C. Loving Others By Working With One’S Own Hands (4:9-12)
C. LOVING OTHERS BY WORKING WITH ONE’S OWN HANDS (4:9-12)
9 Now about your mutual love we492 do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10 And in fact, you do love all the brothers and sisters493 throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, dear friends, to do so more and more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your 494 hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
Paul now turns to the second item reported by Timothy to him and Silas that needs to be addressed in a corrective way. As with the preceding matter, this too was anticipated in his prayer in 3:12-13, that “the Lord will cause your love for one another to abound.” This concern is now picked up in terms of their having “been taught by God to love one another.” Although this matter is here addressed in a seemingly casual way, it is in fact one to which Paul will return specifically in the “staccato imperatives” at the end of this letter (5:14); and since the present letter apparently failed to achieve its goal, he will pick it up even more vigorously in the next letter (2 Thess 3:6-15).
But the precise nature of the problem is not at all certain, and, as with all such matters, there has been plenty of guesswork.495 Minimally, and in light of all the evidence in the two letters, we may assume that some people (men presumably) who could work for a living have for some reason chosen not to do so. They are thus (apparently) living off the largesse of others in the newly formed Christian community, householders who probably do in fact have the wherewithal to help them. Why the slackers might be doing so is simply not known, although it has been much debated.496 But Paul the tentmaker, who himself refused to burden these new believers by living off their kindness (2:9), recognizes that the ultimate matter here is not “work” per se, but the meaning of love within the newly formed people of God as a divinely created familia, not to mention his further concern that they not bring shame on the gospel in the eyes of unbelievers.
It is of interest in this instance that, much in keeping with the preceding matter, Paul does not begin by immediately taking on the slackers themselves. Rather, with what is known as a captatio benevolentiae, Paul begins with a word of praise for them all, so that he might ease into his words of correction for the small minority who need it. That he must return to this issue in a much stronger way in the next letter is evidence that it failed to work in the present case.
To be sure, some scholars have found the paragraph as a whole difficult to negotiate as dealing with a single issue, and have posited that Paul is here taking up two different issues.497 But the grammar and structure of the two sentences seem conclusively to disallow such an option. Thus Paul begins with a commendation of the majority (vv. 9-10a), in which the entire matter is put in the context of believers’ having familial love for one another. This is followed by a sentence that begins with an exhortation to do so all the more (v. 10b), before he goes on to deal directly with those who are not working so as to provide for their own sustenance (v. 11). The final reason for this corrective word is twofold: so as not to bring shame on the church before outsiders, and so that the persons involved would not “sponge” off others at this point (v. 12). Given Paul’s need to return to this issue at some length in this next letter (2 Thess 3:6-15), it seems clear that these latter two items are the real issue for Paul.
Finally, we need also to note that nowhere in this first go around does Paul call those not carrying their own weight by the name he will use later on, ataktoi (= something like “disruptive-idle”). Here he simply admonishes them within the larger context of Christian love; and if we did not have the abbreviated “admonish the ataktous” in 5:14 and his own further, much less gentle, admonition in 2 Thessalonians, we would basically be in the dark regarding the present paragraph, which in turn would lead to far more guesses than those actually made.498
9-10a This opening sentence, which begins with a “now concerning,” 499 spells out the basic concern of the paragraph without mentioning any of the details. From Paul’s perspective at issue is philadelphia (TNIV, “mutual love”), a word that was used throughout the Greco-Roman world for love between actual siblings. But in this its first appearance in the New Testament 500 it has already assumed the familial relationship that God’s newly formed people had with each other because of their common relationship to God through Christ. What is of interest is that Paul should use this word as the first thing up in what will evolve into an appeal to those who were slacking off by not working, and thus living off the benefit of others. This newly formed family relationship in Christ will thus serve as the context for Paul’s — in this case very slight — admonition to those who were living thus. Whether or not they themselves would have appealed to this new relationship in Christ as the basis for their non-activity cannot be known; what can be known is that Paul is ready to use this word as the framework for their hearing the admonition501 that follows.
Nonetheless, at issue in this opening sentence is to determine to whom it is addressed. On the one hand, there can be little question that the whole church is presently in view. Both explanatory clauses that follow are addressed to “you” (plural); and both of them are expressed as such commonplace realities that Paul feels compelled to remind them that he really does “not need to write to you” on this matter. On the other hand, when he returns to the vocative “brothers and sisters” in verse 10b to urge them do so all the more, he has narrowed the focus so considerably that one can only assume that he is singling out the disruptive-idle as the main target for the whole paragraph. Of interest from our present distance is that nothing said in the present sentence would cause the disruptive-idle to know he was even indirectly aiming at them.
The first explanatory clause as to why Paul really should not need to write is plain enough: “for you yourselves502 have been taught by God to love one another.” Nor does anything said here prepare us in the slightest for the concluding sentence, where he spells out what this opening sentence is all about. In getting there he uses an otherwise unknown adjective, “God-taught.” 503 Whether Paul is alluding to Isaiah 54:13 is possible, but moot.504 What is surprising at this point is his appeal to being taught by God the Father rather than either by Christ the Son or through human mediation. Most likely this is an indirect appeal to the assumed knowledge of Scripture on their part that Paul displays throughout these two letters,505 so that he has here appropriated the second of the “great commandments” as given by Jesus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (reflecting Lev 19:18).506 His point, then, is not that this is teaching peculiar to followers of Christ; rather, it is what would have been known by any of those who came to faith from the context of the synagogue, Jew or Gentile alike. Thus in the end the emphasis on their loving “each other” lies not so much on their need to do so, but on the way they should do so.507 It should be further noted that “love” in this instance is not going to be described in the broader way that Paul does elsewhere (e.g., 1 Corinthians 13); here, rather, the emphasis will be on what love for others will not allow a person to do.
In this context Paul is also about to place the disruptive-idle within the context of the larger community of faith. So not only are they “taught by God” to love one another, but this is in fact what most of the community is already doing. After all, none of this affirmation would have been necessary had not some among them not been living within this frame of reference. The surprising element in the sentence, if not the whole paragraph, is his reminder of the broad nature of their current love — “for all the brothers and sisters in the whole of Macedonia.” One can only wonder as to how such love had found expression, since the “whole of Macedonia” at this time reached as far east as Philippi in the Macedonian plain and as far west as the Adriatic Sea, and thus included Berea in the middle. One need not speculate about what cannot be known, but it can be pointed out that in comparison to the other Macedonian towns where there were known believers, Thessalonica itself was a thriving metropolis by ancient standards. Thus work options were probably much greater there than was true in other places, including the fact that it was a center to which others might have had occasion to visit. And in any case, it was an ongoing concern of Paul’s that his communities be aware of each other.
In sum, Paul’s point is simple. These believers had already been taught by God to love one another, which instruction had found obvious expression both among them and beyond themselves. It is into this context that Paul now turns to address the abuse of this love on the part of a very small minority.
10b-11a Still keeping within the framework of the opening captatio benevolentiae, Paul begins the final sentence in this brief word of admonition by simply urging them to keep up the good work, as it were. Picking up the verb “we urge you” from verse 1, and with yet another vocative, “brothers and sisters,”508 he now calls on them to abound all the more509 in what they already are doing. But given all that has been said to this point, one is not quite prepared for the exhortation that follows. At the same time, what is said next as the main part of the present sentence indicates that everything has been heading here right along. At issue is not an admonition to the whole community to do more of what they are already doing, but to some within the community who are not doing so at all. Indeed, they are doing the exact opposite, and in so doing they are taking advantage of the love of the rest.
Thus Paul eases into this word of admonition in a most remarkable way, as though he knows that he needs to say it but is somewhat hesitant at the same time. Both the verb he uses here and the gradual succession of verbs in the admonition itself tell the story. He therefore begins with the imperative510 “make it your ambition,” in the sense that they “consider it the honorable thing to do.” But now, in keeping with the nature of the way the whole admonition began, he uses a series of verbs that have the effect of “sneaking up on” those who need to hear it, which the TNIV has tried to show by placing a colon after the first one, whose concern is then spelled out in the next two.
Thus with a splendid oxymoron511 Paul urges that they “have ambition to lead a quiet life.” This latter verb, however, is especially difficult to put into English in a way that does not mislead, since the adjective “quiet” usually carries the connotation either of “not speaking” or of “being restful.” But Paul’s present concern is with their relationship to others, in the sense of not intruding on their lives by becoming something of a burden to them. Thus “quiet” in this case has to do with some of them not being disruptive regarding the lives of others, which is made clear by the two elaborations that follow.
First, they are to “mind your own business,” which in one sense is as nicely idiomatic in English as in the Greek, which is often put “mind your own affairs” (NRSV, ESV). But as with many such idioms, outside of the immediate context “mind your own business” is a much more pejorative idiom in English than Paul’s own Greek intended.512 His intent is that they “busy themselves with their own work” so that they will not need to be dependent on others for sustenance. Thus, second, they are to “work with your hands,”513 which on the basis of the preceding clause means “with your own hands so as to be about your own work, and thus provide for your own needs.”514 By so doing they will no longer need to be supported by others in the believing community. And all of this, he concludes, is “just as we told you,” which is a bit too weak in English for Paul’s own “we instructed/directed you” — the verb of the cognate noun in verse 2 (“what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus”). This verb thus serves to form a kind of inclusio with verses 1 and 2 that have as an end result the tying together of the two matters in verses 3-12.
12 The final clause in this now long sentence, which is the primary way of expressing purpose in Greek, offers in this case what is at once both purpose and result; and since “result” is the main thrust of the clause, it is the primary focus of the majority of English translations. The result is twofold, which only at the end speaks directly to the implied issue of the preceding clause (v. 11), that the burden of caring for them will no longer be borne by others.
Picking up the Old Testament idiom of “walking in the ways of the Lord,” Paul puts a missional concern as the first thing up in terms of how they “walk,” meaning how they live their “daily life” in a way that is “fitting” as believers. Becoming followers of Christ does not mean they can live in a way that is utterly inappropriate as far as “outsiders” are concerned. The latter will have reasons enough in light of their own worldview to think that the believing community is off kilter regarding standards of behavior — including the matter of sexual purity just dealt with (vv. 3-8) — so the Thessalonian believers do not need an issue as completely unnecessary as this for them to look foolish in the eyes of their Thessalonian neighbors.
But in many ways, this first reason given for the present exhortation is ultimately the lesser one; the real issue, as the whole passage has made clear, has to do with relationships within the believing community itself. Thus he concludes in a way that puts the burden on the disruptive-idle, but focuses primarily on the one being “burdened” by them: “so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” At least that is how the majority of interpreters have understood the pronoun, including the entry in the Bauer-Danker lexicon; but the pronoun could also be neuter, and was so understood by the translators of the Revised English Bible (= “and at the same time never be in want”). The context in this case, including the careful way Paul has structured the whole argument, seems overwhelmingly to favor the majority here. At issue is not the “needs” of the slackers theselves, but their quite unnecessary imposition on the generosity of others.
Here is a passage which poses any number of difficulties for believers in the more affluent Western world. On the one hand, the idea of “private lives” is a more basic value in our cultures than was true in Paul’s and the Thessalonians’. Thus if someone is not holding up their end, as it were, or is living off the largesse of others who can easily afford it, many people in a given congregation might not know anything about it. On the other hand, for any number of reasons, and not all of them attributed to indigence, many people in Christian congregations find themselves “living on the edge,” as it were, and need the frequent help of others. But the point of the present passage has less to do with the details of such circumstances and altogether with one’s attitude toward work and its availability, on the one hand, and one’s ability, on the other. The task of the church in these circumstances might be to help people find work; and, whatever else, to make sure that they are cared for until they do.