2 Thessalonians 3:16-18 - How To Have Peace and Who Wrote Hebrews

We are concluding the Book of 2 thessalonians today, as well as looking at a little preview of our next and final study for the year, which is the Book of Hebrews.

And we're going to look a little bit at what 2 thessalonians has to do with the authorship of Hebrews. And hopefully, we'll learn some great things along the way. By way of review, the church in thessalonica.

There's a little church plant planted by Paul and Silas and Timothy.

They were very quickly run out of town, and so the church planters, nervous about this little growing body of believers, they sent back Timothy to further encourage them in their faith.

Timothy brought back a great report, let Paul know some of the concerns that they had and some of the things that they had questions about.

And so they sent the letter of 1 thessalonians over to them to encourage them in their faith to thank them for the fact that they were sharing the gospel with people and it was going from that port city of thessalonica out to every other part of

Greece and Macedonia and it made it actually so that the gospel work of Paul and Silas and Timothy was made easier because everyone knew about what had happened in thessalonica with those believers, how they had turned from idols to serve the living

and true God. However, it did not remain easy for those believers and they were undergoing heavy persecution. They were being told by some people that jesus had returned and they were just kind of out of luck and that all of this persecution that

they were undergoing was a sign of God's lack of love for them and that they just kind of had to deal with it now. They were also told that or rather some of them had assumed that they might be able to like make it in the next wave or something of

jesus' return. And so they quit their jobs and they weren't really doing anything to help anybody. And so Paul writes to them. He lets them know this persecution isn't a sign that jesus has come back.

Instead, just as jesus suffered, you are suffering. And when he returns, he will exact holy justice on everyone that's oppressing you. And he will honor you.

He will glorify you even as right now you are glorifying him. This is not jesus' return. Here's what scripture says about what those end times look like.

So don't worry about that. He also tells him in the end of chapter two, don't worry. You weren't the ones that initiated your salvation.

And God will not forget about you. God was the one that started this salvation process. And he will see it through.

He loves you. And he will make it so that you are able to accomplish everything that he wants for you in your life. Then he asks for prayer.

That God would, or that they would pray that the Lord would bless the gospel efforts of this apostle and his companions. And that they would be protected from evil and from the evil ones. Even as they're praying that for the thessalonians.

They're in that city of thessalonica.

Then he gives a specific rebuke to those who are not working and lets them know like, hey, don't associate with these people that don't have close companionship with those that are ignoring what we have said, the work ethic that we laid out for you.

You know, it prompts other people to follow jesus and let even your close friendships, your meals be a sign of what people's relationships are with God, like reach out to them, love them, warn them, but reserve your closest relationships for those

that are walking with the Lord because that will affect you and it will affect others in some wonderful ways. So now he closes out the book in verse number 16. May the Lord of peace himself give you peace always in every way.

The Lord be with all of you. I, Paul, am writing this greeting with my own hand, which is an authenticating mark in every letter. This is how I write.

The grace of our Lord jesus Christ be with you all. All right, what can we learn from these three verses? Number one, may the Lord of peace himself give you peace always in every way.

I think of jesus, who is the Prince of peace that was promised to us in Isaiah chapter nine, that he is the one that in our times of sorrow, we get the peace that the world cannot give or cannot understand.

You think of what jesus said to his disciples, and I believe it's John 15. My peace I leave with you, not as the world gives, I give it to you. It's a peace that the world cannot know and cannot understand.

There's a great little chorus from, oh man, probably the 70s or 80s, that I'll try and find and link in the show notes. If I can't find it, then that'll be fine. But it's kind of taken from that particular portion of scripture.

And he says that the Lord of Peace will give you peace always, in every way. I'm so grateful for that promise. I get nervous.

I get scared. I get upset. I get sad.

And in all of those times, I need the peace of God. Well, how do we get that? How do we receive that peace of God?

Well, I can think of a couple of different things. I'm going to turn over to Philippians, Chapter 4. And our church was in this portion of scripture earlier in the year.

And man, it feels like a little bit like a lifetime ago that we were in this passage. But it says this. Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

So don't worry about everything, but bring everything to God. It says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ jesus.

One of the things that I loved preaching through that particular passage is God's peace is like they're writing to the Philippians.

It was made up of that city was made up of a lot of ex-Roman military, and they knew exactly what it was like to guard something, to protect something, that if a Roman guard did not protect what was under his charge, or if he was guarding prisoners

and the prisoners got out, he would be killed. And here it says that the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ jesus. That God's peace, it is a battalion, it's an army that is guarding your heart through Christ jesus.

What an incredible promise that just like these Romans, they gave everything they had, vigilant and powerful, to protect. And Paul here tells the Philippian believers, that's what God's peace does for you.

And then verse number eight, finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praise

worthy, dwell on these things. Let things that are good, true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, morally excellent, let that be what you allow your mind to think about.

He says, do what you have learned and received and heard from me and seen in me and the God of peace will be with you. That is, whatever worries you from the outside, bring it to God, whatever is coming into your mind.

Like, put it through a filtration system and if it's not something good, true, honest, just praise worthy, of good report, morally excellent, like, kick it out.

Just meditate on the things that align with God's Word and follow God's way, and that is the way of peace. That is how the Lord of Peace himself, from 2 thessalonians 3, gives us peace always and every way.

Then he gives the same kind of greeting or benediction that those in the Old testament would often give. He says, the Lord be with all of you. That we have that promise of Immanuel, God with us, that was promised in Isaiah chapter 7.

That this was God's promise many hundreds of years before, that He would be with us. And now through the person of the Holy Spirit, God's own personal presence is with us during each moment. What a wonderful comfort that is.

Then verse, I'm going to say verse 18 first, and then go back to 17, and that will kind of segue us into the discussion about Hebrews. So, verse number 18, the grace of our Lord jesus Christ be with you all.

He says, may jesus' favor, His love, His empowerment, His gifts, may all of that be with you.

In these times when people are feeling like failures, when they have felt abandoned, when they have felt hurt and persecuted and lonely, He says, jesus' favor and His presence, His love, His gifts, they are with you. And you don't need to fret.

You can have certainty in what is, in what jesus has given you. Okay, verse number 17. He says, I, Paul, am writing this greeting with my own hand.

So what would happen most times during the kind of first century is not everyone could read and write. Many people could read.

Writing was a bit more of hard work because writing utensils and especially paper or scrolls to write on were not as easy to come by. Certainly not as easy as it is today. You didn't have printing presses.

You didn't have any of that. And so you would have someone who was a professional scribe. these would often be people that would be perhaps slaves or bond servants.

Might be a better phrase. these would be people that they served in particular households. And so you would hire one of these bond servant scribes to write out in one piece your letter.

So sometimes that would be spoken. sometimes you would have like different, you know, little pieces that you would have written out onto little scraps of paper. And so you might have like a poem.

So people assume that in the 1st Corinthians 15, I delivered to you as a first importance, what I also received that jesus Christ, that Christ jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third

day according to the scriptures. After that, he was seen of Peter and of the 12. And after that, of his brothers and sisters in the 70. And then after that, above 500 brothers and sisters at one time.

And then finally, by me, Paul, like a baby born out of due time, they assume that that kind of creed or that memorized, put together statement had been something that had been spoken of and written many times.

It was kind of a catchy way to remember, what's the proof that jesus died and was buried, and rose again, okay, well, yeah, because wherever you go as Christians in this Roman Empire, you're hearing this same account.

And if you go to Israel, you can interact with some of these 500 that some have died, but others are still living, and they can testify to the truth and veracity of this statement. Same thing with like Philippians Chapter 2.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. But he emptied himself and made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant.

And being found in the likeness of man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him the name, which is above every name, so that at the name of jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven and earth and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that jesus

Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Different things like that, where it's just like amazing poetry in its lines and thoughts and how well it's put together, that those types of things would be written by Paul or Silas or Timothy along

the way, that they would craft these portions that would then go into a larger letter, and then they would bring it to a scribe and the scribe would write it. So Luke would likely have been one of these types of individuals.

One that's mentioned in some of Paul's letters, Tertius, T-E-R-T-I-U-S, Tertius is mentioned in Romans 16 as being the scribe that wrote the Book of Romans on Paul's behalf. You have the Book of ephesians in Chapter 6.

It's mentioned that Tychicus, T-Y-C-H-I-C-H-U-S, Tychicus is the one that wrote the Book of ephesians for Paul.

So there were scribes that were writing these on behalf of a person, but Paul would often write his own greeting or like, you know, sign his name so that people would know, oh, yeah, I see that handwriting. I know that that's Paul.

There's also been some mention because of the Book of Second Corinthians and Acts and one or two other spots that Paul might have had some problems with his eyes that either due to like a disease or a bug or some sort of thing like that, maybe just

deterioration that he could not see as well. And so his penmanship was particularly poor. And so it would have been obvious to see, okay, yeah, I kind of recognize that scrolling.

It's different than everything else in the letter that's so kind of well put together.

But Paul here, Contra, 2 thessalonians 2 and verse 2, where he says, hey, some people have purported to have written to you and said, oh, yeah, this is what Paul teaches.

And he says, no, no, no, you guys know, I mark what I write or what I am sending to you. I put an authenticating mark. So you can see that in 1 Corinthians 16.

You can see it in the Book of Galatians. You can see it in Philemon. And then I think 1 or 2 other books as well have it explicitly stated for Paul's marking that he says, I always let you know who it is that's writing.

So what does that have to do with the Book of Hebrews?

Well, the Book of Hebrews is very interesting in that it's one of the only books of scripture, at least in the New testament, that does not give us an indication as to who wrote it for all of the Pauline epistles for all of the books that Paul wrote.

He lets him know, hey, Paul wrote this. You can go to the Book of james or the Book of Jude, and it says, hey, james, the brother of jesus. You can look at Jude, a servant of jesus Christ.

You can go to Revelation or to whatever other book. You can go to Luke and Acts, and it's like, hey, this is from Luke to... I can't remember the gentleman's name.

Oh, Theophilus. This is from Luke to Theophilus. And so most of the time, they kind of clue you in as to directly who's writing.

Now, certainly, as these books were written and sent out, they were always written either by an apostle, that is someone that had spent time with the resurrected Christ or a close associate of an apostle. So Matthew was one of the 12 apostles.

Mark was a close associate of Peter, who obviously was an apostle. He had also spent time with Barnabas and with Paul. You have Luke, who had much interaction with Paul, who was an apostle.

And then he also seems to have had some extensive collaboration with some of the other apostles in the creation of his gospel account, certainly possibly with Peter as well, given some of the same elements between Matthew, Mark and Luke, that there

was some common source that was there, certainly Peter being in Jerusalem at different times, and then in Antioch, both places where Luke was at various times in his ministry. Then you have John, who was one of the apostles.

Going all the way through, you have Paul. Then you have 1st, 2nd, 3rd John and Revelation, also written by the apostle John.

You have james, who was a brother of, the half brother of jesus Christ, and one of the pastors there at the church in Jerusalem.

And certainly a very important figure had spent extensive time, a whole childhood with jesus Christ of Nazareth, and then was also the pastor of many of the apostles, which is a really interesting, cool thought to think about.

Then you have Jude again, another brother of, or half brother of jesus. And then you have first and second Peter, obviously written there by Peter. Hebrews is the one that we don't have any like definitive statement on who it was.

From the early church, there are a couple of people that have been mentioned. So why would people not say, many of you might have heard before, oh yeah, Paul wrote the Book of Hebrews. Why would it be said that Paul didn't write the Book of Hebrews?

Couple of reasons. Number one is that the syntax, the grammar, the vocab is written in a very different style that is not like any of Paul's other writings.

You also have the fact that the person seems to have, seems to tell, and we'll look at this a little bit more, I think it's in two episodes from now when we look at Hebrews 1, 4 to 2, 9.

He describes how he received jesus as being passed down from the apostles.

Whereas when Paul talks about his testimony, he mentions in Galatians 1 and 2 like, hey, I got this straight from jesus, which is what Acts would tell us as well, as well as 1 Corinthians 15 would tell us that Paul received it directly from jesus.

So that would seem to give some indication that even how that person talks about their salvation testimony is somewhat unlike Paul's. You'd also have the fact that at no place in it does it say this is from Paul.

And 2 thessalonians 3 would tell us that Paul authenticates every book that he is writing. He says, I put my name on my stuff when I send it out to you all. So you don't have to worry about, you know, a secret letter that's being sent.

Certainly the Book of Hebrews, the author seems to have a excellent grasp of the Old testament and how it relates to jesus and how jesus is like the truest fulfillment of every single aspect of the Old testament scriptures.

And so, he's not dissimilar to Paul in that way. That has influenced some people to put forward one of kind of, if I remember correctly, about three or four main people that they kind of put in contention. First is Luke.

And some people have guessed that this might have been Luke translating into Greek a sermon that Paul had preached in Hebrew. Or in Aramaic. And so, the translation into another language would account for the difference in grammar and vocab.

That it could have been Luke that was writing it. People have also guessed that this might have been, what's the Gent- Paulus, who we learned about in the Book of Acts, who was one of the pastors in Corinth, and in some other places as well.

A man that knew the Old testament scriptures incredibly well, and was a friend of Paul's, or acquaintance of Paul's, and you can read about him some more. We already learned about him in Acts, and then 1 Corinthians mentions much about him.

But Paulus, because of his extensive knowledge of the Old testament, and his ability to convince the Jewish people, based on the scriptures that they had about who jesus was, certainly would make him a great opportunity for, or a great author, if you

will, for the Book of Hebrews. Barnabas is another one that is mentioned as one of the possibilities. And Barnabas obviously had extensive collaboration with the apostles.

And one of the really cool things that, because this is like 20-ish episodes into the future now, I'll give this statement.

In Hebrews chapter 10, there's a statement that's made to encourage one another, or to provoke one another to love and to good works, to stir one another up to love and to good works, is the phrase in Hebrews 10 and verse number 24.

The really interesting thing about that particular Greek word there, to stir up, is that there's only one other spot in all of scripture where that word is used.

And it's in the story in Acts when Luke is writing about the fight between Barnabas and Paul, when Barnabas wanted to bring John Mark with them on their second missionary journey, and Paul didn't want to bring him because he had abandoned them on

trip number one. And so for these three people, Luke writing about Barnabas and Paul's fight, he says that there was no small dissension, is the King james that I have it memorized in.

There was no small dissension, no small stirring up between these two people. And the only other time that word is used is in Hebrews chapter 10.

And Paul, Barnabas and Luke are three that are three individuals that are often mentioned as being the possible authors of the Book of Hebrews. So I think that's just a kind of cool tag or connection even within the canon of scripture.

So all of that to say, we don't know emphatically who is the author of Hebrews, but we know it was at least one of those individuals from about the three or four hundreds on. People thought that it was Paul.

Prior to that point, there were other church pastors, what are often called the Church Fathers, that had thrown Barnabas and Apollos and Luke's names into contention. So that's kind of why I would mention some of those.

They knew it came from someone with some authority and who had some connection with the apostles, but they weren't sure exactly who it was.

So, it's a great book and I really, really look forward to diving into it with you over the next, honestly, probably several weeks. It will very likely take us to about the end of November.

So, I'm looking forward to spending that time with you and I hope that it will be an encouragement in your walk with the Lord. Thank you for walking through Second thessalonians with me.

And I really enjoyed this book and I experienced some growth and reminded, I was reminded of some wonderful truths as a result of this time. So, I hope the same is true for you and I will see you next time as we begin Hebrews.