II Thessalonians 2:17
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encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good word and deed.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Comfort your hearts--unsettled as you have been through those who announced the immediate coming of the Lord. good word and work--The oldest manuscripts invert the order, "work and word." Establishment in these were what the young converts at Thessalonica needed, not fanatical teaching (compare Co1 15:58). Next: 2 Thessalonians Chapter 3
Open source ↗The apostle is very careful to hinder the spreading of an error into which some among them had fallen concerning the coming of Christ, as being very near (Th2 2:1-3). Then he proceeds to confute the error he cautioned them against, by telling them of two great events that were antecedent to the coming of Christ - a general apostasy, and the revelation of antichrist, concerning whom the apostle tells them many remarkable things, about his name, his character, his rise, his fall, his reign, and the sin and ruin of his subjects (Th2 2:4-12). He then comforts them against the terror of this apostasy, and exhorts them to stedfastness (Th2 2:13-15). And concludes with a prayer for them (Th2 2:16, Th2 2:17).
Open source ↗2:17 Paul’s prayer echoes the purpose of Timothy’s visit to the church—to strengthen and encourage the Thessalonian believers in their faith (1 Thes 3:2). • To comfort you does not merely mean to console, but to exhort or encourage them because of their fears and doubts (2 Thes 2:1-12; 1 Thes 4:18; 5:11).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.
so that He may establish your hearts in blamelessness and holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. Amen.
We sent Timothy, our brother and fellow worker for God in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith,
rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace and not by foods of no value to those devoted to them.
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you unblemished in His glorious presence, with great joy—
He will sustain you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore you, secure you, strengthen you, and establish you.
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and humble in spirit, to restore the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite.