2 Thessalonians 3:6-18

2 Thessalonians 3:6

I. In this passage the Apostle teaches the Thessalonians that in tranquillity, sedateness of heart and life, they are severally, not only to work, but to do their own work, and so have need of no man. Thus the bread which is their own will be doubly sweet to them. If we revert to the military metaphor which underlies the word "disorderly," and may also underlie the word "withdraw," we may place another saying of the Apostle into connection with these injunctions. "Every man shall bear his own burden," his own proper and personal load. The word is used to signify a soldier's kit or knapsack. In Christian warfare, then, each faithful soldier must see that he has his own weight, and that he does not encumber another with it, or take up another's instead of his own. All acts of this kind are a walking disorderly.

II. Believers then have daily work to do; not only Christian work, but all work done in a Christian spirit. The record of their days must never be like that said to have been found in the diary of Louis XVI., after the first French Revolution, the simple word occurring on almost every page, "Nothing, nothing!" Time rather must be redeemed, not wasted.

III. "But ye, brethren, be not weary in welldoing." The Apostle exhorts them not to lose heart, not to faint as cowards, in doing whatever is honourable and good all actions which are fair in themselves and blissful in their results. An implied commendation is in the injunction. They are even now engaged in welldoing, and they are urged, by perseverance therein, to show forth "the patience of Christ." There is to be well doing in the widest sense of the word. Surveying the huge circumference of human love, Christ's people are never to faint in the work of leaving the world better than they found it. "In due season we shall reap if we faint not."

J. Hutchison, Lectures on Thessalonians,p. 322.

Reference: 2 Thessalonians 3:6. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 81.