A PLAIN TOKEN, a piece of EVIDENCE — from endeiknymi, to point at, to show forth; the -ma ending makes it the thing shown, the exhibit rather than the act of showing. It occurs only here in the New Testament. ⚠ At 2 Thessalonians 1:5 the syntax is difficult and the claim startling: the Thessalonians' patient suffering is itself 'a token of the righteous judgment of God' — not that the suffering earns anything, but that a community holding steady under undeserved pressure is visible evidence that the accounts are not yet settled and that a God who judges rightly will settle them. The near-synonym endeixis carries the same courtroom sense at Romans 3:25-26 and Philippians 1:28. → first discussed at 2 Thessalonians 1:5