Work with Your Hands (1 Thess. 4:11c-12)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/22/2014 9:05 PM

My Worship Time                                                                        Focus:  Work With Your Hands

Bible Reading & Meditation                                   Reference:  1 Thessalonians 4:11c-12

            Message of the verses:  We are finally getting to the last SD that I will do on 1 Thessalonians chapter four for this month.  We will be looking at probably the most important section of the book of 1 Thessalonians next month, and that is the rapture of the Church for verses 13-18 give the best account of the rapture found in the entire Bible.  Believe it or not I did read a book many years ago about showing the rapture of the Church from the Old Testament feasts that the people of Israel did and it was very interesting.

            Work with Your Hands:  (1 Thessalonians 4:11c-12):  and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, 12 so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.”

            Thessalonica was a Greek city and so we can assume that even though the Romans ruled the world at this time that this letter was written that the people that Paul was writing to were Greeks.  I have mentioned that this city is still a thriving city in Greece in today’s world.  My point in mentioning this is that the Greeks did not believe that a Greek should work with their hands, but only the slaves should do manual labor.  Being new believers this may have been a new thing for them. 

            John MacArthur writes:  “Apparently many of the working class and slave laborers from among the Thessalonians converts had taken the attitude that, since they had become free in Christ, perhaps they were no longer subject to their masters and obligations of their jobs.  The new believers’ preoccupation with Jesus’ return may have intensified that attitude.”  I think that this may have been the key element in Paul giving this exhortation to them to work with their hands in order to support their families so that they would not have to depend upon others to take care of them.  We see this also in the second letter to the Thessalonians, and eventually we will be looking at that letter too if God wills it.  Paul writes “if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.”  This comes from 2 Thessalonians 3:10. 

            Paul has written to this young church that they were to love, to live quietly, and to mind their own business along with working with their hands and this is an evangelistic part of this letter.  If people do these types of things then non-believers will notice them and wonder why and how they can do them and will ask questions.  MacArthur writes “for him, the key to evangelism was the integrity Christians manifest to a sinful, confused, and agitated world.”

            MacArthur ends his commentary on this chapter with the following:  “Such practical, straightforward living, is the foundation of all evangelism.  Believers who sacrificially love other people, exhibit tranquil lives, conscientiously focus on keeping their own lives in order, and faithfully carry out their daily responsibilities in the workplace (thus avoiding any welfare dependence)—all the while proclaiming the gospel in light of the return of Christ—are the most effective witnesses to their unsaved neighbors and loved ones.”   

6/22/2014 9:30 PM