And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.
All Commentaries on 2 Thessalonians 3:2 Go To 2 Thessalonians 3
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
For a man swollen with pride in comparison to another might say, “My faith distinguishes me,” or “my justice” or whatever. It is to prevent such ideas that the good teacher asks, “But what do you have that you have not received?” Did you not receive it from him who chose to distinguish you from another? It was he who chose to give you what another did not receive. “But if you have received, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” Now I ask, is the apostle concerned here with anything else than that “He who glories should glory in the Lord”? But nothing is so contrary to this sentiment than for anyone to glory in his own merits as if he and not the grace of God were responsible for them. I refer to that grace that distinguishes the good from the wicked, not one which is common to the good and the wicked. On this premise the grace by which we are living and rational creatures, and thus distinguished from beasts, would be enmeshed in nature. The grace by which the beautiful are distinguished from the ugly, or the intelligent from the stupid, is a grace that perceives nature. But that person whose pride the apostle was trying to restrain was not puffing himself up in comparison to the beasts, nor in comparison to the gifts of nature that might exist even in the worst of men. Rather, he was puffed up because he attributed some good thing which pertained to the morally good life to himself and not to God. Thus, he deserved to hear the rebuke, “For who distinguishes you? Or what do you have that you have not received?” For though the ability to possess faith belongs to our nature, is that also true of the actual possession of faith? “For not all men have faith,” although all men have the possibility of having faith. .
