WEDNESDAY 20th
2 Thessalonians 3:16-18
NIV (v16) – ‘Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.’
ESV (v16) – ‘Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.’
Paul is now concluding his letter, he has already asked that the Lord would encourage and strengthen them, (2:16-17), that they may be protected (3:3) in the final verse of this chapter he invokes that ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all’ and here in verse 16 he is asking that the Lord of peace himself would always give them peace in every way.
The Lord Jesus is as we know from the prophet Isaiah the ‘Prince of Peace’, (‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ 9:6) We also know from the apostle John that Jesus had given his disciples peace. (‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid’ John 14:27)
Knowing peace is one of the benefits of what being a Christian is all about, we have come to know the love of God through Christ Jesus, we have come to know his mercy and grace, we have come to know his Fatherhood toward us, and we could continue the list, I add here that we have come to know his peace. Peace with God, peace with self, peace with one another, a peace which is something that this world knows nothing about and cannot offer because it is the shalom peace of God himself, and Paul, wants the Church at Thessalonica to now this peace at all times, he continues ‘The Lord be with you’, in other words he is showing that with the Lord being with us at all times we will continually be with the one who is the Prince of Peace, knowing his peace as it accompanies us in all that we do and everywhere that we go.
Meditate upon these verses which remind us of this peace
‘I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.’ John 16:33
‘And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.’ Colossians 3:15
‘And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus’. Philippians 4:7