When Paul was with the Thessalonians he explained to them that, if a man refused to work, neither should he eat (2Thessalonians 3:10). This verse has been used to say that Paul must have been talking about folks who had literally quit their jobs, and were mooching off other brethren. However, as I concluded in my two previous studies on this subject,[1] Paul could not have been speaking of financial matters. If Paul was speaking of financial matters, he does so in a non-explicit manner, because, unless finances are read into the text, Paul speaks only of “bread” and “walking disorderly” and “working not at all” – all of which could be referring to spiritual matters, and elsewhere do refer to things spiritual. Why should we believe what Paul says in 2Thessalonians 3:6-15 refers to financial matters, such as monetarily supporting folks who refuse to work, so that they become a financial burden on others etc.? Not a single word is mentioned that would clearly and explicitly point to one’s financial practices.
Paul places 2Thessalonians 3:10 in the context of these brethren becoming busybodies (2Thessalonians 3:11). In other words, some of the brethren were more interested in the spiritual lives or spiritual work of their brethren than they were in their own lives or their own service to the Lord. Elsewhere, Paul mentions that the brethren are one bread, saying: “we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1Corinthians 10:17). All brethren are partakers of one another. All have something to offer the whole community of believers. Some are inclined to teach, while others are inclined to organize, and others love to serve in other capacities (cp. 1Corinthians 12:4-12). We are the table of the Lord for one another.
In this context, the one who walked disorderly would be one who kept back his own gift in Christ by not working out his salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Instead this one became a busybody (2Thessalonians 3:11), criticizing the works of his brethren, making out like he or she knew better than they how the gifts the Spirit had given them should be expressed. In such a case the disorderly believer should not eat, meaning he should not be permitted to partake of the service of other believers. He was to be avoided (2Thessalonians 3:6), but his brethren didn’t treat him as an enemy (2Thessalonians 3:15), but they would refuse to fellowship with him in the thing in which he erred. That is, they wouldn’t partake of his “bread,” that is, what he was offering to the community as bread. When Paul spoke of bread, he wasn’t speaking of the staff of life, as is usually believed. Rather, he spoke metaphorically of the body of believers and what each offered the community for their individual and collective growth and maturity in Christ (cp. 1Corinthians 10:17).
So, in 2Thessalonians 3:12 Paul specifically addressed the brethren who were walking disorderly, telling them they needed to work quietly and eat their own bread. In other words, they were to stop meddling in the affairs or works of their brethren and work out their own salvation, which the Lord had given them (Ephesians 2:10; Philippians 2:12). In the next verse, (2Thessalonians 3:13) Paul again turned toward the whole body of believers at Thessalonica to encourage them to continue doing well in their service to the Lord and not faint, warning them, as well, to avoid participating in the error of those who walked disorderly among them. Yet, they were to treat them as brethren, not an enemies (verse-14) and thereby admonish them toward repentance.
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[1] See: Avoid the Brother Who Walks Disorderly and Paul’s Orderly Example.
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