2 Thessalonians 3:6-12: Dealing with Idlers

Well as we near the end of our series on 2 Thessalonians, we come to some really, really practical instruction from the Apostle Paul. Really practical! Painfully practical. It’s so practical, that I want to be careful here that we don’t lose sight of the gospel in the midst of teaching against idleness and idle behavior. Before we’re done, I want to talk about gospel implications with this passage. 

But first, let’s do a little thought experiment this morning. Imagine if you will the letter of 2 Thessalonians arriving to the church in Thessalonica. Of course, they wouldn’t have called that letter 2 Thessalonians. They would just have called it a letter from the Apostle Paul. “Hurrah! Hurrah! Another letter from Paul, our spiritual father.” And you can imagine that the first thing they would do would be to gather all the church into one room, possibly someone’s house (Jason’s house, let’s say), and read the letter out loud for all to hear. And you can imagine as the letter was read out loud there were varying degrees of oohs and aahs as the church listened to these profound words and instructions from Paul. And they were encouraged throughout the letter too. “Don’t give up, church. We’re praying for you. You guys pray for me. Jesus is coming back soon.” All very exciting. 

And then the reader of this letter finally comes to the last chapter. And he reads it out loud with conviction and with gravitas. And part of that audience that is listening to that letter is a group of people that Paul calls the “idlers.” And as the reader gets to 2 Thessalonians 3:6, I can imagine that part of the crowd was feeling pretty uncomfortable. And maybe around verse 10, when Paul says, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat,” they probably started sweating bullets. And that’s exactly what Paul wanted them to do. 

That’s exactly the way that Paul wanted this letter read and this tough message received by the church. And maybe, just maybe, we don’t know, those idle Christians that Paul outed in his letter repented on the spot and turned from their idleness. We don’t know; there’s no book of 3 Thessalonians to tell us. But that would be a best-case scenario for them. Otherwise, the church would have to follow through with what Paul says in verse 6, “keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness.” 

“That’s not very loving, Paul!” “That’s not very kind,” some people might say. Well in the words of James Dobson, sometimes “love must be tough.” And sometimes the kindest thing that you can do for a person who is stuck in rebellious patterns of sin is warn them and keep your distance from them, until they repent and turn away from their evil behavior.   

And here’s one of the reasons that Paul was particularly curt with this church on this issue. It’s because this isn’t the first time that he’s dealt with this. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul tells the church to “admonish the idle” (5:14). He says, “aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (4:11-12). So, this was not an isolated incident in the church. This was a pattern of behavior that 
Paul had to address head-on, twice in two separate letters! So, Paul gets tough here in 2 Thessalonians, a gentle letter for the most part, and he tells the church to get serious about dealing with idle Christians in the church. 

So, let’s get into this this morning. Our message today is entitled “Dealing with Idlers.” And I want to give you three reasons why the church should be wary about idleness. Why is idleness so destructive in the church? Why is it so serious a sin that Paul would dedicate a pretty significant amount of his letter here in 2 Thessalonians to confront it?

I’ll give you three reasons. Here’s the first. 

Why should the church not tolerate Idleness? 

1. Idleness leads to waywardness (3:6)

The well-known Puritan pastor, Richard Baxter, said once, “It is swinish and sinful not to work.” And Robert Bolton, another Puritan said, “Idleness is the rust and canker of the soul.” And this mindset was a big part of the Puritan heritage and the Protestant work ethic. Our country was founded in many respects on that Puritan work ethic. 

And even apart from Scripture, and apart from the Puritans, the danger of idleness is taught by many different cultures. The Romans used to say that “By doing nothing, men learn to do evil.” And Jewish rabbis taught, “He who does not teach his son a trade, teaches him to be a thief.” 

Even in our culture it’s quite common for us to recite the adage, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Nobody seems to know where that adage came from. It probably dates to the church fathers. But wherever it originated, it’s true! And it’s biblical. Idleness leads to sinfulness. And that’s why God wants us to work. 

Paul says in verse 6.

6 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

Yikes, that’s intense! Gordon Fee calls this the strongest language in the entire letter. What is Paul so amped up about? What is he commanding? “We command you… in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…”

that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 

If you remember from last week’s passage, Paul said in 3:4: “And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command.” That was a set-up. Paul was setting them up for the commands here in verses 6, 10, and 12. 

Paul makes a connection here between idleness and disobedience. Paul says that walking in idleness is emblematic of someone who is not walking in accord with the tradition that he passed down to the church. Remember that word “tradition”? We’ve seen that already. Paul is using this word positively, just like he did in chapter 2, verse 15. “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions [teachings] that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2:15). This is good tradition, not bad tradition. This is the teaching of Paul, the teaching of the gospel, the teaching of the Scriptures. And Paul says some people are idle, and that idleness is being lived out in a spirit of waywardness and disobedience to good tradition.

Let’s talk about this word “idle,” because this doesn’t really mean sitting around doing nothing. It means doing the wrong kinds of things. It means avoiding work. They are not busy working, Paul says later, they are busybodies. That’s an incredibly unflattering characterization. 

The Greek word here for “idle” is the word ἀτάκτως. It means literally “disordered” or “unruly.” The Greek τακτός means “ordered” or “fixed.” And ἀτάκτως is the opposite. It means disordered and chaotic and—to use a British expression—higgledy-piggledy. “Don’t be higgledy-piggledy, church,” says Paul. “Get to work and get your life in order.” 

Now here’s why idleness is such a problem for Paul. It’s not just because idleness is bad and leads to waywardness. It’s because idleness deprives a man from a good thing. It’s good for us to work. It’s good! It’s ennobling! Thomas Edison said this: “I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.” He said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Alistair Begg said once, “Laziness is not an infirmity. Laziness is a sin. [Why? Because] God made us to work.” 

Martin Luther, the great Reformer, was adamant about establishing a strong work-ethic in the church. He would lambast the church for allowing lazy and unproductive monks to receive money from the people. He wanted monks to work and earn their keep. He said once of monasteries that they were “filled with indolent, unprofitable, and idle monks, who, under the guise of holiness, live on the public alms in the greatest extravagance and voluptuousness.” And part of the problem in the sixteenth century, as Luther saw it, was the divide that was artificially created between the clergy and the laity. The clergy made it seem like their work was important, whereas the work of other people (the lowly laity) was second class. Luther hated that false dichotomy. 

William Tyndale, the English Reformer dealt with that too and said, “If we look externally, there is difference between washing dishes and preaching the Word of God, but as touching to please God, there is no difference at all.” The biblical view of work is that there’s no difference, when done to the honor of the Lord, between preaching and washing the dishes. In both cases, God wants us to work hard and to work for his glory. 

Here’s another great quote about work. The Poet, Robert Frost, said once, “The world is full of willing people: some willing to work and the rest willing to let them.” Don’t be “the rest,” Verse By Verse Fellowship. We were made to work. Work is good for us. 

Now here’s the objection. Here’s what people will say. “But Pastor Tony, work is a curse. It’s a curse! Haven’t you read Genesis 3? God cursed man and made him work by the sweat of his brow! Work is a curse, and I want to reverse that curse by not working!” 

Uh, No! Work is not a curse. You know how I know that? Because Adam worked and kept up the Garden of Eden before the Fall! Work is both a pre-Fall and post-Fall institution. And even before that, what’s the first thing that we see God doing in the Bible? He’s working! He’s creating the world! He’s taking dirt and creating Adam and then later, Eve. So, if work was a curse, why did God do it?

And this is actually something that differentiates the Bible from all other origin stories. If you remember Pandora’s box, Pandora lives in paradise and everything is great, and everything is perfect. And the gods tell Pandora, “Don’t open that box.” But, of course, she opens the box, and all the misery of this world comes out including sickness, disease, aging, and also work. So work, according to that Greek legend, is a curse. But in the Bible, God works, and he called Adam to work. It’s a good thing!

Similarly, there’s this Babylonian creation myth called Enuma Elish. And in that myth, after the gods create the world, they create human beings to serve them, because the gods don’t want to work. So they create human beings to be a bunch of slaves, so that the gods can be served. 

But that’s not why God calls us to work. He doesn’t need us to serve him. He’s perfectly self-sufficient on his own. Instead, God wanted us to share in the joy of work. In fact, work is intrinsic to human dignity and human fulfillment. There’s even evidence that we will be working and worshipping God in eternity. We see evidence of that in the book of Revelation. 

And part of your work, by the way, involves the church. Church is not just a place to be served, it’s a place to serve. Everyone should be shouldering weekly kingdom responsibilities here at VBVF. That’s because church is not just a place to come take. It’s a place to give. Church is not a place where all the work of the church is hired out or given to the truly dedicated people. We all have a vested interest in this church. We all have gifts and resources and abilities that God has given us, and it is bad stewardship to not use those assets God has given us for the betterment of the church. So, we all work for Christ here at Verse By Verse. Amen, church? 

And let me say this too. Work is good, but so is rest. Some in this room need to be encouraged to work. Some of you need to be encouraged to rest, to take a day off regularly and spend time with family! Plan a family vacation and get away for a while! God set a precedent for that in creation when he rested on the seventh day. Why did God do that? Does God need to rest? No, he did that as an example for us. “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest” (Ex 34:21). Some of you are too busy, and you need to learn how to rest. Others of you need to learn how to work and stay busy. That makes your rest more enjoyable. 

So, let’s get practical here. If you’re a stay-at-home mom in this room, as many of you are, work hard at that. That’s your job. Do it well! Do it as unto the LORD! If people try to demean you for that, tell them that you are called to that task, and you’re going to work hard at it. If you are a single mom or a mom that has to work, same thing… work hard as unto the LORD. If you are a man supporting yourself or supporting your family 9 to 5 or whatever your hours are, you go work as unto the LORD. Don’t be going to work singing, “sixteen tons what do I get another day older and deeper in debt.” Don’t be singing “Everybody’s working for the weekend!” Don’t do that. Part of your responsibility as a man is to work hard and die early and leave all of your money to your wife and kids. That’s honorable.

And let me say this too. We have some young people in the service today… some teenagers and some pre-teens. Your work right now, kids, is school and maybe some chores at home. Do that. Embrace that. Do it as unto the LORD. Start establishing habits right now that will serve you well later in life. 

Go ahead and write this down in your notes as #2. Here’s another reason why the church shouldn’t tolerate idleness. It’s because…

2. Idleness makes you a burden to others (3:7-10)

And this is one of the main reasons that Paul says, “keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness.” It’s not just to help that brother through church discipline to turn from sin. It’s also because idle people inevitably start to sponge on church resources. They are a burden to the church and to faithful people within the church. Proverbs 18:9 says, “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.” Proverbs 19:15 says, “Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.” Proverbs 6:6-11 says, “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man” (Prov 6:6-11). 

I had a person once who tried to convince me that this passage was somehow allegorical concerning Christ and the church. It probably won’t surprise you that the person who argued this way didn’t have a job, didn’t work hard, and caused problems for all of his previous employers. He was a “philosopher.” And what I have found is that philosophy is often the hobby of those who are idle. 

And here’s why Paul has such an issue with this. It’s because, within the church, who’s going to pick up the slack for that sluggard? It’s the ants! Do you remember that old Aesop’s Fable, “The Grasshopper and the Ants”? The Grasshopper comes hungry to the ants during the winter. The ants say, “Why didn’t you work through the winter?” He says, “I was busy making music and being merry.” Who’s going to take care of the grasshoppers in the church after they have idly wasted their time instead of working? The ants, right? And Paul says, don’t let the grasshoppers be a burden to the church. 

Paul says in verse 7. 

7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 

Now did Paul ever receive support from the church? Yes, he did. He says as much in other letters. Did Jesus ever receive support from people? Absolutely he did. And he worked hard ministering to people, so that was a good investment. Paul even says elsewhere that elders who teach are worthy of remuneration for their duties (1 Tim 5:17). But in this case, in Thessalonica, the problem with idleness was so bad, Paul said, “I’m not taking a salary. I’m not going to receive pay. I’m going to show you how to work. I’m going to show you even beyond my regular duties of preaching and evangelism what it looks like to make a living.” So, he labored night and day, conceivably during the day as an evangelist and at night as a tentmaker or a leatherworker. 

Why did Paul do that? He didn’t have to do that. He was worthy of remuneration by the church. He did it to set an example and… look at the end of verse 8… “that we might not be a burden to any of you.” Look at verse 9.

9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command : If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 

I remember reading about John Smith as a kid. Do y’all remember John Smith in Jamestown, 1609? Smith was having a hard time getting the settlers in the new land to work. They all wanted to go hunt for gold. And their settlement was in shambles. So, John Smith threw down the gauntlet and said, “he that will not work shall not eat.” I thought that was an amazing statement. Little did I know at the time, that saying didn’t originate with John Smith. Smith was quoting the Bible. He was quoting 2 Thessalonians 3:10. “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” 

Now God help us! Sometimes times are tough. This time last year I was pastoring in Decatur, Illinois in the middle of COVID-19 craziness. And the county where Decatur was located, Macon County, at one time, had the highest unemployment rate in the state. There was an article that came out a few years ago in USA Today that ranked Decatur #1 as the city with the worst job-loss ratio in the country. Things are little better here in San Antonio. But listen, don’t let economic difficulties or political foolishness be an excuse for idleness. If you can find work, work. And if you have a job, work hard. And represent Christ well in the workplace. The Bible says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Col 3:23-24). 

And let’s be clear too, there are times in life when work is not possible. There is! There are times when work is not possible due to disabilities or joblessness or economic turmoil (think of the Great Depression in the 1930s… people wanted to work, but weren’t able), we need to show compassion and grace and even charity to the jobless. I think that’s why Paul says this so strongly here. He says, “Get to work and don’t be a burden to the church” in order that the church might indeed help those who really need help. And that was the case in the early church. One of the first things the church did was organize deacons to help in the feeding of widows (Acts 6:1-3), because widows in that day were destitute. 

I think this is clear even by the wording of this verse. The word “willing” is very important here. 

If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

It’s not a lack of working that Paul reproaches; it’s a lack of willingness to work. Warren Wiersbe adds this statement, “Paul recognized the fact that some people could not work, perhaps because of physical handicaps or family responsibilities. This is why he phrased the statement as he did: ‘If any man is not willing to work.’ It was not a question of ability but willingness. When a believer cannot work and is in need, it is the privilege and duty of the church to help him.” 

And by the way, that’s always been the case. Christianity has always been a generous and charitable religion. Just drive around the country sometime and look at the number of parachurch ministries and hospitals that have been created in this country. Just by way of example, I was born at Aurora Presbyterian Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. My brother was born at Seton Hospital in Austin. It’s a Catholic hospital. Some of y’all were born at Methodist Hospital here in San Antonio. None of y’all were born at Atheist Memorial Hospital.

And just think about the number of homeless shelters and food pantries and benevolence ministries that were started by Christians. Those ministries aren’t typically started or run by atheists because part of the atheist worldview is Darwinian theory, “only the strong survive.” So, generosity and benevolence towards the weak is antithetical to their worldview. 

So just because Paul gets straight with some people here in 2 Thessalonians, don’t think for a minute that Christianity is a cold and calculated religion that doesn’t care for the downtrodden in society. It’s both/and not either/or. Historically speaking, Christians work hard, and they give generously. It’s part of our heritage. That goes back to the OT and the Jewish mindset and the commands to care for the widow and the fatherless and the foreigner among us. 

So be generous, Christian. But don’t be idle. Be charitable, Christian. But we should not enable those who are idle and should be working. If you want more on how to strike that balance, there’s a good book called When Helping Hurts, by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert‎. I encourage you to read that book. 

One more thing. Write this down as #3. Why should the church not tolerate Idleness? Idleness leads to waywardness. Idleness makes you a burden to others. And finally… 

3. Idleness causes meddling (3:11-12)

Remember what I said earlier about the word “idle”? It doesn’t mean inactive. The Greek ἀτάκτως doesn’t mean unbusied. It means “disordered” and “unruly.” It means, in this context, busy doing the wrong kinds of things. 

Paul says in verse 11. 

11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, 

That’s not an oxymoron there, walking in idleness. Paul says they are doing stuff. They just aren’t doing anything productive. They are… 

not busy at work, but busybodies. 

Ouch! That is an unflattering description of someone. Go back for a second to that thought experiment that we did earlier. You’re in a room full of people. You are part of the church in Thessalonica. But you aren’t working for a living. You are idle. And someone publicly reads Paul’s letter and says, “some of you are busybodies and need to get to work!” Then everyone in the room turns and looks at you. That’s like one of those Southwest Airlines commercials… “Wanna get away!” That would have been very uncomfortable for these people. Paul outs them with this letter! 

And maybe there was some good intention that led to this idleness, I don’t know. You know earlier we speculated that maybe some people thought Jesus was coming back soon. So why work? Why not just sit around and wait for his return? Maybe in their mind they justified their idleness and their sponging off other people because they felt like work was unnecessary or work (manual labor) was beneath them. Or whatever the case! Paul, right here, puts that mindset to shame with one word. You aren’t busy at work. You’re a busybody. There’s great wordplay here in the Greek. You aren’t ἐργάζομαι (working); you are περιεργάζομαι (working around working). You are pseudo-working! 

“Ouch, Paul, that hurts my feelings!” Well maybe Paul wants to hurt some feelings here. He’s trying to get their attention. And by the way, he’s not done yet. Look at verse 12. 

12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ 

There’s a little bit of good cop/bad cop right there. “We command and encourage,” says Paul. Here’s a pat on the back and a kick in the pants.

And not just that, Paul says, “We command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ!” Paul’s not messing around here! This is serious business. Paul doesn’t want the reputation of the church to be sabotaged by lazy and meddlesome Christians. 

12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly 

Now that word, “quietly,” leads me to believe that the issue of 2 Thessalonians 2 and 2 Thessalonians 3 are related. It seems as if there were some people going around saying like Chicken Little, “The end of the world is coming! The end of the world is coming!” Or as Paul says in chapter 2 some were saying Jesus has already come back. Paul says here, “Shh. Stop talking!” “Stop talking nonsense. Be quiet. And get to work.” If Paul were alive today, he just might say to some of us, “Get off Facebook. Get off Twitter. Be quiet and get to work.” 

we command and encourage [such persons] in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 

Literally “eat their own bread.” Don’t sponge off other people. Earn your own bread and eat your own bread. Because—let me summarize this passage for you—Idleness leads to waywardness. Idleness leads to burdensomeness. Idleness leads to meddlesomeness.

Now here’s a question you might be asking. Here’s something I asked myself as I was preparing this message. It’s this—what possible significance could this have for the gospel? Idleness leads to waywardness. Idleness makes you a burden to others. Idleness causes meddling. “How does this relate to the gospel, Pastor Tony?” “What does that have to do with Christ dying for our sins?” “Why is Paul so hot and bothered about this, when he just said a few verses before this in 2 Thessalonians 2:13: “But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ”?

I thought about that recently. I wanted to answer that question before I preached this morning. And here’s the conclusion I came to. I want you to hear this. Paul says very clearly in another passage of Scripture that we, as Christians, are not our own. Why? Why are we not our own? Because “[we] were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” That’s 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. 

Now the immediate context of that passage is sexual sin. Paul says, you can’t sin sexually anymore, because your body belongs to the Lord. And rhetorically we might ask, “Why does it belong to the Lord?” The answer is because Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. You are saved. You are redeemed. You have been given eternal life. 

But that’s not all! That’s not the end of the matter. You were bought with a price. And you weren’t bought by Christ to live a life of sin and wickedness. You were bought by him to become, as Paul says elsewhere, “slaves to righteousness” (Rom 6:15-23). And that’s not a sad or depressing thing. It’s a glorious thing. We actually can be righteous now in ways that we couldn’t be righteous before we came to Christ. We actually can defeat patterns of sin now in ways that we couldn’t before we had the Holy Spirit living inside us. We can actually put to death the deeds of the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, enmity, strife, drunkenness, greediness, covetousness, bitterness, and even idleness now. 

You’ve been bought with a price, Christian. You are a child of God, Christian. We’ve been adopted as children of God. And God wants us to look more and behave more like our daddy in heaven. And this is part of the gospel. And this is good. 

So, Paul isn’t telling the Thessalonians to stop being idle in order to be saved. That would be a perversion of the gospel. Paul is saying to them, as brothers, “brothers, you are children of God. And God is a worker. So, get to work. And don’t be idle.” And God is telling Verse By Verse Fellowship through this passage on August 21, 2022, “Verse By Verse Fellowship, you are the children of God. People are watching. You represent King Jesus. You represent your Father in Heaven. So, get to work. And don’t be idle. Don’t be idle!” Let’s bow in a word of prayer together.