The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (New International Commentary on the New Testament) by Gordon D. Fee

Author:Gordon D. Fee [Fee, Gordon D.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing Co - A
Published: 2009-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

C. PRAYER (1:11-12)

11 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power794 he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. 12 We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus795 may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.b

b 12 Or God and Lord, Jesus Christ

In this letter Paul follows his thanksgiving with a prayer report. Thus what was separated by some distance in 1 Thessalonians, because of Paul’s greater concern to set forth the narrative of his and their past relationships, is brought in at what will become the more standard practice in his later letters — a prayer report immediately following the thanksgiving report.796 The prayer itself picks up three concerns from what has just preceded: first, echoing the concern of verse 5, he prays that “God may make you worthy of your calling”; second, echoing verse 3, he prays that God by his power will bring to fulfillment their every desire for goodness and work that flows out of their faith; and third, echoing verse 10, he prays that the eschatological “glorying in [God’s] holy people” will begin to be accomplished in a mutual way in the present. With this prayer, therefore, Paul basically ties together the whole of these opening concerns.

11 Paul’s way of connecting this prayer to what has preceded is with a slightly ambiguous “unto this,” which the English translations have rendered variously as “wherefore” (KJV), “to this end” (NRSV, NASB, NAB), “in view of this” (NJB), or, as the TNIV and NJB have nicely put it, “with this in mind.” The ambiguity lies with determining the antecedent of Paul’s “this,” which may cover the whole of the preceding “thanksgiving” or, perhaps more likely, the positive conclusion expressed at the very end (v. 10). In either case, Paul echoes language used in his thanksgiving in 1 Thessalonians 1:2, that he (and his companions) “pray for you” and do so “constantly.” What follows spells out the basic content797 of his prayers and their ultimate goal.

The content of Paul’s and his companions’ constant prayer on behalf of these beleaguered believers is basically threefold, although it is expressed by way of two verbs (“make you worthy” and “fulfill” [TNIV, “bring to fruition”]). The first concern, which probably functions as the “thesis sentence” for the rest, is that “our God may make you worthy798 of his calling.” Although it is possible to read this as having to do with their final glory, the rest of the sentence makes certain that Paul is concerned with God’s doing this in and for them now. In referring to their becoming believers as a result of God’s “calling,” Paul is echoing what he had said about them in his first letter (1 Thess 2:12). Thus even in such a passing moment as this, Paul

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