2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Commentary

“Doing what is good [kalopoiountes*]” (13) can be very hard work. It can be “tiring” [enkakesete]. Doing good can, in fact, be downright exhausting. Especially when the Scriptures appear to summon Jesus’ friends to do things those Scriptures call “good” but seem to us to be at least somewhat harmful. Preachers prompted by the Holy Spirit might draw that conclusion from at least part of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson.

2 Thessalonians 3 may, in fact, simply offer preachers not just an opportunity to exegete this important passage. It may also, guided by the Spirit’s promptings, offer us a chance to help our hearers to think about properly handling Scripture passages that seem difficult to both understand and live by.

Of course, much of what Paul writes in to his brothers and sisters in Christ in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson seems fairly clear and wise. We might even call it conventional wisdom. “You yourselves know how you ought to follow our example [mimeisthai],” he tells them in verse 7. This is yet another example of Paul’s expressed willingness to urge his readers to imitate him. The Message paraphrases his admonition as “We showed you how to pull your weight when we were with you, so get on with it.”

In this case the apostle recalls how his co-workers and he refused to “mooch” off their Thessalonian hosts while they were with them. In verses 7b and following he reminds Thessalonica’s Christians of how “We were not idle [ektatesemen] when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it [dorean]. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you [epibaresai].”

It’s a startling picture of apostles who so deeply wished not to freeload off their Thessalonian friends in Christ that they held multiple jobs while they lived with them. They didn’t just proclaim the gospel. The apostles also held down what we might think of as second jobs to pay for their own room and board.

Paul goes on to explain why his co-workers and he did this. “We did this,” he writes in verses 9-10, “not because we did not have the right [exousian] to such help, but in order to offer [domen] ourselves as a model [typon] for you to imitate [mimeisthai]. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule [parengellomen]: ‘The one who is unwilling to work [ou thelei ergazesthai] shall not eat’.”

The combination of the Middle Eastern expectation of hospitality and the apostle’s exousian (“right” or perhaps more literally “authority”) would have made it reasonable for the apostles to expect their hosts to fully provide for them. But in order to model for the Thessalonian Christians the importance of working hard, they “paid their own way.”

The Message paraphrases the apostles’ assertions as, “We worked our fingers to the bone, up half the night moonlighting so you wouldn’t be burdened with taking care of us. And it wasn’t because we didn’t have a right to your support; we did. We simply wanted to provide an example of diligence, hoping it would be contagious.”

This seems like a particularly important message in the light of what may be some of Jesus’ Thessalonian friends’ failure to work as hard as they should. In verses 11ff. the apostles mourn how “We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive [ataktos]. They are not busy [meden ergazomenous]; they are busybodies [periergazomenous].”

This evocative language includes two words (ataktos and periergazomenous) that are unique to 2 Thessalonians 3. It expresses the apostles’ grief that some Thessalonians who claimed to be Jesus’ followers weren’t “pulling their weight.” They only parodied hard work.

Their laziness wasn’t, however, just an economic and perhaps emotional drain on their community. It was also highly disruptive. The adjective periergazomenous even at least suggests they weren’t sitting around doing nothing. Thessalonians who claimed to be Jesus’ friends were walking around doing nothing and, as a result, stirring up trouble.

So we’re not surprised that Paul scolds those slackers. “Such people” the apostles “command [parengellomen] and urge [parakaloumen] in the Lord” in verse 12 to “settle down [hesychias] and earn the food they eat.” In offering that summons to people to buckle down and get to work, Paul doesn’t just offer his own admonition. He also adds Christ’s authority (“in the Lord”).

“As for you, brothers and sisters,” Paul concludes in verse 13, “never tire [me enkakesete] of doing what is good [kalopoiountes].” “Friends,” The Message paraphrases the apostle as concluding here, “Don’t slack off in doing your duty.” This echoes Paul’s admonition to Galatia’s Christians to “not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (6:9).

But how does this “doing good” fit into the apostle’s command in verse 1? “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he asserts there, “we command [parengellomen] you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from [stellesthai] every believer who is idle and disruptive [ataktos] and does not live according to the teaching [paradosin] you received from us.”

One difficulty lies in the concept of stellesthai (“keeping away from”) those who refused to provide for themselves by working. Most English translations (including the NRSV and NIV) as well as Scriptural paraphrases like The Message interpret Paul as warning Thessalonica’s Christians to have nothing to do with people who are too lazy to work.

But since in other places the apostles summon Jesus’ friends to come alongside people who are struggling, this seems like a puzzling admonition. So how might preachers who listen for the Spirit’s promptings help our hearers to think about this and similarly mysterious assertions?

We might begin by reminding Jesus’ friends that there’s a gaping chasm between not just ancient and modern cultures, but also between New Testament Greek and modern English. So we want to be very careful in our interpretive work. Preachers might invite our hearers to avail themselves of the excellent scholarship on the Koine Greek language.

We might even note that Greek-English interlinears like Bible Hub offer “to repress” as an interpretation of stellesthai. In that case the apostles might be inviting Thessalonica’s Christians not to avoid, but rather to either downplay slackers’ influence or even discourage their idleness.

Preachers might also note that even a more common understanding of verse 6 reflects the insidious nature of sin. In calling their Thessalonian brothers and sisters in Christ to avoid idle and disruptive people, they’re reminding their readers that sin can be spiritually “contagious.” The apostle is reminding Jesus’ followers that those who spend much time around willfully disobedient people must be very careful to do everything we can to protect our own faithfulness to God and the Scriptures.

Preachers might, what’s more, take this opportunity to remind our hearers that the Scriptures are always contextual. The Spirit inspired their readers to write them in a very specific time and place. So we might wonder with our hearers if the Thessalonian’s “young” Christian faith might have made them especially susceptible to adopting their neighbors’ lazy and disruptive ways.

Preachers might also, on top of all that, note Jesus’ friends have sometimes misapplied verse 6’s admonition. Ignoring factors that make it hard for some people to hold down “steady” jobs, we’ve roundly criticized and sometimes ostracized them. Christians can confess that the Church has from time to time avoided and condemned rather than come alongside people we’ve labelled as simply lazy.

Perhaps more than anything, however, Jesus’ followers might see this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson as a reminder that part of our daily worship of the Lord includes being diligent and faithful in whatever God calls us to. God’s dearly beloved people see all of our daily activities, including our work and tasks, not just as part of “doing what is good” (13), but also as part of our thankful reception of God’s amazing grace.

*I have here and elsewhere added in  brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV uses.

Illustration

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson reminds Christians that one way God provides for God’s adopted children is through the pursuit of our daily vocations. In his book, Whistling in the Dark, Frederick Buechner writes about vocation: “Jobs are what people do for a living, many of them for eight hours a day, five days a week, minus vacations, for most of their lives. It is tragic to think how few of them have their hearts in it. They work mainly for the purpose of making money enough to enjoy their moments of not working.

“If not working is the chief pleasure they have, you wonder if they wouldn’t do better just to devote themselves to that from the start. They would probably end up in breadlines or begging, but even so the chances are they would be happier than pulling down a good salary as an insurance agent or a dental technician or a cab driver and hating every minute of it.

“What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” asks the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 1:3). If he’s in it only for the money, the money is all he gains, and when he finally retires, he may well ask himself if it was worth giving most of his life for. If he’s doing it for its own sake — if he enjoys doing it and the world needs it done — it may very possibly help to gain him his own soul.”

[Note: In addition to our weekly Lectionary-based commentaries we now have a special Year A 2025 section of additional Advent and Christmas resources that we are pleased to provide.   Please check them out!]