Paul’s longing to see Thessalonians again: (2:17-20)
Paul uses the word “torn away for a short time.” To Paul it was as though his family were being torn apart when he left them. He hoped the separation would be brief, but it broke his heart to leave them as infant babes in Christ. Though he had left them physically, they were still prominent in his thoughts; they were not “out of sight, out of mind.”
Paul and his companions had tried to return to Thessalonica on several occasions because of the intense longing they felt for their brethren. The care and feeding of new Christians was not just an obligation those missionaries felt toward God; it was something they longed with all their hearts to be able to do, because of the love of Christ, in spite of the personal danger that faced them in Thessalonica. But Paul could not make it. Paul blamed Satan for his failure to be able to return. Was Satan really responsible? Paul’s reason for deciding to return was to provide additional spiritual help for the new converts. This by itself is clearly the will of God in any situation. So any hindrance becomes opposition to the will of God. Regardless of who was involved on the human level, the ultimate leader of this kind of opposition is Satan. As John Calvin wrote, “Whenever the ungodly cause us trouble, they are fighting under the banner of Satan, and are his instruments for harassing us.” At the end of this chapter, Paul inserted his name which he rarely did so in his other writings. The reason here may be that he wished to emphasize again in a different way that it was he himself who truly felt this way. He did not try to return just once, but again and again he sought ways to get back to Thessalonica.
Further, Paul’s affection rose to its climax. The Philippians believers were the only others who received such warm words of personal love from Paul. He voiced emotionally that the greatest blessing he could possibly receive at the judgment seat of Christ were the believers and the church of Thessalonica. They were everything and was worth anything to Paul. They were his hope; their development was what he lived for as a parent lives to see his children grow up to maturity, to produce and reproduce. They were his joy, they filled his life with sunshine as he thought of what they used to be, what they had become, and what they would be by the grace of God. They were his crown; they themselves were the symbol of God’s blessing on his life and ministry. They were his glory and joy, and not only his but also the glory and joy of his companions in labour. Paul said in essence, “When life is over and we stand in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming, you Thessalonians will be our source of glory and joy; you mean that much to us.”