Bible scholars who believe that the First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians were both written by Paul say that the second letter was written very soon after the first. The reason, they say, is that Paul had given a teaching in the first letter, which the Thessalonians misunderstood. He, therefore, needed to write a second one to correct the misunderstanding of the first. The teaching in question has to do with the second coming of Christ. This is a very important teaching of St. Paul, which many Christians today unfortunately still misunderstand just as the Thessalonians did.

There was a popular belief among the early Christians that some of them were still going to be alive when Christ would come back in glory. This belief was so widespread that we have evidence of it in all four gospels (Mt 16:28// Mk 9:1 // Lk 9:27 // Jn 21:23). It is likely that Paul spoke about this belief when he preached in Thessalonika. Years after Paul had left Thessalonika, a problem arose. Some of the first believers began to die. The Thessalonians were thrown into a crisis of faith. How come their first generation Christians were all dying off and the Christ still had not come? Some of them began to suggest that maybe the Second Coming had already taken place. Maybe the Coming of Christ was a spiritual reality that happened to the first believers, who were now dead, and that those of them still alive could, in fact, be the left behind people (2 Thess 2:1). Such believers would settle down to making the most of life in this world, since they have given up hope that the Lord was still coming to establish his reign of peace and justice on earth.

When Paul heard of the crisis of faith among the Thessalonians , he wrote them a letter. That was his first letter to the Thessalonians. In that letter he reassured the Thessalonians that the Coming of the Lord was at hand and would include both the living and the dead.

Paul meant to rekindle in the hearts of the Thessalonians hope and expectation of the Lord's coming. But the graphic way in which he depicted the teaching led to an undesired consequence. If the Lord was coming soon to take his own people out of this world, why then should believers bother about making the world a better place? Why would someone plant a tree or build a house if Christ is coming tomorrow to take them out of this world? This kind of reasoning made some of the Thessalonians to stop working and spend their time watching the skies for signs of the Lord's appearing. Such people believed in the Lord's coming but they believed to an excessive degree. Paul had to write a second letter to the Thessalonians calling such people to moderation and reminding them of a command he had given them, "If any one will not work, let him not eat" (2 Thess 3:10).

There is a moral principle that says, "virtue stands in the middle." This means that for every sound doctrine, there are at least two possible errors, error by deficiency (not believing enough) and error by excess (believing too much).With regard to the doctrine of the Lord's coming, we see these two errors among the Christians in Thessalonika. Those who believed that the day of the Lord had already taken place did not believe enough in the future coming of the Lord. It led them to despair regarding their own salvation and to a materialistic lifestyle. Others who believed that the coming of the Lord was so literally imminent that they stopped working to improve themselves and the world around them erred by believing in excess. We call that presumption. Between the deficiency of despair and the excesses of presumption lies the golden mean of hope. The golden mean of hope enables us to believe in the coming of the Lord on a day we do not know while doing everything possible to improve our lives and those of our neighbours here in this world till the Lord comes whenever he chooses to come. Let us pray for true hope that overcomes both despair and presumption.