IT’S not difficult to find examples of politicians who have found themselves the subject of vicious smear campaigns - often conducted by sections of the popular press.
It would seem that the apostle Paul was subject to the same kind of campaign. We can deduce as much from the various ways in which he attempts to defend himself in the first part of c2. Was it being suggested that his time in Thessalonica had been a failure; nothing more than a waste of time? (c2v1) Had his detractors been implying that his teaching was erroneous, that his motives had been less than pure and that really he was nothing more than a con artist? (c2v3) Were those who were ‘whispering’ against Paul, doubtless in an attempt to destabilise the new converts, insinuating that he was a people-pleaser, a flatterer who would have said anything to persuade his hearers? (c2v4-6)