1 Thessalonians 4:11

4:9-12 We should notice in others what is good, to their praise, that we may engage them to abound therein more and more. All who are savingly taught of God, are taught to love one another. The teaching of the Spirit exceeds the teachings of men; and men's teaching is vain and useless, unless God teach. Those remarkable for this or any other grace, need to increase therein, as well as to persevere to the end. It is very desirable to have a calm and quiet temper, and to be of a peaceable and quiet behaviour. Satan is busy to trouble us; and we have in our hearts what disposes us to be unquiet; therefore let us study to be quiet. Those who are busy-bodies, meddling in other men's matters, have little quiet in their own minds, and cause great disturbances among their neighbours. They seldom mind the other exhortation, to be diligent in their own calling, to work with their own hands. Christianity does not take us from the work and duty of our particular callings, but teaches us to be diligent therein. People often by slothfulness reduce themselves to great straits, and are liable to many wants; while such as are diligent in their own business, earn their own bread, and have great pleasure in so doing.

1 Thessalonians 4:11 . Φιλοτιμεῖσθαι ἡσυχάζειν ) that you study ( be ambitious ) to be quiet ) An Oxymoron.[15] Political ambition is ashamed to be quiet . Its opposite is περιεργάζεσθαι [ to be busybodies , opposed to, with quietness—work ], 2 Thessalonians 3:11-12 . It is therefore added here, πράσσειν τὰ ἴδια , to do your own business . There is, however, a strict propriety imparted to the word φιλοτιμεῖσθαι from 1 Thessalonians 4:12 , at the end.[16]— ἐργάζεσθαι , to labour ) It was necessary to mention this to men who had acquired a taste for heaven. Men immersed in the world labour of their own accord. The admonition increases in force at 2 Thessalonians 3:6-7 . [15] See App. The figure by which things contrary (as here ambition and quiet ) are acutely and wisely joined together. [16] i.e . “Having nothing which you need” to solicit ambitiously from others.—ED.

{7} And that ye study to be quiet, {8} and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; (7) He condemns unsettled minds, and such as are curious in matters which do not concern them. (8) He rebukes idleness and slothfulness: and whoever is given to these vices, fall into other wickedness, to the great offence of the Church.

1 Thessalonians 4:11 . φιλοτ . ἡσυχάζειν (oxymoron). The prospect of the second advent ( 1 Thessalonians 4:13 f., 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10 ) seems to have made some local enthusiasts feel that it was superfluous for them to go on working, if the world was to be broken up immediately. This feverish symptom occupies Paul more in the diagnosis of his second letter, but it may have been present to his mind here. For instances of this common phase in unbalanced minds compare the story of Hippolytus ( Comm. Dan. , 4:19) about a Pontic bishop in the second century who misled his people by prophesying the advent within six months, and also a recent outburst of the same superstition in Tripoli ( Westminster Gazette , Nov., 1899) where “the report that the end of the world will come on November 13” produced “an amazing state of affairs. The Israelites are sending their wives to pray in the synagogues, and most workmen have ceased work. Debtors refuse to pay their debts, so that trade is almost paralysed.”— καὶ πράσσειν τὰ ἴδια . Plato uses a similar expression in his Republic , 496 D ( ἡσυχίαν ἔχων καὶ τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττων ); but of the philosopher who withdraws in despair from the lawlessness of a world which he is impotent to help (see also Thompson’s note on Gorg. , 526 c ).

Study (φιλοτιμεῖσθαι) Po. Make it your aim. Comp. Romans 15:20 (see note); 2 Corinthians 5:9. Often in Class. Lit. to be fond of honor: hence to strive for honor, to be ambitious. To be quiet (ἡσυχάζειν) Note the paradox, strive to be quiet. For similar instances see Romans 1:20, unseen things clearly seen: Romans 1:22, wise, be fooled (comp. Horace, Od. 1, 34, 2, insaniens sapientia): 2 Corinthians 8:2, poverty abounded unto riches: 2 Corinthians 7:10, repentance, not to be repented of. The disturbances rebuked in the second Epistle may have begun to show themselves, so that there is a possible allusion to the idle busybodies of 2 Thessalonians 3:11.

Verse 11. - And that ye study ; literally, that ye be ambitious. To be quiet ; to avoid unrest, to live in peace. Worldly ambition excludes quietness and prompts to restlessness; so that the apostle's admonition really is, "that ye be ambitious not to be ambitious." The unrest which disturbed the peace of the Thessalonian Church was not political, but religions; it arose from the excitement naturally occasioned by the entrance of the new feeling of Christianity among them. It would also appear that they were excited by the idea of Christ's immediate advent. This had occasioned disorders, and had caused several to neglect their ordinary business and to give themselves over to an indolent inactivity, so that Christian prudence was overborne (comp. 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12 ). Perhaps, also, the liberality of the richer members of the Church was abused and perverted, so as to promote indolence. And to do your own business ; to attend to the duties of your worldly calling, to avoid idleness. And to work with your own hands. From this it would appear that the members of the Thessalonian Church were chiefly composed of the laboring classes. As we commanded you. A precisely similar exhortation is given in the Epistle to the Ephesians: "Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good" ( Ephesians 4:28 ). 1 Thessalonians 4:11

11. study to be quiet—Greek, "make it your ambition to be quiet, and to do your own business." In direct contrast to the world's ambition, which is, "to make a great stir," and "to be busybodies" (2Th 3:11, 12). work with your own hands—The Thessalonian converts were, it thus seems, chiefly of the working classes. Their expectation of the immediate coming of Christ led some enthusiasts among them to neglect their daily work and be dependent on the bounty of others. See end of 1Th 4:12. The expectation was right in so far as that the Church should be always looking for Him; but they were wrong in making it a ground for neglecting their daily work. The evil, as it subsequently became worse, is more strongly reproved in 2Th 3:6-12.

(11) And that ye study to be quiet. —The word means more than “study;” “and that ye make it your ambition to keep quiet”—their ambition having formerly been to make a stir among the Churches. It is a strong use of the rhetorical figure called oxymoron, or combining words of contrary meaning in order to give force and point to the style. The warnings in this verse are not directed against defiance of the law of brotherly love, but against a thoroughly wrong mode of showing that love: the unquietness, meddlesomeness, desultoriness with which it was accompanied are not so much instances of unkindness to the brotherhood as scandals to the heathen. Hence the conjunction at the beginning of the verse has something of an adversative force: “We beg you to be even more abundantly liberal, and (yet) at the same time to agitate for perfect calmness about it.” It is commonly supposed (but proof is impossible) that the unsettlement arose from belief in the nearness of the Advent. Do your own business.—Not merely was each individual to do his own work, but the whole Church was to refrain from interfering ostentatiously with other Churches. In all languages, “to mind one’s own business” signifies rather the negative idea of ceasing to meddle than the positive idea of industry.

Work with your own hands.—Apparently the Thessalonians had been so busy in organising away from home that they had had no time to see to their own industry, and so (see end of next verse) were beginning to fall into difficulties. The words “with your own hands” are supposed to indicate that most of the Thessalonian Christians were of the artisan class.

And that ye study to be quiet: he exhorts to quietness, and yet to be diligent; and probably he might see this needful, either by what he himself had observed amongst them, or by what he had heard of them, as appears by what he writes in his Second Epistle, 2 Thessalonians 3:10,11 . To be quiet is to be of a peaceable temper and carriage, as the Greek word hsucazein importeth both; and stands contrary to strife, contention, division, either upon a civil or religious account. And to study to be quiet, because the thing may be difficult, especially in some circumstances of times, places, and persons. And the Greek word filotimeisyai implies an ambitious study. Quietness we should pursue with a holy ambition, as that which is honourable to ourselves and our profession, Proverbs 20:3 . The same word is used 2 Corinthians 5:9 , where it is rendered we labour, & c. Study is properly the exercise of the mind, yet it here comprehends any kind of labour. This agrees with what the apostle elsewhere exhorteth to, Hebrews 12:14 : see 1 Peter 3:11 . And to do your own business: he next commendeth to them diligence, and that in our own business; and this he prescribeth as a good way for quietness, contentions often arising from meddling in the affairs of other men which concern us not; for which he rebukes some in this church, 2 Thessalonians 3:11 . But yet only to seek our own things is a great fault, and lamented by the apostle, Philippians 2:21 .

We are to concern ourselves in the affairs of others when called to it, and not otherwise; and then we may reckon them among our own things. A Christian’s calling is either general or particular, and what falls not within the compass of one of these, is to be accounted not our own business. And our doing and suffering ought to be kept within the sphere of our calling; for to suffer otherwise, is to suffer as busybodies, which the apostle cautions against, 1 Peter 4:15 ; as a bishop intruding himself into another’s office, to which the word there alludes. And to work with your own hands; this condemneth idleness, and living out of a calling; we are not only to keep within our own sphere, but to stretch forth our hands to work. The same precept he gives to the Ephesians, Ephesians 4:28 , not to steal, but to work with their hands, that they may not only eat their own bread, 2 Thessalonians 3:12 , but have to give to him that lacketh. Not that there is no other work but that of the hands; the ministers of the gospel are excused from that, 1 Corinthians 9:6 , but not from work; there is the work of the head, and the tongue, and the foot, and the lungs, as well as of the hands; but either under one species he comprehends all, or it may be he fitteth his speech to the condition of the people to whom he writes, who generally had such occupations wherein they wrought with their hands, Thessalonica being a great place of trade.