{"id":21421,"date":"2010-01-02T22:23:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-03T04:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=21421"},"modified":"2020-04-09T22:28:13","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T03:28:13","slug":"is-ii-thessalonians-17-9-referring-to-two-groups-of-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-ii-thessalonians-17-9-referring-to-two-groups-of-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Is II Thessalonians 1:7-9 referring to two groups of people?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>In II Thessalonians 1:7-9,\u00a0are those who know not God, and those who obey not the gospel two groups of people, and if so what groups is this verse referring to?<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8230;\u00a0<em>and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power<\/em>&#8221; (II Thessalonians 1:7-9).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Paul does speak of two groups of people: Those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel.<\/p>\n<p>The first group are those who are ignorant of God. This can be because of never hearing the gospel or choosing not to hear the message, such as an atheist.<\/p>\n<p>The second group are those who know about God to some extent, but for various reasons decide to not live fully by what Jesus requires of them (Matthew 7:21-23).<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-lost-who-never-heard-the-gospel\/\">The Lost Who Never Heard the Gospel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: In II Thessalonians 1:7-9,\u00a0are those who know not God, and those who obey not the gospel two groups of people, and if so what groups is this verse referring to? Answer: &#8220;&#8230;\u00a0and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1190,1191,47],"class_list":["post-21421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-ii-thessalonians","tag-lost","tag-salvation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24076,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-away-from-the-presence-of-the-lord-or-coming-from-the-presence-of-the-lord-in-ii-thessalonians-19\/","url_meta":{"origin":21421,"position":0},"title":"Is it &#8220;away from the presence of the Lord&#8221; or &#8220;coming from the presence of the Lord&#8221; in II Thessalonians 1:9?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Like always, I have a question. In II Thessalonians 1:9 it has a commentary on the bottom. The verse says, \"They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from\u00a0\u00a0the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,\" then in the footnotes, I found in my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88300,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-cruel-lie\/","url_meta":{"origin":21421,"position":1},"title":"A Cruel Lie","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Nathan Smelser An aged gentleman says, \"Well, I believe in God, what else is there?\" His health is dire; I had asked if he knew the Lord. Folks: Observe the disastrous consequences of \"easy believism.\" This gentleman had likely been assured that as long as he believed in God,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41426,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-person-go-to-heaven-who-doesnt-accept-god-but-believes-he-exists-and-is-good\/","url_meta":{"origin":21421,"position":2},"title":"Can a person go to heaven who doesn&#8217;t accept God but believes He exists and is good?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Do you think a person who doesn't accept God but believes He exists can go to heaven if he is a good guy and help others? Answer: You are asking if a person partially obeys God, picking which commands he would like to follow while ignoring the rest of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47349,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/obeying-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":21421,"position":3},"title":"Obeying God","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Dennis Stackhouse On one occasion King Saul had been given a direct command from God to utterly destroy Amalek, including men and women, children and infants, as well as all the livestock (I Samuel 15:3).\u00a0 However, Saul and the people spared Agag, the king of Amalek, along with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86905,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-will-you-do-with-the-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":21421,"position":4},"title":"What Will You Do With the Truth?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Dennis Strickland Down through the years, there has been a lot of discussion regarding truth. Some have questioned what truth is, as Pilate did in John 18:38. In Mark 12:32, the scribe stated the truth, yet we have no record that this man ever obeyed the gospel. He believed,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88199,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-believe-the-lord-but\/","url_meta":{"origin":21421,"position":5},"title":"I Believe the Lord, But &#8230;","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Marvin L. Weir Spiritual matters take priority over worldly matters. Many people who profess to be Christians would angrily protest if they were told they did not believe the Lord. A failure to believe Christ is not a new problem. During His earthly ministry, Jesus said to the Jews,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}