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.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-18, The idle, the busybodies, and a greeting in Paul's own hand
Paul tells the church to keep away from believers who are idle and will not work, recalls how he worked night and day to set an example, lays down that anyone unwilling to work should not eat, and signs the letter in his own hand.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-18, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul tells the church to keep its distance from believers who refuse to work and live off others. He reminds them that he and his companions worked hard to support themselves while they were there, as an example, and repeats his rule that those who will not work should not be fed. Those who will not listen are to be warned as brothers, not treated as enemies, and Paul signs the letter in his own hand. Why some were idle, and whether Paul wrote the letter, are both debated.
- {"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\/sages-and-philosophers\/","n":"Philosophers and their schools","s":"Stoics, Epicureans and other schools taught a whole way of life in lecture halls and marketplaces. A traveling teacher with a message about God would be heard, and judged, as one more philosopher.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/eating-together\/","n":"Eating together","s":"Sharing a table made a bond of friendship, so who you ate with told everyone whose side you were on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/synagogue\/","n":"The synagogue","s":"The local gathering place where Jews met on the Sabbath to pray and study Scripture. It was also a community center, run by people of standing.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/letters-and-letter-carriers\/","n":"Letters, scribes and carriers","s":"Letters were usually dictated to scribes, carried by trusted travelers because there was no public post, and read aloud to the people they were sent to.","r":""}
By this period the word translated unruly usually meant idle (Keener); the ESV Study Bible gives undisciplined, and Wright pictures a dancer stepping out of line. "Despite the prosperity of Thessalonica as a whole, many people were unemployed" (the cultural backgrounds notes). Why some were idle is not agreed: Keener weighs contempt for labor, a belief that the day had come, and, more likely, Cynic habits, since "unlike Paul, Cynics begged rather than worked"; the CSB Study Bible and the Zondervan dictionary point to the day of the Lord; the ESV Study Bible notes that the letters never link idleness to the end; Wright points to the strain of family-style sharing; and Carson, Moo and Morris find Ellis's supported church workers hard to square with the rebuke. Synagogues had graded discipline, and this is the lightest form (Keener and his notes). Most writers used scribes and signed at the end, and lawyers often argued that documents were forged (Keener and his notes); Carson, Moo and Morris note that no other letter of Paul explains its autograph, which suggests unusual circumstances at Thessalonica (2:2).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 3:10, 3:11-12, 3:14-15 and 3:17-18
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 2 Thessalonians 3:6 and 3:10
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 3:6-15, 3:8-9 and 3:11
- CSB Study Bible, notes on 2 Thessalonians 3:6 and 3:7-8
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, comments on 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 14, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Relation Between 1 and 2 Thessalonians
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry Thessalonians, Letters to the
