テサロニケの信徒への手紙二3:1-2 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2,
また、わたしたちが道に外れた悪人どもから逃れられるように、と祈ってください。すべての人に、信仰があるわけではないのです。 （二テサロニケ3:2）
私たちは、すべての人にキリストの福音を宣べ伝えねばならないと考えていますし、誰でもキリストの福音を信じるならば救われるということを信じています。そこで、私たちの周囲の人々みんなが福音を信じてくれるようにと願わずにはおれません。そのような思いでこの箇所を読むと「道に外れた悪人ども」がいることが前提となっており、「すべての人に、信仰があるわけではない」と言われているので、意外に思ってがっかりするかもしれません。しかし、パウロは福音を宣べ伝える場合の厳しい現実をしっかりと見据えているのです。そして、その厳しい現実を受け止めて、厳しい現実の中で神様の助けを受けることによって伝道していこうとしているのです。「逃れられるように」と翻訳されているリュオマイというギリシャ語の動詞は、主の祈りの中の「悪より救い出したまえ」という祈りで用いられているのと同じ言葉です。ですから、「救い出されるように」と翻訳してもよいのですし、そちらの方が適当ではないかと思います。
パウロはコリントでユダヤ人たちから迫害を受けました。使徒言行録の18章12節以下を読みますと、パウロに反対するユダヤ人たちは、パウロをアカイア州の総督ガリオンのところに引き立てて行って、訴えていることがわかります。そして、使徒言行録の17章1節から9節によれば、テサロニケおいても、キリストを信じる人々はユダヤ人たちに迫害されて当局者に訴えられていました。ですから、パウロの状況をテサロニケの信徒たちはよく理解できたことでしょう。つまり、福音を聞いてもすべての人が信じるわけではないし、「道に外れた悪人」は信じるどころか、むしろ福音を証しする人を攻撃してくるというのが現実です。そのことを知っているテサロニケの信徒たちは、パウロやその同労者たちのために熱心に祈ったに違いありません。（12月1日の説教より）
December has come, and according to the church calendar, it is now the season of Advent. In addition to preparing for the celebration of Christmas, the season of Advent also has another important meaning. It is a solemn time to prepare for the Last Judgment of the Last Day by confirming our faith in the hope of Christ’s Second Coming to this world. So, from today, we would like to listen to the message of 2 Thessalonians, which teaches us to prepare for the Last Judgement of the Last Day.
The life of a Christian is a life of prayer. As to what we should pray for, there are probably various opinions. I think that people will have different opinions about whether it is better to pray in abstract terms or in specific terms. Some people say, “If we pray in abstract terms, God will answer us in abstract terms. If we pray in specific terms, God will answer us in specific terms.” This is more likely to be the view of someone who recommends praying in specific terms. Certainly, there are prayers in the Bible that have very specific contents. In the Old Testament, in Genesis 24:11 and followings, there is a scene where the servant of the patriarch Abraham goes to the town of Nahor and prays by the town well in order to find a wife for his master’s son Isaac. This is a very interesting prayer, so I read the passage.
And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water. And he said, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master” (Genesis 24:11-14).
Before the end of this prayer, a young woman appeared. When Abraham’s servant asked her for a drink of water, she replied, “Drink, my lord.” She even said, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” So Abraham’s servant asked, “Please tell me whose daughter you are. Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?” The young woman replied, “I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor,” and she continued, “We have plenty of both straw and fodder, and room to spend the night.” In fact, Nahor was Abraham’s brother (Genesis 11:27-29), so Rebekah, the daughter of Nahor’s son Bethuel, was Abraham’s nephew’s child. In this way, Abraham’s servant’s prayer was heard and answered by God, and he was able to decide on a marriage partner for his master Abraham’s son Isaac.
Abraham’s servant’s prayer is very specific in terms of both situation and content. It is so specific that we wonder what would happen if we were in a similar situation today and prayed in the same way as this servant. For example, if we were involved in the marriage of a close friend’s son, would we be able to pray as specifically as Abraham’s servant? We who live in the information age are used to gathering and analysing information and making decisions based on it. So, after praying for something specific, we may forget to leave the decision to God. While it is necessary to analyse information and make decisions, we must also remember to leave the final decision to God.
By contrast, there are many prayers in the Bible where it is difficult to see the specific situation of the person praying. Many of the prayers in the Psalms of the Old Testament are written in abstract terms. For example, in Psalm 6:2-4 (English, 6:1-3), we find the following prayer.
O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath.Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing;
heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.My soul also is greatly troubled.
But you, O LORD—how long?
Since the Psalmist says, “heal me,” we can imagine that he is suffering from an illness. However, since the details are not written, we don’t know exactly what kind of situation the Psalmist is in. However, the fact that we don’t know the specific situation means that we can imagine various situations. And it also means that people in various situations can read this Psalm and apply it to themselves. The prayers in this Psalm are written in abstract terms, and this is precisely why they can be prayers that people in distress can pray with empathy, transcending time and place. In this way, there is a different kind of goodness in abstract prayers than in concrete prayers.
The apostle Paul often writes to his readers asking them to pray for him. For example, in 1 Thessalonians 5:25, he writes, “Brothers, pray for us.” In this case, there is no specific content given as to how they should pray. So, it could be taken as a general request for prayer, such as asking God to protect us or to give us the grace of Christ. However, there are also cases where a specific content is given as a request for prayer. Today’s Bible passage is an example of such a specific request for prayer. First, in verse 1, we read, “Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you.” It is thought that Paul wrote the two letters to the Thessalonians while he was in the city of Corinth in Greece during his second missionary journey. The first letter is thought to have been written relatively early in Paul’s ministry in Corinth, but this second letter was probably written relatively late.
In Corinth, Paul first shared a home with the couple Aquila and Priscilla, and while working as a tentmaker, he preached the gospel. However, when Silas and Timothy arrive in Corinth with offerings from the churches in Macedonia that were supporting Paul, and probably also with information from the Thessalonian church, Paul quits his job making tents and devotes himself to evangelism. This was probably because his living was supported by the offerings from the churches in Macedonia. I read Acts 18:5-8, which describes Paul’s evangelism during this period in detail.
When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.
This vividly depicts the apostle Paul, who boldly preached the gospel while struggling against persecution. In particular, when he was persecuted in the synagogue and unable to evangelise, he began to evangelise in the house next to the synagogue. And through Paul God did a wonderful work of leading the ruler of the synagogue, Crispus, to the Christian faith. And behind this wonderful work, there must have been the fervent prayers of the Thessalonian church, which were requested in today’s passage and responded to, as well as Paul’s own prayers.
In today’s Bible passage, in Thessalonians 3:1, Paul asks the Thessalonian believers to pray that “the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you.” Needless to say, “among you” refers to Thessalonica. It is clear from reading the First Epistle to the Thessalonians that the gospel of Christ speeded ahead and was honored in Thessalonica. For example, in 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7, Paul says, “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.” In this way, despite the severe persecution, the work of evangelism quickly progressed in Thessalonica. Paul, who was also experiencing severe persecution in Corinth, must have been recalling the help of God he had received in Thessalonica when he asked the Thessalonian believers for their prayer support.
Next, in 3:2 of today’s passage, there are the words of Paul’s another prayer request that “we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.” When you read these words, some of you may get the impression that these words are not like those of Paul. The phrase “we may be delivered from wicked and evil men” is quite harsh, and the definitive statement that “not all have faith” is also quite heavy. If you read the original Greek text of the New Testament, you will see that the phrase “wicked and evil men” uses two adjectives, atopos (ἄτοπος) and ponēros (πονηρός). The Japanese Bible we are reading takes the word “atopos” to mean “off the path” and the word “ponēros” to mean “morally bad,” and translates it as “wicked people who have gone astray from the path.”
We believe that we must preach the gospel of Christ to everyone, and that everyone who believes in the gospel of Christ will be saved. Therefore, we cannot help but hope that everyone around us will believe in the gospel of Christ. When you read this passage with this in mind, you may be surprised and disappointed to find that it concludes that there are “wicked and evil men” and that “not all have faith.” However, Paul is firmly aware of the harsh reality of preaching the gospel. He is trying to evangelise by accepting this harsh reality and receiving God’s help in the midst of it. The Greek verb ruomai (ῥύομαι), translated as “be delivered,” is the same word used in the Lord’s Prayer, “deliver us from evil.”
As I mentioned earlier, Paul was persecuted by the Jews in Corinth. If you read Acts 18:12-13, you can see that the Jews who opposed Paul took him to the proconsul of Achaia, Gallio, and sued against him saying, “this man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law.” And according to Acts 17:1-9, in Thessalonica too, those who believed in Christ were persecuted by the Jews and sued to the authorities. So, the believers in Thessalonica would have been able to understand Paul’s situation well. That is, not everyone believes when they hear the gospel, and the reality is that “wicked and evil men” not only don’t believe, but actually attack those who testify to the gospel. Knowing this, the believers in Thessalonica must have prayed fervently for Paul and his co-workers.
In the today’s passage, Paul’s words asking for prayer support for specific things were recorded. And if there is one question that remains, it is why prayer support is needed. In particular, why is it necessary to pray for specific things? If Paul himself was confident that God would protect and support him, why did he need to ask the Thessalonian believers to pray for him in this way and ask for prayer support? If we think about this a little more broadly, we can ask why we need to pray and state our requests to God when God knows everything and can do anything?
This is a question that concerns the very essence of prayer. The conclusion is that prayer is a means of grace given to us for the growth of our faith. In other words, we pray not because we think that God will not take care of us unless we ask him nicely, but because we can have a living relationship with God through prayer and strengthen our bond with him even more. The Reformer John Calvin wrote about the purpose of prayer, and I would like to introduce two of the most interesting points. One is that we pray in order to prepare ourselves to receive God’s grace. That is, because our hearts are dull, even if we receive God’s grace, we tend to go through life without realising that it is a blessing. However, if we specifically ask God for something and our request is granted, we will be able to accept the event with joy and gratitude, saying, “Ah, this is God’s grace!” And we will be able to believe in God with even more enthusiasm. By praying, we can prepare our hearts to receive God’s grace as grace.
Another thing Calvin teaches about the purpose of prayer is that by prayer God’s providence is to be confirmed in our souls. We believe in theory that God is in control of everything that happens in the world, but it is very difficult to believe with our hearts that each and every event that happens is happening according to God’s plan and will. However, if we seek God’s help in times of hardship and are actually helped as a result, we will be able to gain confidence that God is actually controlling each and every event, and that all of them are for the benefit of my salvation. The will of God, which we cannot understand just by looking at reality, will gradually become clear to us as we pray for salvation. And as Paul says in Romans 8:28, “for those who love God all things work together for good,” we will be able to truly believe this. Indeed, prayer is a precious means of fellowship given to us by God to help our faith grow. We want to make the most of this means of fellowship and pray constantly.