Before
2 Thessalonians 2.1-12 KWL - 1 We should ask you, fellow Christians, about the second coming of our Master, Christ Jesus,
- and how we’ll be gathered together with him.
- 2 It’s so your minds won’t be shaken up, nor go into a panic,
- whenever some spirit, message, or letter (like those from us) claims the Lord’s Day has come.
- 3 Don’t let anyone trick you in any way: Nothing happens till the apostasy comes first,
- till the lawbreaking person, the child of destruction, is revealed—
- 4 the antagonist, the one exalting himself over everything called “god” and “worshipful,”
- so much so he sits in God’s temple and claims he’s a god himself.
- 5 Don’t you remember the things I told you when I was still with you?
- 6 Now, you know who holds him back so he can be revealed in his own time:
- 7 The secret of the lawbreaker is already working—
- but only till the one holding him back can come out of the way.
- 8 Then the lawbreaker will be revealed—whom Master Jesus will take out with his mouth’s breath.
- He’ll abolish the lawbreaker at the manifestation of his second coming:
- 9 This is the coming against Satan’s works in every power, “miracle,” and fake wonder;
- 10 in every unrighteous trick towards those destroying themselves.
- For fake miracles don’t accept the love of truth in their salvation.
- 11 Through it, God sends them off with their belief in fakes, in powerful error.
- 12 Thus everyone can be judged who didn’t trust truth, but were pleased with wrongness.
Popular Christian culture tends to call this “lawbreaking person” the Antichrist (with a capital A, as opposed to
But Christians are actually disagreed as to whether such an Antichrist still needs to show up first. After all, it’s been 20 centuries since the apostles wrote to the Thessalonians, and many antichrists, many lawbreakers, have come and gone… and fulfilled this prediction many, many times already. And if this is the case,
Still, some Christians really have their hearts set on this Bizarro Jesus version of the beast, and are anxiously awaiting him far more than they’re hopefully awaiting Jesus.