\\INTRODUCTION TO 2 THESSALONIANS 3\\

In this chapter the apostle requests of the Thessalonians, that they
would pray for him, and other Gospel ministers; and he puts up
prayers for them, gives them rules about dealing with disorderly
persons, and concludes the epistle with his usual salutation. The
request to pray for ministers is in \\#2Th 3:1\\ the petitions to be
made for them are, that their ministry might be succeeded, and their
persons preserved and delivered from evil minded men, destitute of
faith in Christ, \\#2Th 3:1-2\\ and, for the consolation of the saints,
observes the faithfulness of God engaged in their behalf to establish
them in the faith they had, and to preserve them from everything and
person that is evil, \\#2Th 3:3\\ and expresses his confidence in them
with respect to their walk and conversation, \\#2Th 3:4\\ and then prays
for them that their hearts might be directed into the love of God,
and patience of Christ, \\#2Th 3:5\\. And next follows an order to
withdraw from every disorderly walker, particularly idle and slothful
persons, \\#2Th 3:6\\ and from such a lazy idle life the apostle
dissuades by his own example, who behaved not disorderly, nor ate
the bread of others, but wrought with his own hands, though he had a
right to a maintenance without it, but did this to set an example to
them, \\#2Th 3:7-9\\. He puts them in mind of a precept of his when
among them, that such who would not work should not eat, \\#2Th 3:10\\
and the order he now gave, and the precept he reminds them of, were
not without reason; seeing there were disorderly idle persons, and
busy bodies, among them, whom the apostle exhorts and beseeches, in
the name of Christ, to be industrious, and eat their own bread, as
the fruit of their labours, \\#2Th 3:11,12\\ and as for the other
members of the church, he exhorts them to diligence and constancy in
well doing, and to mark those that were incorrigible, and have no
conversation with them, yet dealing with them not as enemies, but
admonishing them as brethren, \\#2Th 3:13-15\\. And closes all with
prayers, that the Lord would give them peace, and grant his presence
to them, and with his usual salutation, written with his own hand,
as a token of this being a genuine epistle of his, and by which
every epistle of his might be known, \\#2Th 3:16-18\\.