D. Earning One's Living (4:11-12)
9 Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. io And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.
It is perhaps artificial to separate these verses from those that follow (and they certainly are closely connected). I have marked them as a special section in order to emphasize the importance of love for this apostle. It is not always realized that Paul uses the words for love more often than anyone else in the New Testament. For him it is a major part of the life of the believer (cf. 1 Cor. 13). It is thus not surprising that he devotes a section of this letter to the way the Thessalonians had responded to his teaching about love and the importance of their making still more progress. He is here mostly concerned about love within the fellowship, brotherly love.
9 Something that should give modern Christians much food for thought is the way in which the early church was characterized by love. "Behold how these Christians love one another"39 is hardly the comment that springs spontaneously to the lips of the detached observer nowadays. But if our manner of life was based on the New Testament picture, something like it would be inevitable. The characteristic Christian attitude, as we see there, is one of profound faith in God, a faith that spills out into all of life in the form of self-denying, self-giving love.
Paul has had occasion to remark on the way the Thessalonians displayed this virtue (1:3; 3:6). They showed that steadfast love to others which can come about in someone only when that person has been transformed by the power of the divine agape, and has come to see people in a measure as God sees them. But there is something more than this. When the miracle occurs in people, they find themselves in company with others of like mind and will be naturally drawn to them. Their soul will be knit to those others. Thus, in addition to agape, self-denying love toward all people, they come to practice philadelphia, love of the brothers.40 This is often insisted upon, and it has always been a hallmark of vital Christianity that love of those within the brotherhood has abounded. John, indeed, gives this as the criterion whereby one may know that one really has "passed from death to life" (1 John 3:14; cf. 3:10).
It is this that is in mind when Paul praises his friends.41 He gladly acknowledges that there is no real need for him to write on such a subject to people so well taught as they. Yet, in the spirit of verse 1, he does write. He is never satisfied. While he is mindful of their very real achievement, he yet knows that the Christian must look ever onward. So he urges them to "do so more and more" (v. 10). He makes their wellknown love for one another the basis of an appeal that they would go on to ever new heights of love. When he later wrote 2 Corinthians he praised the practical expression of their love in making a substantial gift for the poor saints in Jerusalem (2 Cor. 8:1ff.). It is this kind of thing that he has in mind here also. The passage in 2 Corinthians may indicate how well his remarks were heeded.
Paul gives as his reason that he need not write to them the fact that they were "taught by God." He uses a very uncommon word,42 one that occurs here only in the New Testament (though a very similar expression is found in John 6:45). We also read of being taught of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:13). This is relevant to our present passage because Paul has just been speaking of the Holy Spirit given "into" the Thessalonians. So his thought is that God within them shows them the right way.
10 Not only does God show them, but they act on what he shows them. Paul rejoices that they practice this God-taught love toward all the Christians in Macedonia 43 Some have felt that this is something in the nature of an extravagant statement, for there were Macedonian churches only in Philippi and Berea besides that at Thessalonica. But to this we must add the qualification, "of which we know." There may well have been many churches of which we have no record. Our knowledge of the details of church life in New Testament times is very meager. We know that missionaries like Silvanus, Timothy, and Luke had worked in Macedonia, and we know that the early Christian communities were evangelistically minded. Consequently there is nothing improbable in the idea that a number of groups of Christians had sprung up (cf. 1:7-8, and the notes there). However, be the number large or small, Paul's point is that his friends in Thessalonica had acted with a commendable Christian love toward them all. His use of the continuous present tense indicates their habitual attitude. That they practice such love toward the wider circle is proof of the reality of their brotherly love. As Calvin says, it is "an argument from the greater to the less; for as their love diffuses itself through the whole of Macedonia, he infers that it is not to be doubted that they love one another."
But tenderly (note the affectionate "brothers") Paul urges them to "do so more and more." Christians must never be weary in well-doing. To sit back satisfied with what one has done is to sound the death knell of effective Christian service. For the verb "urge" see on 3:2 (where it is rendered "encourage"). It fits the note of tenderness, while yet leaving no doubt as to the urgency of the course of action being recommended. "Do" is the verb we have already met in 3:12 of overflowing in love, and in 4:1 of the Christian life in general. While it here it has no object, yet it is implied that the Thessalonians should abound in love of the brothers. Since Paul goes on to speak of the importance of working with one's hands (v. 11) it is tempting to think that perhaps the undoubted love for one another that marked the Thessalonians did not always include a willingness to get one's hands dirty. But the love of which Paul writes is intensely practical. That is the quality for which he looks. He wants his friends to excel in its practice. It is interesting that three times within such a short space Paul should have thought of the Christian life in terms of abounding. It illustrates something of the exuberant quality of a right Christian faith. Far from acting as a brake on our enjoyment of life, as so many wrongly think, it opens the door to real living (cf. John 10:10).