Paul told the Thessalonians that those who don’t work shouldn’t eat. But who didn’t work in the first century? Leaders.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the third chapter of Paul Second Letter to the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 3:6-13). It’s an odd section. Paul raised an issue that he raised very rarely in his other surviving letters: that is the question of people who didn’t want to work.
Now, how many people actually do want to work? I don’t particularly want to work. I have to for a couple of reasons. One, of course, is that I like to fulfill other people’s expectations. Another is that I enjoy having a place to live and things to eat, and those come to me through work. And it must be said that if I didn’t work in this vocation to which God has called me, I’d be hearing about it from God.
And I do like to sleep through the night.
Most people in the first century had to work. They had no other option. They were poor. If they went very long without working, then there wasn’t anything that was going to come in. A fair number of the people in the Thessalonian church were probably slaves. They didn’t have any choice about whether to work or not.
So one of the questions that I bring to this particular passage is: who was Paul talking about? Who was in that church that had the ability to not work?
The answer I come up with is: leadership. Leaders within the church.
There were people in the first century who didn’t work (at least, compared to the vast majority of the poor people of the time). Those would have been the wealthy landowners, the nobility, the members of the imperial family. That’s a very small number of people indeed. So why would there have been people in this struggling Christian congregation in Thessalonica who were able to not work? Were they entirely relying upon the charity of the other members of the church? Quite possibly, but why would they think they could do that at all?
And I think they were emulating Roman custom, or at least Roman style. If you were a leader, you didn’t work. If you were in charge, you didn’t work. If you had the right of command, you didn’t work.
Paul made clear in a couple of his letters that one of his practices was to avoid burdening the churches that he was working with as they were born and initially developed. He maintained a vocation, a profession, and funded his work that way. He also says in this section that he had a right to be supported by the people in the church. So I think the ones who are asserting a right to be cared for by the people of the church are not the elderly who worked as much as they can. It’s not the sick who can no longer make the efforts without collapsing. And it’s certainly not the poorest of the poor who’ve worked all their lives.
It’s the leaders. It’s the ones in charge. They — we — are the ones most likely to take advantage of others’ resources and rely on them, and not take care of ourselves.
So as you think what about people who work, as you think about the people who lead, remember that leadership and work are supposed to be united. Leadership and work are supposed to go hand in hand. Leadership and leisure, at least in Paul’s eyes, not so much.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
