Main news for 3 December 2018

King James Version (en)

2 Thessalonians, Chapter 3, verses 7-8

⁶ giveth them diverse precepts, especially to shun idleness and ill company

⁷For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you;

⁸Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you:

NOTES

When Paul mentions in his letter to the church in Thessalonica that he and his companions earned their living by their own labour while carrying out their mission there, the apostle first of all wishes to recall certain moral standards. Indeed, why should a church community feed people whom...

Custom required hospitality for three days. Anyone could ask for lodging during that time without even explaining in detail who he was, where he came from, where he was going or why he had set out on his journey. But if a guest wished to stay longer, he could do so only with his host's consent. Anyone planning to remain on a mission for a long time had at least to give advance notice of his arrival, or, better still, arrange his stay in the city with the community or with the particular people with whom and at whose expense he intended to live. Yet there was a great temptation, under cover of talk about God's work, to take advantage of the not entirely voluntary hospitality of one's hosts, offered out of respect not so much for the guests as for the One in whose name they spoke.

But that was not the only point. This is also about simple responsibility, responsibility for God's work. And that is already a spiritual question, just like any question of responsibility or irresponsibility. This is simply because no spirituality is possible without a responsible attitude towards one's own life. The conviction that a local church community or one of its members is obliged to help you carry out the mission entrusted to you by God is an example of irresponsibility, and quite a striking one. Indeed, whether a task is entrusted by God or by a human being, the person responsible for it is that person alone to whom it was entrusted, and no one else.

One can count on help only if that same task has been entrusted not only to oneself, but also to someone else. If nothing of the kind has happened, one cannot count on anyone's help. It will, of course, be wonderful if voluntary helpers appear. But one cannot demand their appearance from either God or other people. And if there are no voluntary helpers, it means one must do one's work oneself, alone if necessary, provided, of course, that one is certain it has truly been entrusted by God.

Speaking of the need for everyone to work and earn his bread by his own labor, Paul, as one can see, precisely...

Speaking of the need for everyone to work and earn his bread by his own labor, Paul, as one can see, connects following the "tradition" that he and his co-workers left to the Thessalonian church precisely with such a way of life (vv. 6-10). Mentioning certain brothers who do nothing but, in Paul's own definition, "busy themselves," he advises keeping away from them, not in order to treat them as enemies, but, as one can see, in order not to take part in the fuss that brings no benefit to anyone (vv. 11-15). The context of the letter as a whole allows us to suppose that the brothers mentioned by the apostle were busying themselves not only because of the disorderliness of their own character, but also, perhaps, because they were waiting too tensely for the day of the Savior's return.

Such tense, perhaps even feverish expectation could not fail to produce in the church community a distinctive "eschatological" excitement, so familiar to many churches in many different ages. Apparently Paul was a resolute opponent of the spread of this kind of attitude in the churches. And the point here, clearly, is not only that they did not help normal and full spiritual life at all, but on the contrary only hindered it, as all fuss hinders it. The point is above all that they distracted Christians from the main task: sanctification and witness, without which the spread of the Kingdom is impossible. Indeed, the whole meaning of Paul's letter to the Thessalonian church comes down to the fact that the Savior's return is inseparable from the becoming and revealing of the Kingdom in the world, that this return itself is possible only as the completion of the process of the transformation of creation, a process determined above all by the activity of the witnesses of the Kingdom. Meanwhile, feverish expectation of the Second Coming in the apostle's time, as in all other times, as one can see, was accompanied by anything except witness to the Kingdom. There is nothing surprising in this: after all, such an overly emotional expectation means first of all that for those waiting, the Kingdom is still ahead. For them, the history of the Kingdom has not yet begun; it will begin only on the day of the Second Coming, which in essence will turn out for them not to be the second but the first, because the first, to which the evangelists testify, changed nothing for them and had no effect on their lives.

For Christians living a normal, full spiritual life, the Kingdom is already a reality, although it has not yet revealed itself in all its fullness. For those feverishly awaiting the Second Coming, it is only an exciting premonition that stirs the mind and heart, which of course has very little in common with the life of the Kingdom. And Paul advises the faithful to keep away from the busy brothers not because he hates or despises them, but because the faithful taking part in such fuss will benefit neither those who are busy nor the faithful themselves. It will not bring the former closer to the Kingdom, and it can only move the latter farther from it. One can be joined to the Kingdom only by ceasing to fuss and beginning to live, which is what Paul calls all his Thessalonian brothers to do.

Continuing his discussion of Tradition (‘traditions’), Paul evidently connects it not so much with particular texts, teachings and concepts as with a way of life and...

Continuing his discussion of Tradition (‘traditions’), Paul evidently connects it not so much with particular texts, teachings and concepts as with a way of life and relationships between people. We could say that, for the apostle, Tradition is a practiced way of living the Church's life. Paul is not, of course, being original here; he is continuing a much older Tradition. In Yahwism, and later in Judaism, the very concept of wisdom and its associated Tradition was practical rather than theoretical.

It concerned the experience of righteousness, the practice of righteous living—not in a monastery or a hermit's cave, but in a town or village, in one's own home and among one's family. And, of course, within the community too: the synagogue had become an integral part of everyday Jewish life by the Second Temple period, perhaps even earlier, during the Babylonian captivity. It is this experience of righteousness that Paul applies to the realities of Church life in his day. His letter might seem to deal with matters of little importance: some sort of fuss and the disorder, the ‘unruliness’, it introduces into the community's life.

He is clearly not speaking of a violation of established rules or hierarchy, but of disorderly behaviour that in itself makes any meaningful, purposeful activity impossible. Such feverish and senseless outward activity is usually linked to the absence of a spiritual centre, without which normal communion with God is impossible, as is any reasonably consistent activity.

It is no accident that in such cases Paul recommends what we might now call work therapy. The need to work systematically, even simply to earn a living, forces a person at least to try to put their life in order, whether they wish to or not. The impossibility of doing so, which soon becomes apparent, may open their eyes to their own spiritual condition as it really is, rather than as they had imagined it until then.

If someone cannot concentrate on regular daily work that is clear to them and always before their eyes, still less will they be able to concentrate enough, for example, to work consciously with their own intentions. Without that, neither focused prayer nor the practice of the inward Torah nor a full spiritual life at all is possible. These are the things Paul speaks about in his letter to the Christians of Thessalonica: clear enough to him, but perhaps not clear to its recipients.

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