Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, A quiet life and your own hands
Paul praises the church's love for the whole family of believers in Macedonia and urges them to love more, to live quietly, mind their own business and work with their hands, so that outsiders respect them and they depend on no one.
1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul says they hardly need teaching on love, since they already love believers across Macedonia, but he urges them to love even more. He also asks them to live quietly, look after their own affairs and work with their hands, so that outsiders respect them and they rely on no one. Why some were not working is debated.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/working-with-your-hands\/","n":"Manual work and the leisured class","s":"The well-to-do despised people who worked with their hands. A respectable teacher was expected to live on a patron, on fees or even on begging, so an apostle who made tents for his keep looked low class.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/patrons-and-benefactors\/","n":"Patrons, clients and benefactors","s":"Favors in the Roman world came with strings. A patron gave help and protection, the client paid it back in loyalty and public honor, and rulers who gave gifts to the public were hailed as benefactors.","r":""}
Moralists wrote on love of family, and the word here is love of brothers; Paul treats all believers as one family (Keener and his notes), and Wright and Bird take the love as practical and financial support. Keeping aloof from public life was an Epicurean ideal, though "Only members of the upper classes followed Epicureanism" (the cultural backgrounds article on philosophies); for a persecuted minority a quiet life was wise, "inconspicuous, not monastic" in Keener's words. The elite despised manual work, but it was how most people lived, and Thessalonica, though rich, had unemployed men loitering in the marketplace (Acts 17:5; Keener and his notes). Some depended on wealthier benefactors (the cultural backgrounds notes). Why some were idle is not agreed: the Zondervan dictionary says they had given up work to wait for the Lord, and Carson, Moo and Morris see the problem growing in the second letter; the ESV Study Bible suggests wrong ideas about the future or exploiting wealthier members; Wright points to the strain of the church's family-style sharing; Keener suggests the begging of Cynic philosophers.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10, 4:11 and 4:12
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 Thessalonians 4:11 and 4:12
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Ancient Philosophies (Acts 17:18)
- ESV Study Bible, Introduction to 1 Thessalonians, Purpose, Occasion, and Background, and study note on 1 Thessalonians 4:11
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, comment on 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 18, The Argument of 1 Thessalonians
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry Thessalonians, Letters to the
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 14, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Occasion
