2 Thessalonians 3: The Idle Are Warned, Then Called Brothers

The verse people take from this chapter is the tenth one, and I don't think it should carry the chapter. It gets pulled out in welfare discussions and lessons on self-reliance as a one-line rule, and in my experience it's usually pointed at somebody who isn't in the room. Read alone it sounds like policy, and the chapter around it doesn't read like policy at all.

I went through all eighteen verses again this morning in order, and what follows is the part I'd keep.

What does 2 Thessalonians 3:10 actually say?

Here it is.

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

2 Thessalonians 3:10

"Even when we were with you" tells us the Thessalonians heard this in person, maybe more than once, and that the letter is a reminder and not a new rule. Then there's the verb, "if any would not work." The verse is about someone able who has decided against it, and nothing in the chapter speaks to the person who is sick or old or laid off or home with a baby and a dying parent. Anyone who stretches verse 10 over those people is adding to what Paul wrote.

Paul had already written to the same people, at 1 Thessalonians 5:14, "warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men." Unruly people get a warning and weak people get support, in one list from one author, and he doesn't mix the two groups up. We shouldn't either.

Verse 11 is a report, and he says so: "For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies." He heard it. He wasn't in the room. The whole chapter answers news that reached him secondhand, and the answer is an instruction to the congregation, with no ruling on any named person.

Paul worked night and day, and says he didn't have to

Verses 7 through 9 usually get skipped on the way to verse 10, and they're the reason verse 10 has any weight.

Neither 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:

Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us.

2 Thessalonians 3:8-9

In verse 9 Paul is saying he had the standing to be fed, and he doesn't claim to be poor or to have been forced into anything. He could have eaten at their table on the strength of his calling. He paid his own way so they would have someone to copy.

He never names the trade, though Acts 18:3 says that in Corinth he worked with Aquila and Priscilla because "by their occupation they were tentmakers," and people sometimes carry that back to Thessalonica. In this chapter we only have "labour and travail night and day," which he repeats in 1 Thessalonians 2:9 as something the Thessalonians had watched. I'd leave the trade out of it.

What I keep noticing is the order. He reminds them how they ought to follow him (v7), then says where his hours went (v8), and only after that gives the rule in verse 10. By the time it arrives it's something he was already doing in front of them.

Who are the busybodies in verse 11?

"Working not at all, but are busybodies" sets two things side by side as if they go together, and I think they do. Commentators generally read the word as someone busy with other people's business, and a person with no task in front of them watches the neighbors very closely, and I've seen it on our street, and the retired ones aren't the only ones who do it. Verse 12 gives the remedy: "that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread."

Some have suggested the idleness grew out of expecting the Lord's return any day. Paul does mention "the patient waiting for Christ" in verse 5, a few lines before any of this, so the guess has something to stand on, but it's a guess from outside the text.

I'd rather point at who he's talking to, since verse 12 speaks to the idle directly: "them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ." He doesn't only hand the problem to everyone else. The letter would be read aloud to a room that included the people it was about, and he addresses them as though they're sitting there.

What does it mean to withdraw from a brother in verse 6?

Verse 6 is the hard one, a command given in the name of Jesus Christ with nothing around it to cushion it.

Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.

2 Thessalonians 3:6

"Disorderly" is the word in verses 6, 7 and 11, and in verse 7 it's Paul saying he wasn't. The problem is a way of walking, a pattern of life, and Paul's own example is a way of walking too. "Withdraw" is about not sharing in the pattern. I don't read it as a procedure and I wouldn't try to make it one. The text has no council and no vote in it. It describes distance, and it gives a reason for the distance.

Verse 14 gives the reason and verse 15 puts a limit on it:

And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.

Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

2 Thessalonians 3:14-15

"That he may be ashamed" is the stated goal, which means the man coming to see it himself. Then comes the sentence I think matters most in the chapter: "count him not as an enemy." Paul has just told them to keep their distance, and he shuts the door on the very thing a congregation tends to do next, which is decide the person is no longer one of them. He's a brother being admonished.

Between the two, in verse 13, is a line that could be about either side: "But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing." It might be encouragement for the faithful who've been working all along and watching others coast. It might be a limit on how much they're asked to carry. I lean toward the first, but that's my reading and the verse doesn't settle it.

The chapter starts and ends with people who aren't the problem

Ten of the eighteen verses are the hard part, 6 through 15, and they're wrapped in something warmer on both sides.

Paul asks them to pray "that the word of the Lord may have free course" and that he be delivered "from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith." He says "the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil," and that he's confident they "both do and will do" what he commands. By verse 4 he has already said he trusts them.

The blessing at the end is the part I'd want read to me if I were the brother in question. "Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all." And the last verse: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." That "all" is the same group that was told to keep its distance, and it takes in the brother from verse 15.

It wasn't new to this congregation either. In 1 Thessalonians 4 he tells them to "study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you," and the "we commanded" there is the same one as here. The instruction had been given at least twice before this chapter, which makes verse 10 sound less like a crackdown and more like a man saying it a third time.

In verse 17 Paul takes the pen himself: "The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write." Whoever held it for the rest, the last thing the Thessalonians saw was a hand they recognized.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does 2 Thessalonians 3:10 mean people who can't work shouldn't eat?

No, and I'd push back on anyone who says it does. The verse says "if any would not work," which is about refusal. In the first letter Paul tells the same people to "support the weak," and those are different people from the ones in this chapter.

Was Paul a tentmaker in Thessalonica?

The chapter doesn't say. Acts 18:3 has him making tents in Corinth with Aquila and Priscilla. In Thessalonica we only have "labour and travail night and day," so I wouldn't name the trade.

Does "withdraw yourselves" in verse 6 mean excommunication?

The text doesn't give you that, as far as I can see, since it describes keeping distance from someone walking disorderly, so that he'll be ashamed, and then it says to treat him as a brother. A formal Church process is a separate subject with its own handbook, and that's where I'd go for it.

Who were the busybodies?

Paul calls them people "working not at all" who are busy with other things, and that's all he says. Connecting them to expecting the Lord's return soon is a guess commentators make, and the chapter doesn't make it.

The light in the upstairs hallway has been flickering since Thursday. I finally changed the bulb tonight, and it was the bulb.

— D.