ISB ~ 2 Thessalonians 2 v1 - 12

Paul combats misinformation in Thessalonica that the day of the Second Coming is at hand. This appears to be the teaching of doomsday prophets who may have gotten the idea from a misreading of 1 Thessalonians (especially 1 Thess 5:2). In any case, they apparently forged a letter to this effect in Paul’s name and claimed to have had personal revelations to back it up. To silence these troublemakers and steady his shaken readers, Paul lays out the eschatological sequence of events that must take place before the “day of the Lord” dawns on the world (2 Thess 2:2). Though the basic outline of this prophecy is clear, no clear consensus exists in ancient or modern scholarship on how to understand many of its details (CCC 673-74).