Deeper Reflection
PAUL ASKS THE THESSALONIANS TO PRAY FOR HIM THAT HE “may be delivered from wicked and evil men” (v.2). Who were these “wicked and evil” people? The word for “wicked” is atopos, which means “out of place”³⁶. These people were not those outside the church who opposed the faith, but “those who profess belief and are part of the church community but are ‘out of place’ because they are not genuine saints”³⁷. That they were “not genuine saints” is indicated by “for not all have faith” (v.2). They appeared to “have faith”, but in reality, they did not. A spiritual warfare phenomenon evident in the New Testament letters is that, often the enemies of the faith were inside the church (2 Pet 2; Jude; Acts 20:29-30). Surely, it cannot be that this phenomenon is not present in today’s churches.It was from the depths of his experiences of frequent great opposition to the Gospel that Paul made his prayer request for divine deliverance (v.2; cf. Rom 15:30-31).³⁸ Consider the track record of God’s deliverance in suffering in Paul’s discipleship journey. When Paul was “crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it” (2 Cor 1:8, NLT), he set his hope on God that, as He had delivered him before, “He will deliver us again” (2 Cor 1:10). Toward the end of his life, Paul’s testimony was: In the “persecutions I endured… from them all the Lord rescued me” (2 Tim 3:11). For Paul, his Lord “will rescue me from every evil attack” (2 Tim 4:18, NIV).

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³⁶ G. K. Beale, 239 ³⁷ G. K. Beale, 239 ³⁸ Gene L. Green, 335