- Chapters
- 3
- Verses
- 0
- Where it sits
- The Letters of Paul
What it is
A short follow-up to the same church, dealing with continued persecution and a new problem: a claim was circulating — possibly in a forged letter, Paul warns, as if from us — that the Day of the Lord had arrived. Some of them had stopped working to wait for it.
Paul’s answer is to name what must happen first, and to tell the idle to get back to work.
Known for
2:1–12, on the man of lawlessness and the one who restrains. 3:10.
A note for Orthodox readers
Chapter 2 is a major patristic text on antichrist. Orthodox commentary has traditionally handled its details with caution and has no patience for date-setting.
Where it sits
Disputed, though the least disputed of the disputed ones. The arguments are the unusually close verbal dependence on the first letter combined with a very different and more schematic timetable of the end.
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