Chapter 3: With Our Own Hands

These texts are among the more difficult in the Pauline corpus, partly because of what Paul says, but even more so because of why he says them. So as the chapter progresses, it will be important to bear in mind all of the cultural dynamics that we have gleaned thus far. While these texts will help us to understand the topic of work in the Pauline corpus, we must also familiarize ourselves with how work was viewed by those in the apostle’s own Greco-Roman context. Hopefully this will help us to discern the radical differences between Paul’s attitude to work and those of his contemporaries.

Before we proceed, I should clarify my position on the chronology of Paul’s writings. In line with the church’s historic view, I am convinced that 1 and 2 Thessalonians were the first epistles that Paul wrote, and that Galatians was written later, closer to when he wrote Romans. I don’t have space here to argue this in detail, but this should help to frame the contents of this chapter going forward.

Although we will explore this passage more fully at the end of this chapter, it offers us two helpful starting points for our discussion. First, it tells us that some Thessalonians were being “ataktoi .” What does this Greek word mean? Those of us on the NIV translation committee settled on the phrase, “idle and disruptive.” In its broadest sense the word refers to being disorderly, but it is clear that the disorderliness in this context is specifically related to not working—or as we might say, to “sponging off” of others.

The second thing to note is that Paul chose to work with his own hands so that those who were ataktoi might imitate his example. Although it’s easy to gloss over this detail, there were several layers of complexity behind this decision. First of all, Paul’s support strategy was never static, but continued to evolve throughout his missionary travels. Second, most people in the ancient world would not have expected an apostle to work with his own hands. Third, Paul’s work eventually became a major point of contention between him and the Corinthians. We will explore the evolution of Paul’s support strategy in this section before moving to the other two points later on.

One of the first instances in which Paul receives support for his ministry occurs during his stay in Philippi, toward the early part of his European mission (often referred to as his second missionary journey). In Acts 16 :15 , Paul accepts the patronage of a woman named Lydia. After her baptism she invites Paul and his companions to reside at her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she insists, “come and stay in my household.” Recall the two kinds of structures that we explored earlier—Lydia would have had a domus . We are not sure if she was widowed or unmarried, but her household most likely accommodated several widows. In the end, the apostle and his companions obliged.

As Paul later testifies in his letter to the Philippians, his relationship with this church eventually grew into a warm friendship. In the ancient world, however, friendship was an almost contractual form of relationship. People did not just become friends by coincidence; they chose to be friends. This was not only the case in patron-client relationships, but also among equals as well. Aristotle explored this at length in his Nicomachean Ethics , and earlier we noted that Seneca viewed the giving and receiving of favors as an integral component of society. People were expected to choose their friends, and through such friendship both parties would benefit each another as equals.

Of course, such a system could be easily abused. Many philosophers would even speak of friendship in commercial terms, such as credit and debit. Paul himself draws upon this language in Phil 4 :15 , where he writes: “as you Philippians know, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only.” So they were the only church whom Paul counted as “friends” in this specific, mutually beneficial way. Yet Paul’s friendship with the Philippians extended beyond this framework of exchange. In his letter to Philemon (which also details his experience in Philippi), he begins with an unexpected greeting: “Paul, a prisoner,” as opposed to the customary “Paul, an apostle.” Evidently their friendship was not merely built on shared benefits, but on shared suffering as well.

As Paul’s missionary journey progressed, so did his means of support. We see this in Acts 16 –18 , which narrates his travels through Philippi, Thessalonica, and eventually Corinth. In Philippi he accepts the patronage of Lydia; he then moves to Thessalonica, where he chooses to work with his own hands while continuing to receive provisions from the Philippians. He continues with this strategy in Corinth, supplementing the aid from other churches with his own labor. Meanwhile, he refuses to accept support from the Corinthians in order to avoid burdening them. As we shall discover, this leads to an intense conflict wherein Paul is forced to defend the legitimacy of both his work and his apostolic ministry.

These verses offer us a clue into Paul’s missionary strategy and his countercultural perspective on work. For now, though, we will focus on Paul’s rocky relationship with the church in Corinth. Much of the bad blood between them could be pinned on two factors: first, Paul would not accept their patronage even though he continued to receive support from Philippi; second, he had chosen to work with his own hands. The Corinthian church was in the process of rejecting his apostleship on the basis of these two concerns.

Let us examine these issues more closely. In 2 Cor 11 Paul continues to accept benefactions from other churches, but resolutely refuses to receive them from the Corinthians. It’s no surprise that this chapter doesn’t get preached very often, as this is Paul at his feistiest—he’s ticked off, and it shows. Meanwhile, the Corinthians are so appalled by his refusal to accept their patronage that they go so far as to question his apostleship. Yet this is not their only criticism: apparently, they find his life of weakness to be just as objectionable. Simply put, he does not fit their image of a powerful apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must remember that Paul’s words in 2 Cor 11 :5 –11 come after his opening salvo, in which he attacks the false apostles whom the Corinthians had gladly welcomed. These were an early version of the “Judaizers” who would eventually re-emerge in his letter to the Galatians. Paul openly accuses them of being purveyors of another gospel, another Spirit, and a different Jesus. He chastises the Corinthians for receiving them and stubbornly defends himself in 2 Cor 11 :5 –11 :

Paul’s defense begins with a clear assertion of knowledge. “I do not think that I am in the least inferior to these super apostles. I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge [gnosis ]. ” Gnosis was a favorite buzzword among the Corinthians, and he plays this card right back at them: “We have made [our gnosis ] perfectly clear to you in every way.” Furthermore, he stands by his decision not to receive their patronage: “Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge?” The absurdity of their logic is underscored in verse 21 : “you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face. To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!”

The apostle then recites a long list of his weaknesses and reprises several points related to his stance on patronage. “I have worked harder,” he exclaims; “I have labored and toiled . . . and have often gone without food.” He concludes with a stinging remark: “How are you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!” You can almost taste the sarcasm. He is essentially saying, “forgive me for not accepting money from you—I surely must have wronged you in this!” Such talk reveals just how heated this topic of patronage had become.

This passage is part of a larger argument wherein Paul forbids the Corinthians from participating in their local temple feasts. The Corinthians’ counterargument is largely theological: there is only one true God, so the “gods” that idols purport to represent do not actually exist. On that count, God doesn’t care if Christians eat food that has been offered to idols, let alone if they eat it at a temple. Paul counters by reminding the Corinthians of Israel’s years in the desert. They too believed in one God, yet their idolatrous practices resulted in their bodies being “scattered in the wilderness.” Idolatry, Paul argues, is the worship of demons, and one cannot presume to be a guest at both their table and the Lord’s. This was not the first time that Paul had forbidden this practice: in 1 Cor 5 :9 he refers to a previous letter (no longer extant, unfortunately) which contained similar instructions. As 1 and 2 Corinthians attest, this was hardly a settled issue.

Why was this instruction so difficult for the Corinthians to follow? Because these feasts provided the basic structure for social gatherings in Greco-Roman culture. Today we tend to think of idolatry in a much more religious and cultic sense. What ancient pagans did, however, was to gather in temples. Each guild had its own patron deity, and members would go to these temples to sacrifice food and present it on the god’s table. They would then hold a huge feast, which was frequently accompanied by sexual immorality and temple prostitutes. In those times, people would worship their god by eating in its presence on the most important days of the year. If you were a new Christian and part of a trade guild, there was a high social cost to avoiding these feasts. Hence the Corinthians’s argument: if idols are not even real gods, why can’t we just participate and enjoy the food? Yet Paul remains firm. In his view, this could jeopardize the faith of those without the same neat theological distinctions. Many Christians had developed a strong aversion to idolatry that was deeply woven into their nervous system, and such behavior could wind up destroying those for whom Christ died.

Paul’s instruction to forgo these rights brings us back to 1 Cor 9 , where he writes: “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.” Having established his apostleship, Paul vigorously defends his right to receive the Corinthians’s support. “Don’t we have the right to food and drink? Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes?” Paul isn’t pulling any punches here—on the contrary, he masterfully exposes the irony in the Corinthians’s thinking.

It is in verse 12 , however, that we finally arrive at the crux of his argument. Immediately after proving his right to patronage, he declares that he has given it up—“But we did not use this right.” Why would Paul argue so fiercely for the right to their patronage, only to surrender it a moment later? “We put up with anything,” he explains, “rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.” This approach enables him to model the freedom of the gospel by preaching it without charge. And yet this freedom is not for his own benefit. “Though I am free and belong to no one,” he writes, “I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.”

In this passage, we have seen that Paul vigorously defends his right to the Corinthians’s support. This was necessary as they were contesting his apostleship on account of his refusal to accept their aid. Hence, Paul forcefully reasserts his right to patronage while refusing to claim its benefits. This is easy for us to miss, as most modern-day sermons point to this passage to endorse one’s right to be supported in ministry. Paul would agree, but his entire focus here is on the giving up of these rights. Why he did so will become clear below.

What a striking portrayal of apostleship! Paul sums up his experience by drawing on the imagery of an imperial victory procession marked by a massive parade. Such processions would usually culminate in Rome, where the triumphant general would be acclaimed for his conquest over a foreign people. At the tail end of the procession were the captives who were destined for execution in the Roman arena. Paul locates himself right in the company of these prisoners. He contrasts his lot with that of the Corinthians: “You are honored, we are dishonored.” Such words would not have been taken lightly in an honor/shame culture, and he paints a vivid picture of what this shame entails. “To this very hour,” he notes, “we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands.” This was a veritable catalog of shame and dishonor.

Most shameful of all, however, was the final item in his description: “We work hard with our own hands.” Unless we understand how degrading this was in Paul’s day, we will miss his point. Indeed, this practice fueled much of the Corinthians’ disdain toward him. Here was a man who claimed to be an apostle of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, yet he lived in weakness and hunger, as a battered human being. This seemed utterly incongruous with his ministry. “If you’re an apostle of the risen Christ,” they reasoned, “your ministry should be powerful, or at least respectable!” Paul’s approach, however, was modeled on Christ himself. In 1 Cor 1 –4 he recounts the shame that Christ endured at his crucifixion. In the same way, a true apostle was to share in this shame by living a cruciform life. By working with his own hands, Paul was living out this call.

To understand how countercultural this was, we can turn to ancient accounts that describe how Greco-Roman philosophers maintained their livelihoods. The most favorable option was the practice of patronage, but this carried an inherent danger—the patron could easily dictate what the philosopher could or could not say. The next best option was to accept gifts (e.g., for teaching or giving lectures). The third option was to beg. And the fourth option was—you guessed it—to work with one’s own hands. This was the lowest that one could go; it was even below begging! No philosopher would stoop to this level. To miss this is to miss the gravity of Paul’s actions: in a culture of shame, people with privilege, dignity, and honor did not work with their own hands. Yet Paul freely accepted such work as a way to walk in the path of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul’s concern in this passage is with a specific kind of love: philadelphia . We often translate this Greek word as “brotherly love,” but to do so here would miss his point entirely. The other key word in this passage is adelphos , which refers to the family, or people, of God. Paul is therefore writing about love within the community of faith —or philadelphia , in short. After initially commending the Thessalonians for their love, he switches gears and urges them to aspire toward three things. First, they are to live in quietness: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life,” he writes (quietness, in this case, refers to a disposition). Second, he says to “mind your own business”—each is to focus on their own work. And third, they are to work with their own hands.

These instructions are directed toward a specific group of Thessalonians who were refusing to work, and who had thus become a destructive element in the community. They were doing the opposite of what Paul had instructed—being “busybodies” instead of being busy. He admonishes them again in 1 Thess 5 :14 : “we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive [ataktoi ], encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.” Apparently, the ataktoi were not just avoiding work, but were also causing unnecessary trouble. Paul’s concern was with how love was being shared within the community—as far as the ataktoi were concerned, it was only going one way. While the church was called to care for those in need, this group was not in need. On the contrary, they had stopped working and were now expecting others to provide for them.

Let us briefly review our chronology up to this point. Paul accepted Lydia’s patronage in Philippi, but when he arrived in Thessalonica he chose to support himself by working with his own hands. He continued with this strategy in Corinth, and despite the significant controversy that it generated, it allowed him to speak boldly into their situation. Recall what he says in 1 Cor 14 :37 : “If anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the Spirit, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command.” Try saying that to a church that’s paying your bills!

Paul’s freedom came from working with his own hands. Although such work was heavily looked down upon, it afforded him two great advantages. First, it gave him total freedom. Only a free person could choose to be a slave to all. Second, it enabled him to model a cruciform life for the Thessalonians. If an apostle was willing to stoop to this level, then those who were in the working class—and who were thus already accustomed to this form of labor—would surely be able to follow his example.

Paul’s key concern in this passage was not with “work” per se, but with the relationships in the church. Those who refused to work were exploiting the generosity of others and disrupting the community. Paul thus commands them to work: simply put, if they wouldn’t work, they wouldn’t eat. His concern was not to increase productivity or to provide a sophisticated theology, but to urge them toward obedience. God had given them work, and hands to work with. Through this work the ataktoi could supply their own needs instead of harming the community.

Why were they refusing to work? The traditional answer—that they were expecting the imminent return of Jesus—is almost certainly wrong and should be scrapped. Frankly, there is nothing in the text that supports this. Although 1 Thessalonians speaks of the second coming, there is no evidence that the ataktoi had actually based their position around this belief. My hunch is that their attitude stemmed from a privileged (and mistaken) view of work. “As children of God,” they may have reasoned, “we are now above all menial tasks.” In a culture where the privileged were exempt from manual labor, such an approach may have had a certain appeal.

If you serve your church in some sort of paid role, then take this to heart: God has given you gifts, and you yourself are a gift to your congregation. Likewise, their support is a gift that should enable you to serve them well. The moment that we interpret this as a kind of payment, we’re in trouble. This gift is an opportunity to set your hands free so that you can do the work of the ministry. I cannot stress this enough. In fact, if a candidate who is applying for a pastoral position at my church wants to discuss their salary early on in the interview, I move on to the next applicant. Why? Because I cannot believe that a person who puts the topic of finances at the top of their list has a biblical bone in their body. They need to get saved! That is, they need to get saved in the sense of truly becoming what God has saved us for . Paul himself also urges us to recognize that everything is a gift. In 1 Cor 4 :7 he asks, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” To be clear, I am not against the idea of a pastor having a salary. What I am against is the notion that the pastor’s salary is essentially a wage, rather than a gift.

To conclude, we must remember that the entire people of God—including both the laity and the clergy—are ministers who are called to serve in all times, places, and circumstances. God has granted gifts to all of us, and each person is called to represent him in their particular sphere. His calling sanctifies the work of our hands and empowers us to serve him faithfully, with the full range of our skills and talents. As we see in Paul’s letters, the New Testament recognizes the dignity of human labor and embraces the gift of working with one’s hands. Furthermore, it invites those who serve in pastoral ministry to view the support that they receive as a gift from the community—one that frees them to shepherd their flock so that all might share in the work of bringing the gospel to the marketplace, and to the world.