For also when we were with you we enjoined you this, that if any man does not like to work, neither let him eat.
Paul is not giving a new rule here. He had already told the Thessalonians this face to face, because some had stopped working and were living off other people's labour. So how does a command this blunt fit with Christian generosity? And why did a church waiting for the Lord's return need to hear it?
The strange thing is that believers needed to hear this at all. One writer is amazed that Christians behaved this way:
Who could have thought that godly Christian men would be so thoughtless, to say no more, as to live without working? Who could have thought they would be so selfish as to expect support from those who did work, or who lived on what their work earned? Yet that is what was happening among the saints in Thessalonica, and the apostle had even warned them of it when he was there. This danger could appear anywhere and at any time. But it is most likely where saints are fresh and simple in the life of Christ: the very blessing exposes them to the peril.
The verse turns on the words not willing. It describes someone who refuses to work, not someone who cannot find work:
Suppose a lazy man who will not work, though he is able, and lives by borrowing. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 gives us direction here. It supposes a man who refuses to work when he can. There may be an excellent brother out of work and in need, and it is a privilege to help him. But God has given us Scripture to guide us in all cases.
Waiting for Christ does not excuse a disorderly life. Notice which letters press honest work hardest:
The apostle would not let disorderly ways bring reproach on this hope, or on the Lord Himself. So he points to his own example. And nowhere does he press the duty of honest work more than in the letters that most urge Christ's coming as the near and constant hope of the Christian.
Another writer puts the same point in sharper personal terms — work is not only for one's own supply:
Though I am not to be doubtful or worried about the future, I am still to labour, working with my hands at what is good so that I have something to give to others in need. Work is not simply a means of storing up provision for the future on earth, but of providing things honestly in the sight of all men, now.
Empty hours do not stay empty:
Those who do no business of their own are apt to become busybodies, as the apostle warns them in sharp words. Free time away from work is time for mischief. And meddling in other people's affairs, when you have no duty there, is itself mischief.
One writer calls honest work a mercy — it guards a person from worse things:
For children not yet converted, and for adults in the same state, work is a merciful help. It guards them against the dangers of idleness and against giving way to lust and passion. Even for the faithful it is good, just as refusing to work when a person has no means is bad. So the apostle states it in short, sharp words: if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. Given in the right way, this remedy would usually heal, and it would never fail.
The rule limits who we should support. It does not close the giver's hand:
The Lord makes the most just and tender appeals for the poor, and He also guards the rich. He condemns the lazy in the strongest terms. Such is the fullness and wisdom of Scripture. This is what we command you: "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." Giving to those in need, as far as we are able, is one of our most sacred Christian privileges. But to support the idle would break the word of God.
Notice how ordinary the subject of this command is:
Christianity has a striking mark. Nothing is too great or high for the saint, and nothing is too little or low for God. He concerns Himself even with a duty as simple and small as a man working day by day and not living off his brothers.
- Refusal, not need. The verse targets a man who will not work though he can; a believer out of work and in need is someone it is a privilege to help.
- Hope, not excuse. The letters that press Christ's near return hardest also press honest work hardest. Disorderly ways dishonour the coming Lord.
- Idle, then interfering. Time freed from work does not stay empty. Those who do no business become busybodies, and free time turns into mischief.
- Rule as remedy. The command works like medicine. Work guards against idleness and its appetites. Holding back bread aims to heal a man, not to crush him.
- Give freely, fund no idleness. Scripture tells us to give freely to real need. It also forbids funding the idle. And God cares about something as small as a man earning his own bread.
For we hear that [there are] some walking among you disorderly, not working at all, but busybodies.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Now such we enjoin and exhort in [the] Lord Jesus Christ, that working quietly they eat their own bread.
Paul has just named the problem in the church at Thessalonica. Some believers had stopped working. They lived off others and meddled in everyone else's affairs. Now he turns from talking about them to talking to them. His remedy is short: quiet work and bread you have earned yourself.
The trouble did not start in laziness but in a wrong idea about the Lord's return that had been pressed on the church.
Verse 6 of this third chapter and the verses that follow make it clear. The mistaken ideas about the coming of the Lord, urged on the Thessalonians, had already borne evil fruit. It is always the way that bad company corrupts good habits. Some among them had become fanatical in their thinking. They were under the impression that the day of Christ was upon them, and they gave up their ordinary jobs. Having done this, they began to expect support from others.
Commentators differ on which idea did the damage. One writer traces it not to love for the Lord's appearing, but to fear that the day of judgment had already begun.
In my judgment it was not too much enthusiasm about the Lord's coming that made any of them neglect their daily duty. It may rather have been alarm about the day of the Lord, as if it had already begun. That fear made some unwilling to do honest work, and set them gossiping about their fears. The disorderly are not described as wicked people, but are still spoken of as brothers.
The Greek word behind "quietly" is not silence. It describes the person who leaves other people's business alone.
The word hesuchia expresses the general idea of "quietness," not "silence" as in the older translation. See also 2 Thessalonians 3:12, where it stands in contrast to interfering in other people's matters.
The command reaches past the symptom to its cause. And it comes with pleading, not only with authority.
But here too faith works by love; the truth builds up instead of destroying or scattering. Discipline has its measure, since the end is restoration. The meddling, and its cause, idleness, must both go. The name of the Lord was incompatible with both; but the apostle pleads as well as commands. So even what nature itself might teach is bound up with our Lord and Saviour. It is a question of God's kingdom, not of mere morality, as if we were only men, and grace and truth did not exist in Christ.
Paul does not simply say "please." He speaks under a name that carries weight.
Where it is "the Lord Jesus Christ," we have authority — as for instance, 2 Thessalonians 3:12, "Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread."
Scripture is full of calls to give generously to those in real need. What it refuses is the idle person who lives on what others earned.
Eating other people's bread in idleness was no part of Christian teaching, which commanded the opposite. The Word is full of calls to be generous and brotherly toward those in real need (Galatians 6:6; Ephesians 4:28; 1 John 3:17; 3 John 8). But eating the bread of others in idleness the Word plainly forbids. Those who had been doing the opposite were now to aim at eating their own bread. They could learn from the apostle, who worked night and day at his trade so as not to burden the saints.
Paul never cures the problem by taking their hope away. He leaves the expectation in place and adds the workbench to it.
This very posture of waiting for the Son from heaven had produced a certain evil. The Thessalonian saints were neglecting their present handiwork. The apostle does not try to change their posture at all. He urges them to hold it together with diligence and watchfulness, so that while their eye was gazing, their hand might be working (2 Thessalonians 3).
The verse aims at the idle, but the surrounding instruction touches the generous too. Misplaced kindness keeps the disorder alive.
The folly of their hearers keeps foolish talkers going. Bread eaten without cost must find someone ready to pay the cost. Here indeed a false generosity might do harm to many more than those who indulged in it. How little we think of the various ways in which we may become "partakers of other men's sins!"
- Cause. A wrong idea about the day of the Lord unsettled minds. Unsettled minds quit their jobs and started running other people's lives.
- Command. The correction comes in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is real authority, joined with pleading, because the aim is recovery, not removal.
- Quietness. The word means quietness, the opposite of interfering. The meddling and the idleness behind it must both go.
- Own bread. Scripture is full of calls to meet genuine need. It forbids living on what others earned instead of working. A false generosity makes you a partner in the fault.
- Result. Hope is never the enemy of labour: the eye gazes upward while the hand keeps working.
But *ye*, brethren, do not faint in well-doing.
Paul has just dealt with people in the Thessalonian church who refused to work and meddled in other people's affairs. Now he turns to the rest with a short word: keep going in what is right.
Two groups in Thessalonica get two different words from Paul.
In verse 12 we have Paul's word to these busybodies. He commands them to work for their own living. Then in verse 13 he turns to the rest of the assembly at Thessalonica and tells them not to be weary in well-doing. We can well imagine how tired they must have got of these disorderly brothers who kept taking advantage of their kindness. If they were now to be relieved of this burden, they should not stop being generous. They should still be hearty and cheerful givers in the interests of the Lord.
Watching other people behave badly changes the one who watches.
Disgust at people whose behaviour is unworthy is neither grace nor righteousness. It is easy for good people to lose heart in doing what is proper and honourable. The dislike of selfishness in others soon produces reaction and repulsion in themselves. The apostle would not have it so. He wanted steady, earnest perseverance in all that is fair in the Master's eyes, while dealing plainly with such erring brothers and dishonourable ways.
Being worn down does not leave us neutral. It pushes us one of two ways.
When we are around disorderly people, we must be careful not to grow impatient or weary in doing good. The constant strain can wear us down. Then we either grow indifferent to them, or we deal harshly with them.
Commentators differ on the exact shade of the phrase. Hole reads it as continued generosity toward others. Kelly reads the Greek differently.
This would not need saying, but great names have misled people. The word kalopoiountes, in itself and in its usage, does not allow the sense of doing good in acts of kindness to others. This on the contrary might play into the hands of those the apostle censures. We must not confuse to agathon (good done to others) with to kalon (what is honourable). They occur in the proper and distinctive sense of each in the same context of Galatians 6:9-10. Honourable and upright practice is the point here.
The call is about courage, not energy. Willis applies it to ordinary work.
I suppose this means you and I are not to be discouraged by the daily grind of our daily work. We are not to lose heart or turn coward — not in the office, the shop, the kitchen, the field, the school, or wherever else we work. Let us do our daily work to the Lord and not to men, and let us not grow discouraged in it. It is our Lord's own command. There may be much evil around you. It may be terribly hard, and we may be desperate. But even so, let us never give in to evil, never turn coward, never lose heart.
Willis traces the same word through other places where we are tempted to quit.
So, to sum up, let us not give in to evil — not by giving up prayer (Luke 18:1), not in failing health and old age (2 Corinthians 4:1 and 16), not in doing good (Galatians 6:9), not in tribulation (Ephesians 3:13), and not in our daily tasks (2 Thessalonians 3:13).
Doing right can feel dull and unrewarded. The cure is to change who you work for.
Though we feel "well-doing" to be a boring, unrewarding occupation, yet we must not become weary in it. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." If we take that to heart, it would lift every responsibility far above the thought of drudgery.
- Cause. Other people's disorder wears believers down. Paul writes to those tired of carrying idle brothers.
- Danger. Weariness has two exits: not caring about the disorderly, or being harsh with them. Disgust is neither grace nor righteousness.
- Meaning. Commentators differ. Hole keeps the sense of generous giving; Kelly reads the word as honourable, upright practice, not charity.
- Force. This is about losing heart, not losing strength. The same word covers prayer, failing health, tribulation, and daily work.
- Cure. Work done for the Lord and not for men stops being drudgery — in the office, shop, kitchen, field, or school.
But if any one obey not our word by the letter, mark that man, and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed of himself;
Paul closes his letter with a rule for the reader who refuses to obey it. Believers are to note that person and pull back from his company, so that he feels shame and turns. Two questions follow. How far does the pulling back go? And how does it stay short of treating a fellow believer as an enemy?
The trouble Paul has been correcting is not scandalous sin. It is idleness. One writer explains who acts in a case like this.
This is what we may call personal discipline in private life. It matters greatly. Sadly, it is much needed but little understood. It is not a case calling for the action of the assembly, but for faithful personal dealing. The disorderly walking referred to is a brother not working, but going about as an idle busybody. Such a one was to be admonished, and avoided. We cannot help thinking that this form of discipline is much needed. Many people whose ways do not call for excommunication still need faithful dealing.
Action starts when someone refuses to obey what Paul wrote in this letter. That letter is more than one man's opinion.
They were neither to be indifferent on the one hand, nor to be stumbled on the other. Disgust at those who walk unworthily is neither grace nor righteousness... Disobedience was not to be passed by. "What we say in this letter" was not a word of men. It was, in truth, God's word. It works in those who believe, and it leaves those who make light of it worse than before.
The same holds for all of Scripture. It speaks with authority straight to ordinary readers.
The apostles wrote to churches and to Christians. These people were to receive what they wrote and live by it — to receive it as "the commandments of the Lord." Those who did not heed the words of the apostles were to be noted and avoided. So the Scriptures came with authority, and came at once, to the body of ordinary Christians. They were bound to receive them, believe them, obey them, and act on them. No interpreter was to stand between the authority of that written word and their souls.
This instruction stops short of putting anyone out of the assembly.
This is not a case for putting away, or for church discipline as in 1 Corinthians 5. Here the believers act one by one against the idle and mischievous man, by withdrawing from all personal fellowship with him. The aim of this Christian discipline is to press a united testimony on the heart and conscience of the one who "walks disorderly," so that the assembly never has to expel him. The apostle does not say "put away." He says, "take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed" — that is, that he may see his evil way and forsake it.
Another writer marks how far the withdrawal reaches, and where it stops.
A believer who walks contrary to the Word of God is walking in disorder. Believers are to mark him out and keep apart from him, so that he feels his wrong and is ashamed of his course. Withhold all social contact and every expression of fellowship... This discipline of withdrawal is corrective. Its aim is that the disorderly one may be broken down in his course, restored to the Lord, and keep his place at the Lord's table. He is not to be counted as an enemy, but is to be admonished as a brother.
Withdrawal must not become coldness of heart. One writer separates two things that sound alike.
The apostle says, in writing to the Hebrews, "Let brotherly love continue." But he nowhere says, Let brotherly kindness continue. "Love never fails." Kindness must, in some cases. A brother, through the power of Satan, may be walking disorderly. Or he may fall into error, and so become a proper subject of discipline. Toward such a one our conduct must change, though our love stays the same, or even grows stronger... The people spoken of here are still in fellowship. So it is hard to cherish brotherly love and at the same time carry out a wholesome discipline toward them.
The pulling back can be quiet. One writer shows what it looks like day to day.
Sometimes a little silent neglect, which no one but our brother may notice, works better than pressing on with spoken warnings he refuses to hear. This is true above all when the withdrawal carries clear signs of sorrow, with acts of thoughtful love as occasion allows. Our blessed Lord gave the choicest portion of the dish to the poor wretch He knew was planning to betray Him.
- Word — the trigger is refusal to obey the letter. That letter is God's word, and it binds every ordinary Christian directly.
- Walk — the fault is not gross sin but disorder: not working, and going about as an idle busybody.
- Note — he is marked and avoided, but not put away. This is personal discipline, meant to prevent an expulsion rather than carry one out.
- Shame — withdrawing company is corrective. He feels his wrong, gives it up, and is restored to the Lord.
- Brother — kindness may stop; love never does. He is still a brother to admonish, not an enemy.
and do not esteem him as an enemy, but admonish [him] as a brother.
Paul has just told the Thessalonians to mark the brother who refuses his word. They must stop keeping company with him. This closing line sets the limit on that action. The man they avoid is still family. The aim is his recovery, not his removal.
Two levels of discipline stand behind this verse. Commentators place these instructions on the lighter of the two.
This is not a case for putting away, the church discipline of 1 Corinthians 5. It is discipline that believers carry out one by one against the idle and mischievous man. They withdraw from all personal fellowship with him. The aim of this Christian discipline is to press that united testimony on the heart and conscience of the man who walks disorderly, so that the assembly never has to put him out.
Withdrawing looks unkind. What makes the difference is the spirit behind it.
Some men are warned about their disorderly course and still keep on in it. Then much more serious measures of discipline are needed. This is more painful to put into practice, but it is true kindness. Believers must withdraw from the brother who walked disorderly. He was not put out of fellowship. Yet the believers were to have no personal fellowship with him, keeping a reserve that the offender would clearly feel. There is no thought here of personal impatience or anger. The desire is for the true recovery and blessing of the guilty party. The object of all discipline is restoration.
Paul does not simply say to warn the man. He says warn him as a brother. That relationship rests on birth, not on behaviour, so bad conduct cannot dissolve it.
One's brother must remain in that relation whatever the ups and downs of his affairs, or the character of his ways. The elder son in the parable was reminded that the prodigal was his brother (Luke 15:32). The Thessalonian Christians were urged to count the believer their brother, even though he was walking disorderly and would not obey the Word. He would need warning in such a case. They were not to hold that back. But the tie of spiritual birth was there, and they were to remember it.
Keeping no company with a man, while warning him as a brother, can look like a contradiction. One writer answers it by separating two things: how we act, and how we love.
Through the power of Satan, a brother may be walking disorderly, or he may fall into error. He then becomes a proper subject of discipline. Toward such a one our conduct must change, though our love remains the same, or even stronger... The people spoken of here are still in fellowship. That is what makes it hard to cherish brotherly love and at the same time exercise a wholesome discipline toward them.
So what would treating him as an enemy look like? One writer answers by pointing to the harsher step this man is being spared.
They were neither to be indifferent on the one hand, nor to be stumbled on the other. Disgust at those who walk unworthily is neither grace nor righteousness... Is he then put out from among the believers, as a wicked person? Exactly the opposite: "Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother." He was seriously wrong, and believers refused his company. But brotherly warning is the word, not being put out of the assembly as if he were an enemy and a wicked man.
A warning only works if the man can tell it comes from love.
On the other hand, there must be care that no harshness or unbrotherly conduct creeps in. That would destroy the effect of the discipline all over again. Harshness or a legal spirit could not reach the end sought — only love could. Being sure of that love would take hold of the offender. It would draw him, and let the warning gain a hearing. Only at another's feet can one wash them.
- Brother, not offender. New birth forms the tie, so it survives the failure. The son who ran away was still his father's son and his brother's brother.
- Brother, so limited. This is not putting away. Believers withdraw personal company, one by one, and stop short of putting him out.
- Brother, so aimed. The point of the withdrawal is recovery. Discipline that goes beyond restoration has overshot its purpose.
- Brother, so loved. Conduct toward him changes; love toward him does not — and may need to grow stronger.
- Brother, so gently. Harshness kills the very effect sought. Only love makes the admonition worth hearing.