Millennium Fever

Paul’s converts in Thessalonica were having Millennium fever. When Jesus ascended, He said that he would come again. The early saints were excited and waiting for that day to happen. Many of them not only expected it to happen within their lifetimes, but to happen shortly. Can you imagine being one of these new converts? They’ve heard the gospel, many of them from those who either personally saw Christ, or at least had heard one of the Twelve teach. They heard of Christ’s power, His miracles, His promised blessings—and that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. When the angels said he would come again, why wouldn’t they think it would be in their lifetime? They wanted to be present when He came in power and glory to lift up His followers and destroy the wicked.

However, things do not always work out the way that we want them to. As Paul taught, the Second Coming would not occur until after there had been a falling away. They knew that the world was going to fall into apostasy, even if the early Saints did not understand that. The Church would be destroyed from within (after all, ravenous wolves were going to destroy the flock from within). Ironically, the belief that the Second Coming was nigh actually brought about some of the apostate actions among the early saints in Thessalonica.

The first issue that Paul addresses in his epistle is that some of the people had stopped working. They assumed that the Millennium was soon at hand, so what’s the point in building up temporal things now when it will all be destroyed at Christ’s coming? A second problem was that people had been committing sin. This one is a bit strange to me. If they thought that Christ would soon come, would they not want to be extra righteous and prepare to meet Him face to face? However, that is not what they were thinking, as is obvious from the fact that Paul had to reprimand them. For some reason they had the erroneous idea that Christ would cleans them at His coming. Lastly, some were thinking that those who died before Christ came again were somehow missing out in His glory. Paul corrected this belief by teaching that the righteous dead will be raised at His coming to be with Him.

These things can all be applied to us today. Since the time of Joseph Smith, many of the saints have had the idea that Christ would come again in their lifetimes. Regardless of whether or not this is true, the Lord has commanded us to make good use of our time in probation in this earth. We should not decide that it is fruitless to pursue an education or employment because we will not need it when Christ comes again (this is erroneous anyway, since we are supposed to attain as much knowledge as we can in this life anyway). We should not decide that it’s not important for us to have food storage, or a savings, or insurance, or a retirement fund because we think the Millennium is just around the corner. We should have faith and make preparations for a long, fruitful life, but at the same time live worthily so that we would be prepared if He did come tomorrow.