テサロニケの信徒への手紙二3:3-5　2 Thessalonians 3:3-5,

しかし、主は真実な方です。必ずあなたがたを強め、悪い者から守ってくださいます。　　　　　　　　　（二テサロニケ3:3）

「主」は、もちろん、イエス・キリストのことです。「真実な」というのは、ギリシャ語でピストスという言葉で「信じるに値する」「信じるにふさわしい」という意味です。ですから、「主は真実な方です」とは、「主イエス・キリストは、信じるに値する方、信じるにふさわしい方です」という意味です。

パウロがこのように言うことができたのは、キリストがパウロのためにしてくださったことをしっかりと受け止めていたからにほかなりません。パウロは、同労者のテモテに宛てた第一の手紙で、次のように記しています。「『キリスト・イエスは、罪人を救うために世に来られた』という言葉は真実であり、そのまま受け入れるに値します。わたしは、その罪人の中で最たる者です。しかし、わたしが憐れみを受けたのは、キリスト・イエスがまずそのわたしに限りない忍耐をお示しになり、わたしがこの方を信じて永遠の命を得ようとしている人々の手本となるためでした。」（一テモテ1:15-16）パウロにとっては「罪人の中で最たるもの」である自分をも救ってくださったキリストこそ、「信じるに値する方」「信じるにふさわしい方」だったのです。

そして、パウロは、キリストこそ「信じるに値する方」「信じるにふさわしい方」であることを、自分だけではなくテサロニケの信徒たちにも当てはめて、3節後半で「必ずあなたがたを強め、悪い者から守ってくださいます」と力強く述べるのであります。「悪い者」と翻訳されているギリシア語の言葉は、「悪い」という意味のポネーロスという形容詞の男性・単数・属格という形に冠詞のついた言葉で、悪魔を表しています。注意していただきたいのは、2節に「道に外れた悪人ども」という言葉がありますが、こちらのほうは原典のギリシア語でポネーローン・アンスローポーンとなっています。単数形ではなく複数形で、しかも「人」という意味のアンスローポスという言葉が入っているのです。ですから、2節の「悪人ども」は、確かに人間ですが、3節の「悪い者」は悪魔のことなのです。天におられるキリストは、私たちを目の前の悪人たちから守ってくださるだけではなく、それらの悪人たちを動かしている元である悪魔からも守ってくださるということです。

「主の祈り」の中には「われらをこころみにあわせず、悪より救い出したまえ」という祈りがあります。この「主の祈り」の中の「悪より」も、本日の箇所の「悪い者から」とまったく同じギリシャ語が用いられています。（中略）悪魔が人を誘惑して悪の道、滅びの道に引き込む力は強いのですが、父なる神様と主イエス・キリストは、悪魔の誘惑に打ち勝つ力をクリスチャンに与えてくださるのであります。　　　　　　　　　　　　　　（12月8日の説教より）

Believing is something that seems simple, but is actually quite difficult. For those who have adopted a modern way of life, in which they judge things and act based on their own reason, believing is extremely difficult. By placing ourselves in the light of God’s grace, which surpasses the light of our own reason, our hearts are illuminated and we are given faith. And based on our faith, we can come to know God, ourselves, our neighbours and the world. However, many people think about things within the range illuminated by the light of reason, so their thoughts go round in circles and they are unable to break free from this.

The writer NATSUME Soseki was perhaps the first in Japan to portray the suffering of people with such a modern ego in a frank and dignified way. He was nearing the end of his life. Between 1912 and 1913, he published a long novel called “Kōjin” in a newspaper. The title “Kōjin” is written as “going person,” in Chinese characters and probably means “Wayfaere.” The novel features two brothers: Ichiro, a university professor who makes his living through his academic work, and Jiro, who works in the business world. Ichiro, the elder brother, is unable to trust his wife’s heart, and harbours deep doubts that his wife loves his younger brother Jiro, not himself. And to Ichiro, who is distressed by his inability to understand people’s hearts, Jiro, the younger brother, says as follows.

I know it’s very rude of me to say this to you, but I think that no matter how much you study or research, you can’t understand people’s hearts. You are a great scholar, and you are probably aware of this, but even if you are close, whether it’s a parent, child or brother, you can only feel like your hearts are communicating, but in reality, just as your bodies are separate, your hearts are also separate, so there’s nothing you can do about it (Translated by MIYOSHI Akira).

In response, his elder brother Ichiro says, “We can study other people’s hearts from the outside. but you can’t become that person’s heart. I think I understand that much.” Then, the younger brother Jiro says something cheeky: “Isn’t it religion that transcends that? I’m a fool, so there’s nothing I can do, but you’re the type of person who thinks about everything…” Then, Ichiro, the elder brother, said like “a loach going crazy in the sand,” “Who can approach religious feeling just by thinking? Religion is not something you think about, it’s something you believe in.” “Ah, I can’t believe. I can’t believe. I just think and think and think. Jiro, please make it so that I can believe.” A scholar of Japanese literature has written that the suffering of Ichiro, as depicted by NATSUME Soseki, is “the fate of modern intellectuals, who know the limits of knowledge but are unable to escape the spell of knowledge.” However, even if you are not a so-called “intellectual,” the pain of not being able to believe is something that many people living in the modern and contemporary eras have, who have been brought up trusting in the power of reason.

If we consider this issue from the standpoint of Christian faith, we can say that in order for a person to believe in Christ, it is necessary to turn one’s eyes from oneself, who is unable to believe, to Christ, who is the object of belief. That is, rather than continually asking oneself whether or not one is able to believe, one should turn to Christ, the object of one’s faith, and pray, “Christ, I want to know you. Please speak to me.” When we pray like this, we receive a definite answer from Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. In other words, when we face Jesus Christ in a relationship of “I” and “You,” the problem of faith that we could not resolve within ourselves is resolved in a mysterious way through the work of the Holy Spirit, which transforms us.

In today’s Bible passage, Paul is looking to Christ himself, and he is also urging the Thessalonian believers to look to Christ. When this letter was written, both the author, Paul, and the recipients, the Thessalonian believers, were being persecuted by unbelievers. In verse 2 before today’s passage, Paul writes frankly about the reality of people’s unbelief, asking to pray “that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.” However, rather than losing his faith in the face of human unbelief, Paul looks firmly to Christ, writing in verse 3, “But the Lord is faithful.” “The Lord” is, of course, Jesus Christ. The word “faithful” is the Greek word “pistos” (πιστός), which means “worthy of belief.” So, “the Lord is faithful” means “the Lord Jesus Christ is worthy of belief.”

The only reason Paul was able to say this was because he had firmly accepted what Christ had done for him. In 1 Timothy 1:15-16, Paul wrote the following to his co-worker Timothy.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

For Paul, Christ, who had saved even “the foremost of sinners” was “worthy of belief.”

Paul then goes on to apply this to the Thessalonian believers as well as himself, saying in the second half of verse 3, “He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.” The Greek word translated as “evil one” is the masculine, singular, genitive form of the adjective “ponēros” (πονηρός), meaning “evil,” and it refers to the devil. Please note that in verse 2, the words “evil men” are written in the original Greek as “ponērōn anthrōpōn.” This is not the singular form, but the plural form, and it includes the word “anthrōpos,” which means “human being.” Therefore, the “evil men” in verse 2 are certainly human, but the “evil one” in verse 3 is the devil. This means that Christ in heaven not only guards us against the evil men in front of us, but also guards us Christians against the devil, who is the source of these evil men.

In the Lord’s Prayer, there is a prayer that says “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The Greek words used in this part of the Lord’s Prayer is the same as those used in today’s passage, “against the evil one.” In the Japanese Bible which we use and Revised English Bible, Matthew 6:13, which is a part of the Lord’s Prayer, is translated as “save us from the evil one.” In other words, Christ himself teaches us to ask for salvation from the devil in the Lord’s Prayer. The devil’s power to tempt people and lead them down the path of evil and destruction is strong, but God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give Christians the power to overcome the devil’s temptation.

Paul wrote in verse 4, “And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command.” The original Greek text also uses the present tense for the phrase “the things that we command,” so it is probably referring to Paul’s instructions to the Thessalonian believers in this letter. If this is the case, then the first interpretation is that “the things that we command” refer to what he says in 3:1 of this letter, “pray for us.” That is, does verse 4 mean that the Thessalonian believers are currently praying for Paul and that Paul is confident that they will continue to pray for him in the future? However, is it correct to call the prayer request “the things that we command”? Also, if the meaning of “guard you against the evil one” in verse 3 is the broad meaning of guarding from the devil’s temptation, then the meaning of “the things that we command” in verse 4 may also be more than just praying for Paul and his companions, and may be something broader than that.

As the second interpretation, since in verses 6 and followings, Paul commands Thessalonian believers to avoid brothers who are living idle lives, and to tell those who are living idle lives to work quietly, it could be that he is referring to that command. However, there were brothers in the Thessalonian church who were leading idle lives, and because there was a fear that these brothers would have a negative influence on the church as a whole, Paul ordered them to “keep away from” such people in verse 6, and in verse 12 he gave them the command to “work quietly.” Therefore, if “the things that we command” are the commands in verses 6 and followings, it is difficult to say that now you are doing those commands. Therefore, we have to say that this second interpretation is also unreasonable. And the first interpretation that “the things that we command” are to pray for Paul himself also seems too narrow and unreasonable.

In that case, the third interpretation is that “the things that we command” refer to the basic Christian teachings that Paul has been commanding the Thessalonian believers to keep from before, and that he is commanding them to follow in this letter as well. In chapter 2:15 of this letter, Paul commands, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” Based on that command, Paul is probably saying that he has “confidence in the Lord” that Thessalonian believers “are doing and will do the things that we command.” As we read in verse 3, the Lord Jesus Christ himself “will establish you and guard you against the evil one,” so Paul has “confidence in the Lord” that the Thessalonian believers will be able to keep the Christian teachings.

Verse 5 again contains words of prayer for the Thessalonian believers. A little earlier, in verses 16 and 17 of chapter 2, we read a long prayer that “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.” In comparison, the short prayer recorded in 3:5 is “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.” However, the fact that it is short does not necessarily mean that it is simple. It also means that we must think carefully about what is being said in those short words of prayer.

The Japanese Bible which we use now translate verse 5 as “May the Lord make you deeply aware of the love of God and the patience of Christ.” However, it is not literal translation. The words of the original Greek text are literally expressed in the cited English translation and the new Japanese translation which was published in 2018. Our human hearts are easily led astray. Unless Christ himself shows us the way, we cannot turn our hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ. Even for those who have come to know God’s love and Christ’s steadfastness through faith in Christ’s cross, it is necessary to repeatedly turn our hearts to the origin of our faith in God’s love and Christ’s steadfastness. Otherwise, before we know it, our hearts will stray from God’s love and Christ’s steadfastness, and we will be lost as to how to live. To our easily-distracted hearts, the Lord Jesus Christ himself speaks through the Holy Spirit, urging us to return to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ. That is why Paul prays for Christ’s directing the hearts of Thessalonian believers so that they can always return to the origin of their faith, the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.

The Reformer John Calvin wrote a very concise definition of what true faith is. According to this, Faith is “a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favour toward us, founded on the truth of a free promise in Christ, and revealed to our minds, and sealed on our hearts, by the Holy Spirit” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 7). The word “seal” refers to the act of stamping a seal for guarantee. That is, the path to true faith is one that leads us to know that God the Father loves us based on the cross of Christ, and to be assured of this through the work of the Holy Spirit. When we entrust our existence to the triune God of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the path to true faith is revealed to us.

In the novel “Kōjin” (Wayfaere) by NATSUME Soseki, quoted at the beginning of today’s sermon, the elder brother Ichiro becomes increasingly isolated from his family and unstable in his mind, as he is overcome by feelings of distrust of other people. His younger brother Jiro, who is worried about the elder brother Ichiro, asks a colleague of Ichiro’s at university to take him on a trip to Izu and Hakone. On the trip, various conversations take place. For example, the colleague from the university tries to calm Ichiro down by giving him some advice, saying “Don’t think of yourself as the centre of your life. If you can throw yourself away cleanly, you’ll feel much more at ease.” Then Ichiro asks him “What should I make the centre of my life then?” The colleague replies “God.” He then asks Ichiro a question that is easy to understand: “Can’t you sleep on the rickshaw, safe in the knowledge that the rickshaw puller will pull it so that you won’t fall off?” However, Ichiro gives a sad reply: “I don’t know a god that I can trust as much as the rickshaw puller.”

The words ‘“I don’t know a god that I can trust as much as the rickshaw puller” probably express the genuine feelings of modern people who have been taught that the light of human reason is the only thing we can trust. However, if we turn our hearts to Christ and allow the light of his grace and the Holy Spirit to shine on our hearts, we will be able to return to God’s love and live our lives in faith. The reason we offer worship like this every Sunday is to stop thinking within ourselves about various things and turn our hearts towards Christ in heaven. And it is so that we can have our hearts illuminated by the light of the Holy Spirit that comes from Christ, renew our faith in God, and start the week afresh.