Paul moves from the first half of the letter body (2:1–3:10) to the second half (4:1–5:22) by means of two prayers (3:11–13).30 The first prayer that God “may … clear the way for us to come to you” (3:11) looks back to Paul’s concern in the previous verses about his separation from the Thessalonians (2:17–3:10). The second prayer looks ahead to three concerns that Paul is about to address: “so that you will be blameless and holy” (3:13) foreshadows the discussion of holiness in sexual conduct in 4:3–8; “make your love increase and overflow”(3:12) anticipates the discussion of brotherly love in 4:9–12; and “when our Lord Jesus comes” (3:13) prefigures the discussion of the return of Christ in 4:13–5:11.
Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus (3:11). The fact that the plural subjects of “God” and “Lord Jesus” occur with a singular form of the verb may suggest that Paul views these two as essentially a unity and so affirms the full deity of Jesus.31 The close collocation of God and Jesus in the prayer indicates minimally that the apostle sees the two working together in unity; this undoubtedly has implications for the supreme position that Paul ascribes to the Son of God (1:10) alongside of the Father.32
Clear the way for us to come to you (3:11). This request looks back to metaphor in 2:18 concerning the military practice of cutting up a road so as to make it impassable for a pursuing army (see comments on 2:18). Paul’s prayer, therefore, is that God the Father and Jesus will remove the obstacles that Satan has used to block the apostle’s path back to the Thessalonian church.