2 Thessalonians 2:1-12: a reflection

1Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you 2not to be quickly shaken in your mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come. 3Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction. 4He opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God. 5Don’t you remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? 6Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. 7For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. 8Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; 9even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11Because of this, God sends them a powerful delusion, that they should believe a lie, 12that they all might be judged who didn’t believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Paul warns the Thessalonians about coming deception, and at the heart of his warning is a sobering diagnosis of why some are deceived. He speaks of those who perish, and says it is because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Their ruin is traced not merely to being tricked, but to a prior choice: they did not love the truth. Having no love for the truth, they were left open to believing what is false.

Notice the connection Paul draws between loving truth and being protected from deception. It is not enough to know the truth or even to acknowledge it; there must be a love for the truth, a treasuring of it, a desire for what is real over what is merely pleasant or convenient. Those who do not love the truth, who prefer what flatters them or what they wish were so, make themselves vulnerable to deception. A heart that does not love truth will eventually embrace a lie.

That is a searching warning for an age awash in competing claims and comfortable falsehoods. The protection against deception is not merely cleverness but a genuine love for the truth, a commitment to what is real even when it is unwelcome, even when a lie would be more comfortable. Cultivate a love for the truth, especially the truth about God, yourself, and reality, and be wary of the pull toward believing what you would prefer over what is actually so. Guard your love for the truth; it is a great protection against being led astray.

Lord, Paul warned that people perish because they refuse to love the truth, leaving themselves open to believing lies. Give me a genuine love for the truth, a treasuring of what is real over what is merely comfortable or flattering. Guard me from preferring pleasant falsehoods to unwelcome truth. Especially help me love the truth about you, myself, and reality, so that I am not led astray. Anchor me in a love for the truth.