1 Thessalonians 4

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.

Some years back Chuck Swindoll quoted Alfred Joyce Kilmer to this effect:

Whenever I walk through Asia,

Along the harbor blue,

I go by a great big church house

With its people strong and true.

I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times,

But today I stopped for a minute

And looked at that church—

That tragic church,

The church with no love for me in it.[1]

There is a story behind that, and I wonder what it is, why it is that Kilmer felt that this particular church had no love for him in it. It is indeed, to use his word, “tragic.” Yet, it happens, does it not? Too much.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:9–12, Paul is going to paint a picture of a loving church, a good church, a healthy church. He is going to call upon the Thessalonian believers to be what they must be for the church to be the church that Jesus envisioned.

Keep loving each other more and more.

To begin, Paul calls upon the church to be marked by ever-growing love.

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

Paul says he wants to speak “concerning brotherly love.” Of “brotherly love,” Herschel Hobbs writes:

Love of the brethren (philadelphias) is a combination of philia (warm, friendly love) and adelphos(brother), the root of which is adelphus, out of the same womb.[2]

That “of the same womb” is powerful, especially as Jesus speaks of the children of God as those who have been “born again” (John 3:3). The church, then, is the community of those who have been “born again,” who have, as it were, emerged from the womb of salvation, who are now children of God. Our bond is therefore neither theoretical nor merely sociological. It is not merely that we “belong to the same club,” as it were. Rather, if you are in Christ and I am in Christ and we have both been born again, then our love is the love of the womb. We share a common Father and are co-heirs with our common brother, Jesus.

Paul further says that, actually, concerning this love, they “have no need for anyone to write to” them. Speaking of the phrase “you have no need for anyone to write to you” in verse 9, John Calvin observed that “love was engraved upon their hearts, so that there was no need of letters written on paper.”[3] They were demonstrative in their love. Their love was obvious. Once again, this is not a rebuke, it is an encouragement. In fact, their love extended not only to one another in the church of Thessalonica, but also “to all the brothers throughout Macedonia.”

This was a loving a church. Paul is telling them to grow in this “more and more.”  You might recall that Paul used the same image of “more and more” in verse 1 to speak of their growth in Jesus. N.T. Wright translates “to do this more and more” as, “But we urge you, my dear family, to make this an even more prominent part of your lives.”[4]

In saying this, Paul was simply repeating what Jesus Himself had already said in John 13.

³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Church, we must love one another and we must do so “more and more.”

Are you growing in your love of the brethren, of your brothers and sisters in Christ? Does your love have a “more and more” quality about it?

Mind your own business…unless love calls for your involvement.

Paul’s next injunction concerns a specific way that love manifests itself. It is this:

¹¹ and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs…

What does this mean? Live quietly. Mind your own affairs.

Craig Keener is likely correct when he points out the practical wisdom of this command.

In the broad sense of avoiding public controversies, however, “leading a quiet life” was wise guidance for a persecuted minority in the first-century Roman Empire…Paul asks his hearers to be inconspicuous, not monastic.[5]

But this goes deeper than merely avoiding controversy by flying under the radar. This is rather a call for a particular kind of character: a character than is not intrusive, gossipy, and meddling.

In the 4^th/5^th century, John Cassian interpreted the two admonitions of verse 11 as “Take pains to be quiet” and “Mind your own business.”[6] The two ideas go hand in hand, no? “Live quietly…mind your own affairs.” That is, do not meddle.

There is reason to think that meddlesomeness was a problem in church of Thessalonica. In 2 Thessalonians 3, for instance, Paul writes:

¹¹ For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.

Keep that “idleness” indictment in mind for the continuation of verse 11 in our text, but, for our immediate purposes, note that Paul calls out those in the church who are busybodies.

J.K. Brown defines “meddling” as “overseeing the activities of others when one has no proper right to do so” and notes that many of the ancients considered meddling “to be subversive to the fabric of society.”[7] To which we can say, “Yes, it IS subversive to the fabric of society.” Meddlesome people poke, prod, assume, gossip, agitate, and distort. They involve themselves where they are not needed. This is subversive to the fabric of the society of the church.

So, too, is being talkative, being chatty about one another. A quiet life is a life in which one concerns oneself with one’s own problems, one’s own challenges. A quiet life does not gossip. A quiet life does not speculate aloud about the lives of others. A quiet life does not whisper and insinuate.

It is interesting to see how the New Testament stresses the need for a quiet life and a quiet approach to one another.

In 1 Timothy 2, we read:

¹ First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, ² for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

In Peter 3, we read:

⁴ but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

Silence is so rare in our day, and we seldom think of it as a virtue. Ryan Holiday has written perceptively of silence:

We seem to think that silence is a sign of weakness. That being ignored is tantamount to death (and for the ego, this is true). So we talk, talk, talk as though our life depends on it.

In actuality, silence is strength—particularly early on in any journey. As the philosopher (and as it happens, a hater of newspapers and their chatter) Kierkegaard warned, “Mere gossip anticipates real talk, and to express what is still in thought weakens action by forestalling it.”

And that’s what is so insidious about talk. Anyone can talk about himself or herself. Even a child knows how to gossip and chatter. Most people are decent at hype and sales. So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep yourself out of the conversation and subsist without its validation. Silence is the respite of the confident and the strong.[8]

Would you say that you live a “quiet” life in which you do not involve yourself in the affairs of others, in the business of others? When you are invited into the gossip circuit, do you jump right in or stay out? Do you meddle? Or do you control your urge to do so?

This is love: To remain silent when speech is hurtful or unnecessary. To pray diligently for one another instead of impulsively meddling. To approach one another with wisdom and help when love demands it.

Give the world no occasion for mockery.

Paul also calls upon the believers of Thessalonica to be diligent, to work and care for themselves and one another, and to have a good reputation in the world.

¹¹ …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.

We have already seen in 2 Thessalonians 3:11 that some in the Thessalonian church were lazy and “not busy at work, but busybodies.” Paul calls upon the church to work and to seek to have a good standing with good character in the eyes of those outside the church. This, of course, does not mean compromising their devotion to Christ. To be hated for one’s devotion to Christ is one thing. To be thought lowly of because one is lazy is another. The first is an honor and, before this kind of hatred, we place ourselves in the hands of God. The second is a scandal for which we should repent.

The 17^th century Scottish reformed pastor, David Dickson writes:

Carry yourselves decently toward those, and before those, that are not in the church, and in all these duties strive among yourselves as it were for matter of honor; for this end especially besides others, that you may have no need to beg anything from the household of faith, or of those that are without.[9]

Why is this important?

¹² so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Here again, Paul uses a specific example in service of a larger point. The larger point: That the church is to behave itself so that the world has no reason other than the gospel to be offended by the church. And if the world sees the church as a community of upright people, it might just be more willing to give a hearing to the gospel!

There is a reality embedded in this that we dare not miss: The world is watching Christians and judging whether or not the church is a place of integrity and uprightness. We stand before the watching world! Do not give the world any reason for offense! We are to be concerned about the world’s salvation, and when we turn them away from Christ through our own foolishness, it shows that we are not concerned at all.

In our text, Paul is painting a picture of the church’s internal relationships and the church’s relationships, externally, with the world.

Internally, we are to love one another, live quiet lives, and not be busybodies.

Externally, we are to live lives that are industrious, productive, and attractive to the world.

The gospel is not merely, then, a set of truths (though it is that); it is a way of life. It binds the church together in the love that Jesus both models and gives. It compels us to behave in such a way that the watching world wants to know the Jesus we follow.

 

[1] Quoted in Swindoll’s The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart. Google Books citation: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Tale_of_the_Tardy_Oxcart/Mm_U1VqZ9qoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=church&pg=PT111&printsec=frontcover

[2] Hobbs, Herschel. “1–2 Thessalonians.” The Broadman Bible Commentary. Gen. Ed. Clifton J. Allen. Volume 11 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1971), p.279.

[3] Gatiss, Lee, and Bradley G. Green, ed. 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Reformation Commentary on Scripture. Gen. ed. Timothy George. New Testament XII (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1029), p.34.

[4] Wright, N.T. The Kingdom New Testament. (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2011), p.418.

[5] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. (IVP Bible Background Commentary Set) (p. 588). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[6] Gorday, Peter, ed. Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Gen. Ed. Thomas C. Oden. New Testament IX (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p.82.

[7] Couer, Greg A. “‘Prayer’ and the Public Square: 1 Timothy 2:1–7 and Christian Political Engagement.” New Testament Theology in Light of the Church’s Mission. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), p.292.

[8] Holiday, Ryan. Ego Is the Enemy. (p. 26). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[9] Gatiss, Lee, and Bradley G. Green, ed. 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, p.34.