1 Thessalonians 2

 2:1-2.  Delivery from the wrath to come (1:10) is a good definition of propitiation.   According to Paul’s gospel, those who are raised to life in Christ, and know they are delivered from the wrath of God in the judgment, are not much intimidated by tribulation and the threats of the opposition (see Ro.8:31-39; cf. Heb.9:27-28).

     2:3-12.  Obviously Paul is defending himself (for the sake of the gospel God had entrusted to him) against the attacks of the opposition.  He reminds them not only of the truth of what he said, but of how he brought it to them with love and kindness, gaining nothing for himself from them, but rather receiving deadly threats from the enemy.  The gospel was free to them, but was nevertheless costly.  Therefore he urges them once more to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls them into his own kingdom and glory.

      2:13-16.  He reminds them that the opposition they face for receiving God’s word of truth is nothing new.  The opposition from their own countrymen is just the pattern that the churches of Judea have experienced from the Jews.  They killed Christ and the prophets, and drove out the believers, just as they have now hindered Paul from taking the truth of salvation to the Gentiles.  The wrath that had been decreed to come upon the Jews to the utmost (16) did in fact come upon them not many years hence (AD 70), when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed.  This is a type of the final judgment when the Lord returns, and of the wrath that shall come upon all alike who reject the grace of God in Christ, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile (1:10; cf. Mt.23:29-39).

     2:17-20.  Paul assures them it was not lack of desire that kept him from coming to them, but Satan’s opposition.  But when the Lord comes, they shall be his crown of exultation, his glory and joy.