3. Paul urges us to love one another (4:9–12)

3.    Paul urges us to love one another (4:9–12)

9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Paul moves on in this section from chastity to charity, from the control of sex to the importance of work, from the need to ‘help the weak’ to the need to ‘warn those who are idle’ (5:14).
    It seems clear that there was a group in the Thessalonian church who needed a very different kind of instruction and exhortation. They are identified in 5:14 as the ataktoi, and Paul says they are to be ‘warned’ rather than ‘helped’. In classical Greek the word ataktos was applied to an army in disarray, and to undisciplined soldiers who either broke rank instead of marching properly or were insubordinate. It then came to describe any kind of irregular or undisciplined behaviour. The AV therefore translated the word ‘unruly’ or ‘disorderly’, and for centuries people wondered what kind of rebellious group this was which was causing the apostle so much anxiety. But discoveries earlier this century of secular papyri, dating from the first century, which had been well preserved in the dry sands of Egypt, showed that the word ataktos had developed another meaning in non-literary Greek. MM gives an example from an apprenticeship contract with a weaver which a father signed for his son in AD 66. In it he undertook that if the boy played truant and missed any workdays, he would make them up. And the verb for ‘play truant’ is atakteoœ.31 The RSV and NIV therefore translate ataktos ‘idle’, although TDNT draws attention to its ‘attested breadth of meaning’ and states that outside Christianity, in relation to work, its emphasis is ‘not in the first instance … [1 & 2 Thessalonians, Page 88] on sloth but rather on an irresponsible attitude to the obligation to work’.32 Paul uses the word (as adjective, adverb or verb) four times in his letters to the Thessalonians (1 Thes. 5:14; 2 Thes. 3:6–7, 11), and here in 4:11 the same group of people are evidently referred to, although the word ataktos is not used. The context in each case makes it plain that the ataktoi had given up their work and needed to be exhorted to go back to it.
    But why had some Thessalonian Christians abandoned their jobs? What was the cause of their ataxia? Several suggestions have been made. Some think there was a scarcity of work in the city. But Paul implies that the idle are unwilling, not unable, to work (2 Thes. 3:10). Others believe that they had adopted either the Greek disdain for manual crafts or the super-spiritual idea that Christians ought to be preaching, not labouring. More recently, Dr Bruce Winter has proposed that Thessalonian ataxia was due to the social convention of patron-client relationships, whereby a wealthy patron would gather a large clientele of dependants. He points out that AD 51 was a famine year, so that many may have been on the ‘corn dole’. Paul’s purpose then was to persuade clients to work and patrons to stop acting as benefactors. Only in this way would dependence be overcome.33 Even if this background is correct, however, the traditional explanation remains cogent. It still seems probable that the ataktoi had misunderstood Paul’s teaching about the Parousia and had stopped working in the mistaken belief that it was imminent. Their idleness was due to their ‘eschatological excitement’34 or ‘Parousia hysteria’.35
    Paul frames his appeal to them in terms of brotherly love. His argument is that to work for one’s own living is a mark of love, because then we do not need to depend on the support of fellow Christians, while deliberately to give up work is a breach of love because then we become parasites on the body of Christ. Underlying this reasoning is the fact that a special kind of love binds the members of God’s family together. The word for this brotherly love is philadelphia. In [1 & 2 Thessalonians, Page 89] secular Greek and LXX it was used in relation to blood brothers and sisters, but in the New Testament it is applied to the fraternity of faith not blood.36 It is natural that those who know God as their Father should love one another as sisters and brothers in his family. So Paul writes that about brotherly love he does not need to write to them, since they themselves have been taught by God to love each other (9). And in fact, he goes on, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia (10a). In what sense were they theodidaktoi, ‘God-taught’? Of course God had taught his people in the Old Testament to love their neighbour, and Jesus had given his disciples his ‘new command’ to ‘love one another’.37 But Paul’s reference seems to be to teaching given neither by the Father in the Old Testament, nor by the Son during his public ministry, but rather by the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts. The prophets had promised that in the Messianic age all God’s people would receive the Spirit, be ‘taught by the Lord’ and know him,38 and in the New Testament it was believed that this promise had been fulfilled.39 In consequence, strictly speaking, beyond the ‘anointing from the Holy One’ (probably a reference to the Holy Spirit) no human teachers are essential.40 To love our brothers is an indispensable sign that ‘we have passed from death to life’.41 Nevertheless, although the Thessalonians did not need further instruction from Paul about brotherly love, he proceeded to give it to them all the same: Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more (10).
    From this general teaching about brotherly love, Paul goes on to the particular manifestation of it which he sees to be missing in the ataktoi, who have given up working. He evidently has them in mind when he addresses three admonitions to the whole church. The first is this: Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life (11a). This is a striking oxymoron, or contradiction of terms, which could be rendered into English ‘make it your ambition to have no ambition!’42 The idleness of the Thessalonians was apparently accompanied by a feverish [1 & 2 Thessalonians, Page 90] excitement, which Paul wanted to damp down. As their second ambition they were to mind their own business (11b). As Paul was to write in his second letter, because they were ‘not busy’ with their own business, they had become ‘busybodies’ (2 Thes. 3:11), meddling in other people’s matters. Thirdly, they were to work with their own hands, just as Paul had told them when he was with them (11c). It was the Greeks who despised manual work as degrading to free men and fit only for slaves. Christianity came into direct collision with this view. Paul the tentmaker reinforced the example of Jesus the carpenter and gave dignity to all honest human labour.43
    The apostle had two particular reasons for this threefold appeal to the Thessalonians to be quiet, non-interfering and hard-working. The first was that their daily life might win the respect of outsiders (12a),44 and the second that they might not be dependent on anybody (12b; cf. 2:9), but rather enjoy ‘an honourable independence’ (JBP). In this way Paul brings together the two communities to which all Christians belong—the world and the church, ‘outsiders’ and the Christian brotherhood. He is concerned about the Thessalonians’ relationship with both. He wants them to command the respect of unbelievers and not to be a burden on their fellow-believers.
    We have no liberty to apply Paul’s teaching about work to the unwaged who are drawing unemployment benefit or living on welfare. The contemporary problem of unemployment is both a symptom of economic recession and a traumatic personal experience. What Paul is condemning here is not unemployment as such (when people want work but cannot find it) but idleness (when work is available but people do not want it). He is emphasizing that we should be keen to earn our own living, in order to support ourselves and our family, and so not need to rely on others. True, it is an expression of love to support others who are in need; but it is also an expression of love to support ourselves, so as not to need to be supported by others.

[1 & 2 Thessalonians, Page 91]

Conclusion

In 1 Thessalonians 4:1–12 Paul has addressed himself to the two areas of sex/marriage and work. Both are creation gifts, having been instituted by God in Genesis 2. Both are still parts of everyday human experience. And Paul gives us here a Christian perspective from which to view them. Two aspects of this perspective are particularly noteworthy.

    The first is the call to unselfishness. We are to please God (1) and to love one another (9). To these fundamental simplicities the apostle reduces our ethical obligation. Christian morality is not primarily rules and regulations, but relationships. On the one hand, the more we know and love God, the more we shall want to please him. Children quickly learn what pleases or displeases their parents. Husband and wife understand each other so well that they know instinctively what to do and what to avoid. Similarly we are to develop a spiritual sensitivity towards God, through his Word and Spirit, until in every dilemma it becomes safe and practical to ask ourselves ‘Would it please him?’ On the other hand, love for others leads us to serve them. Whatever we wish others would do to us, we shall want to do to them. It is a wonderfully liberating experience when the desire to please God overtakes the desire to please ourselves, and when love for others displaces self-love. True freedom is not freedom from responsibility to God and others in order to live for ourselves, but freedom from ourselves in order to live for God and others.

    Secondly, Paul issues a call to growth. We are to please God ‘more and more’ (1), and we are to love one another ‘more and more’ (10). Christian complacency is a particularly horrid condition. We have constantly to be on our guard against vanity and apathy. In this life we never finally arrive. We only ‘press on towards the goal’.45 Our justification is indeed hapax (‘once and for all’); but our sanctification is always mallon (‘more and more’).