CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
2 Thessalonians 3:10. If any would not work, neither should he eat.—“A stern, but necessary and merciful rule, the neglect of which makes charity demoralising” (Ibid.). It is parasitism which is condemned.
2 Thessalonians 3:11. Working not at all, but are busybodies.—“Not working, but working round people,” as we might represent St. Paul’s play on the words. “Their only business is to be busybodies.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12
Christianity and Work.
Christianity is the gospel of work. Its clarion-call thrills along the nerves of human life and summons the world to labour. It gives to work meaning, purpose, dignity, and exalts drudgery into a blessedness. While full of sympathy for the feeble and maimed, it has no pity for the indolent. Its Founder and first apostles were giants in labour, and their example animates the world to-day with a spirit of noblest activity. It is not the drone, but the worker, who blesses the world. “Be no longer a chaos,” writes Carlyle, “but a world, or even a worldkin. Produce! produce! were it but the pitifullest, infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it, in God’s name! ’Tis the utmost thou hast in thee; out with it, then. Up, up! whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”
I. Christianity recognises the duty of every man to work for his own support.—“For even when we were with you, this we commanded, that if any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). The necessity of food involves the necessity of work. As every one must eat, so every one must work. The wife of a certain chieftain, who had fallen upon idle habits, one day lifted the dish-cover at dinner and revealed a pair of spurs, a sign that he must ride and hunt for his next meal. It is said that in the Californian bee-pastures, on the sun-days of summer, one may readily infer the time of day from the comparative energy of bee-movements alone; drowsy and moderate in the cool of the morning, increasing in energy with the ascending sun, and at high noon thrilling and quivering in wild ecstasy, then gradually declining again to the stillness of night. Is not this a picture of our life? Work is necessary for sustenance, for health, for moral development; and rest is all the sweeter after genuine toil.
II. Christianity is intolerant of an ignoble indolence.—“For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies” (2 Thessalonians 3:11). The disorderly are the idle tatlers, who make a pretence of work by busying themselves with all kinds of things but their own duty. They are triflers, wasting their own time and other people’s; and they do serious mischief. In certain foreign parts, where insects abound in such swarms as to be a pest to the people and destructive enemies to young growing plants, an electric apparatus has been constructed to destroy the brood wholesale. The appliance consists of a strong electric light attracting the moths and insects, a suction-fan drawing them into a shaft as they approach the light, and a small mill in the shaft where the victims are ground up and mixed with flour, thus converting them into poultry-food. Cannot some genius contrive a means of putting an end—short of grinding them into chicken-food: let us be merciful, even to our enemies!—to those social pests who go buzzing about our homes and Churches, worrying with their idle gossip and stinging with their spiteful venom the innocent and inoffensive? If these busybodies would devote, in doing their duty, the energy they waste, they would be able to produce quite a respectable amount of honest work. But they find it easier to sponge on the generosity and simplicity of others. They are parasites; and all parasites are the paupers of nature. Parasitism is a crime—a breach of the law of evolution.
III. Christianity enforces the necessity of a steady and independent industry.—“We command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread” (2 Thessalonians 3:12). The apostle, having the authority of Christ for what he counsels, commands; and as a man addressing his fellow-men, he exhorts and persuades. The law of Christianity is both stern and gentle: unbending in principle, and flexible only in manifold persuasions to translate the principle into actual living practice. It rouses man from yielding to a sinful listlessness and helps him to develop a robust Christian manhood. When an Indian candidate for the ministry was asked the question, “What is original sin?” he frankly replied, “He did not know what other people’s might be, but he rather thought that his was laziness.” Idleness is the prolific source of many evils: work is at once a remedy and a safeguard. A clergyman once said, “A Christian should never plead spirituality for being a sloven; if he be but a shoe-cleaner, he should be the best in the parish.” We are honouring Christianity most when we are doing our best to observe its precepts, “Working with quietness and eating our own bread.” An American preacher once said, “You sit here and sing yourselves away to everlasting bliss; but I tell you that you are wanted a great deal more out in Illinois than you are in heaven.”
Lessons.—
1. Christianity encourages and honours honest toil.
2. Fearlessly denounces unprincipled idlers.
3. Is an inspiration to the highest kind of work.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2 Thessalonians 3:10. Industry the True Charity.—When the palace and church buildings of Caprarolo were completed, Borromeo, the great patron of idle almsgiving, came to see it, and complained that so much money had not been given to the poor instead. “I have let them have it all little by little,” said Alexandro Farnese; “but I have made them earn it by the sweat of their brow.”
2 Thessalonians 3:11. Idleness and Death.—Ælian mentions a witticism of Alcibiades when some one was vaunting to him about the contempt the Lacedæmonians had for death. “It is no wonder,” said he, “since it relieves them from the heavy burden of an idle and stupid life.”
2 Thessalonians 3:12. The Way to Value Quietness.—“How dull and quiet everything is. There isn’t a leaf stirring,” said a young sparrow perched on the bough of a willow tree. “How delicious a puff of wind would be!” “We shall have one before long,” croaked an old raven; “more than you want, I fancy.” Before many hours a tempest swept over the country, and in the morning the fields were strewn with its ravages. “What a comfort the storm is over,” said the sparrow, as he trimmed his wet feathers. “Ah!” croaked the raven, “you’ve altered your mind since last night. Take my word for it, there’s nothing like a storm to teach you to value a calm.”—G. Eliot.