christ; now he emphasizes our adoption as God’s children, so that God is not only Jesus’ Father but ours as well. It is as beloved, adopted children that the believers are “in God our Father,” through our faith in “the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 1).

From this same union believers receive the two great blessings that Paul almost always mentions in the opening of his letters: grace and peace. The apostle continues: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 2). This statement sums up the gospel that Paul preached. Grace is God’s free gift of favor to those worthy of condemnation because of their sin. Grace flows from the Father in the form of His sovereign will to save His people into fellowship with Himself. Grace is offered by God the Son on the basis of His redeeming work on the cross. The result of God’s grace in our lives is peace: the comprehensive blessing of peace with God through forgiveness of sin, God’s peace at work in our hearts through the indwelling Holy Spirit, and peace with one another through the love that Christ gives to us.

Just as in his first letter, Paul follows his initial greeting with thanks to God for the faith of his readers. The difference in the second letter is that Paul highlights their growing faith (v. 3). A true faith in Jesus Christ is designed to grow exceedingly. Therefore, having been initially relieved to learn of the Thessalonians’ faith, Paul is now delighted to learn that their faith is growing as it should.

The calling to grow in faith raises the question how this is to be done. Faith must be primarily fed on a steady diet of the Word of God. Are you given to meditation of God’s Word, have you studied the promises, and do you do these sacred things daily? If you answer “No,” then the lack of growth in your faith is not surprising. Psalm 1 promises that the one who meditates daily on God’s Word is blessed with growing faith (Ps. 1:2-3). If your faith would be like a tree that grows tall and strong, you must have your roots in the water of life.

Second, faith grows through prayer in response to God’s Word. Try God’s promises and ask Him to show their fulfillment in your own life. As an example, the Bible says that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). So ask God to exhibit His power in your weakness. Paul writes that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” will guard the hearts and…minds” of those who pray in Christ (Phil. 4:7). Ask God to grant that peace to your heart and mind. Jesus told us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11). So, ask God daily to provide for the things that you need. Not only will you find God faithful to His promises, but your faith in Him will grow correspondingly.

Third, faith in Christ grows through association with godly fellowship. When those of little faith describe their spiritual troubles, they find that others have had the same difficulties and overcome them by trusting in Jesus. The veteran believer will tell you what dangers he has passed, and of the sovereign love that kept him; of the temptations that threatened to ensnare him, and of the wisdom that guided his feet; and he will tell you of his weakness and God’s omnipotence; of his own emptiness, and God’s fullness; of his own changeableness, and God’s immutability. In fact, this kind of faith-building conversation is one of the primary callings of the church. Hebrews 3:13 directs believers to “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

A further way for faith to grow is by being exercised in loving ministry to other people. Paul specifies this calling when he rejoices that “the love of every one of you for one another is increasing” (v. 3). Faith and love are so joined in Paul’s letters that we can hardly claim the first without the evidence of the second. The urgency of this kind of love was specified by Jesus on the night of His arrest: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).

The positive tone which Paul writes once more to the Thessalonians is seen in his praise to God for their growing faith and increasing love. But his highest boast is seen in yet another fruit of a true and living faith in Christ. We have highlighted a number of ways that Christian faith grows. Faith in Christ grows on a diet of God’s Word, through prayer, through godly company, and through exercise in works of love for all kinds of people. Moreover, Paul concludes, our faith in Christ will grow as we persevere in the midst of trials: “Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” (v. 4).

Paul goes into unexpected regions of boasting when he brags about the persecutions that these young believers had endured. Steadfastness in affliction is not something that the world brags about, but Paul says that “in the churches of God” it is one of the most praiseworthy subjects. Whereas worldly thinking will lead us to glorify churches and Christians that enjoy the greatest outward success and never seem to suffer any difficulties, the spiritual thinking of true churches will glory in a faith that abounds under persecution for Christ. One fruit of this way of thinking will be a positive overall attitude toward world missions. Instead of merely thinking of churches in developing countries and persecuted regions as needing our help, we will more wisely look to them for inspiration, spiritual encouragement, and valued insights regarding the life of true and costly faith in Christ.

One of the chief benefits of persecution is that it reveals the difference between true and false faith. In His parable of the soils, Jesus described the kind of faith that is like a seed that falls amid rocky ground and springs up quickly from the earth. Yet because such a person “has no root in himself,” he professes faith for a while, but “when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away” (Matt. 13:20-21). Since our response to opposition shows the real state of our faith, new believers who have been rejected by their friends, been ridiculed by their families, or, like Paul’s Thessalonian readers, suffered violence and even death for Jesus gain the benefit of assurance that theirs is a true and saving faith.

Do you need encouragement in your life of faith? Perhaps you look at yourself and see little or nothing that the world would boast about. Be encouraged then, if your faith is growing, if God is enabling you to spread Christ’s love, and if you are patiently enduring difficulty for Jesus’ sake. You, then, are like the believers to whom Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians. Paul wrote to show that we are obliged to praise God with thanksgiving whenever our faith is growing, our love is increasing, and we are remaining steadfast to Christ under affliction.

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4 Study Questions:

When Paul writes this second letter to the young church in Thessalonica, he emphasizes not only that he is thanking God for them, but that it is utterly right and proper to do so. What does Paul see in the church at Thessalonica that is filling his heart with gratitude to God in verses 1-4?

It was inevitable that the world would find the church a threat and a challenge and would oppose them all it could, because the church was indeed the beginning of God’s kingdom, which would displace all human kingdoms. What does it look like to have patience and loyalty in the face of these kinds of troubles and suffering?