two millennia, it hasn’t become any easier to live in the “in-between times.” Like the Thessalonians, we are tempted sometimes to lose hope and give up. It’s easy to see the power of evil around us and the suffering in the world, and be tempted to conclude that we have either been duped or that God has somehow reneged on his promises. It is in such situations that these ancient letters to the Thessalonians find renewed life. Paul’s letters, although written to a group of people nearly two thousand