[5] According to the apocalyptic view that
forms the framework of Paul’s thought, in the last days before the end the
powers of evil are concentrated and intensified, because they know their days
are numbered (cf. Matt 8:29; Rev 12:12). Thus Satan tries to hinder Paul from
carrying out his mission (2:18) and puts believers to the test, trying to get
them to fall away from the faith. Paul may see the political opposition
instigated by the local Roman authorities and their supporters as agents of
Satan, both prohibiting Paul’s return to Thessalonica and testing the faith of
the new converts (see intro, “New Congregation”). Although peirazō sometimes develops a moral sense, with the meaning “attempt
to get someone to do something immoral,” it mostly retains the meaning of “put
to the test” and should be so translated in such contexts as the “temptation”
of Jesus (Matt 4:1–11, where the devil is called ho peirazōn, “the Tester”), as here. In the Matthean story, the
devil is not tempting Jesus to do something immoral, but is testing him. So
also in the familiar words in the Lord’s Prayer, puzzling to many who take them
seriously, the traditional translation “Lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil” is misunderstood if it is supposed that God might
otherwise lead the one who prays to do something immoral; and “evil” is rightly
understood not as an abstraction but the personal power of evil, the devil. Thus
the nrsv rightly renders the familiar words as “Do not bring us to the time of
trial, but rescue us from the evil one” (Matt 6:13; cf. reb, “Do not put us to
the test, but save us from the evil one”; nabre, “Do not subject us to the
final test, but deliver us from the evil one”; njb, “Do not put us to the test,
but save us from the Evil One”). In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches his
disciples to pray that they will not have to face this terrible test of the
last days, for the pressure might be too much for them. This is the context of
Paul’s thought. He knows that the new converts in Thessalonica have not been
delivered from the test, but are in the midst of it, and he is afraid they
might not have endured. When he learns from Timothy that despite the Tester’s
efforts to dislodge them, they are holding fast to the faith, he is thankful
indeed. (M. Eugene Boring, I & II Thessalonians: A Commentary
[The New Testament Library; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press,
2015], 118-19)
