ave special reference to certain
idle and disorderly members of the church, whom the apostle describes as
"some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy
bodies" (chap. 3:11), and who also set themselves in opposition to his
apostolic authority (verse 14). These disorderly persons seem to have
been the same as those who were engaged in propagating erroneous notions
respecting the time of our Lord's second advent. Their visionary views
on this subject made them self-conceited, talkative, and self-willed,
and led them to neglect the sober duties of daily life.

The apostle beseeches the Thessalonians not to be soon shaken in
mind, or troubled, "neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by
letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand." And he
adds: "Let no man deceive you in any way"--in any of the ways
specified or any other way. Chap. 2:2, 3. There were then
persons at Thessalonica busily occupied in misleading the
Thessalonians: (1) "by spirit," that is, by prophesies which
they professed to have received from the Holy Spirit; (2) "by
word," by oral teaching; (3) "by letter as from us," that is,
purporting to come from the apostle. Or, perhaps, we should
render: "nor by word nor by letter as from us:" that is, neither
by oral teaching nor by written communication alleged to have
come from me. We can well understand how the unwritten words of
the apostle should have been perverted by these false teachers.
The question remains: Did they pervert the meaning of his
language in the first epistle, or did they employ an epistle
forged in his name? The latter has been from ancient times a
common interpretation of this clause, and it is favored by the
words: "The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the
token in every epistle: so I write." Chap. 3:17. Yet the
supposition of such a forged epistle is something so improbable
that many are inclined to adopt the former supposition.

The question respecting "the man of sin" belongs to the
commentator. In a brief introduction like the present, we cannot
enter upon it farther than to say that, though we are not
warranted in affirming that it has its exhaustive fulfilment in
the Papacy, yet its chief embodiment thus far has been in that
corrupt and persecuting power whose character answers so
remarkably to the apostle's description.