2 Thessalonians Chapter 2

vs 1

Well, this outlines fairly well what the next section will be about.

vs 2

Forgeries of PS&T were running around, it seems. This is very important to us, because if there were people trying to forge letters of Paul, then how do we know which ones we've got are really his?

vs 3

The rebellion is literally the apostasy (apostasia) in greek. Now, this man of lawlessness...

It is fair to say that some early manuscripts say "man of sin". But anomia is also fair ie lawlessness. While you could draw a bow and say PS&T are talking about a political figure here (say, like a caesar), the term lawless (being without law through ignorance or violation) doesn't seem to strike a cord with me as a way Paul especially would describe an earthly ruler.

"Doomed to destruction" is an interesting term - better translated "son of destruction". So whether that means he is born of destruction and so will be destroyed, or that he will go around destroying stuff... not sure.

vs 4

How literally do you take this? The temple is about to be destroyed, within years of this letter being written. Is the temple really of any importance to European Christians like those in Thessalonica? The word doesn't help - in greek, it can mean the Holy of Holies in the temple (but not the temple itself as a whole, interestingly), any pagam temple, or even the metaphorical temple of the fellowship of believers.

The "everything that is called God or worshipped" is a pretty inclusive term - anything that people were wanting to worship.

So far, we're looking for an age of apostasy, and someone who calls themself God. I can see people saying this is any number of Popes, political figures, and periods in history. Personally, I think we'll know it once we've seen it.

vs 5

I (Paul?) used to tell them about this stuff while he was teaching and discipling them. It's interesting how important an understanding of the second coming and the things of the last days are to Paul's teaching.

vs 6

He wants to come, but is being held back. We know this already, apparently.

vs 7

Ok, so lawlessness has some secret, mysterious power that is already being worked. But someone is holding him back. Who is it? Well, whoever it is, according to NIV, KJV and NASB, they are going to be taken out of the way. Literally, though, this is "until it comes out of the midst". Ginomai is translated as so many different words... but the vast majority of the time it means "become", "became", or some derivative. So you can see the link of "become" to "comes out of". Mesos means "middle, among, in the midst of". This is the same word that PS&T used in 1 Thessalonians 2:7, when they said "we were gentle among you". So you might see why I don't necessarily feel that "taken out of the way" is particularly adequate. In any case, if we were to be reticent to think that God was the one holding this man of lawlessness back (because who's going to take God out of the way?), I think this more literal wording shows us that this isn't such a big deal. It could still be an angel (it could be a big door for all I know), but it may very well be God himself.

Sometimes I despair that the NIV translators just took a KJV, updated some words, and changed some meanings they didn't like. But then, what's new?