2 Thessalonians 3:11-12 English Standard Version

11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.[a]

Footnote [a] Greek to eat their own bread

Reading the footnote here helps us put this into spiritual context and not our worldly occupations. We were speaking about walking with the Lord and we can do that while we do worldly work as well as doing spiritual work. 

The idea here is that we walk with Christ and He is at work all around us wherever we go. It is an invitation from Him to join in that work when we can see what He is doing. This invitation is a spiritual invitation, not a secular one. The reason that the Greek term “to eat their own bread” is in reference to communion with the basic meaning of together with Christ.

Partaking of Christ in this manner is doing the will of the Father together with Christ. If we reach out to touch the lives of another without Christ, we become busybodies and we are not doing the will of the Father.

There is a hint here in Paul’s writing. Work quietly implies humility, to submit to Christ in what He is doing and not stepping forward to be seen as more than what we are in Christ.

The scripture above is just one of many instructions that reach out to us when we become busybodies. We will have our consciences pricked when we can see our behavior in the scriptures. That is an opportunity to confess and set our minds on serving Christ rather than self.

This is not to say any of my readers are guilty of such actions. This is not an accusation. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to prick our consciences, not mine.

Awareness of what Christ is doing around us is required and that awareness can only be discovered by having a close personal relationship with Christ.

Ecclesiastes 1:13 English Standard Version (ESV) And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.

It was King Solomon’s wish that he should be granted wisdom to rule his people. God honored Solomon’s request by granting him more wisdom than any human could possibly attain on their own.

Solomon’s Israel was elevated to the highest level of human achievements in history if we were to study them with the right focus on treaties, trade, and common good for everyone. No king ever achieved such lofty goals since.

Yet when it came down to discovering everything under the sun by wisdom it made Solomon unhappy. Wisdom does not achieve happiness.

If we were to take a survey of what people do to achieve happiness, we would discover a wide range of activities and attitudes about happiness. In the general sense happiness is fleeting. What makes one happy today may only last a short time and then life events will overtake that emotion with worry and fear, or pain.

We might look to what Solomon was seeking to understand where things went wrong. What is being done in the world? More than what is being done, why is it happening? What motivates people in the world?

It doesn’t take long to discover that search will make you unhappy because it deals with the most selfish and unloving motives in man’s fallen nature. Why ask why? Understanding their nature will not change their nature. 

It might be that Solomon wanted to use his great wisdom to change the nature of mankind and he discovered that wisdom alone changes nothing.

It wasn’t until Jesus came and showed us what love can do that we discovered that only love can change the nature of mankind. When we accept Christ and become this new creation in Christ is when we discover what true happiness means.

Isaiah 45:9 English Standard Version (ESV) “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?

Happiness is found in embracing the change God is performing in us.