SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/4/2014 11:51 PM
My Worship Time
Focus: Introduction
to 2 Thes. 3:6-15 PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 2 Thess.
3:6-15
Message of the
verses: We are winding down our
study of 2 Thessaloians and it is my hope that we will finish this book
sometime this month. The subject that we
are going to be looking at is work as in his commentary on 2 Thessalonians,
John MacArthur entitles his chapter on these verses “Work: A Noble Christian
Duty.” As I listened to the messages
that he had on these verses he had much to say about work and so we will
attempt to bring an introduction to these verses in our SD for today.
“6
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you
keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the
tradition which you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought
to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among
you, 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread
without paying for it, but
with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a
burden to any of you; 9 not because we do not have the right to this,
but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example.
10 For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to
work, then he is not to eat, either. 11 For we hear that some among you
are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and
exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own
bread. 13 But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. 14
If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of
that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. 15
Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.”
Paul,
as he does in most of his letters, begins by teaching theology, and then after
doing that he will show his readers how these theological teachings can be used
in their lives. It is interesting that
Paul has a pattern in most of his letters, and another thing that he does in
most of his letters is at the beginning of them he will pray for his readers
who will receive his letter, and then at the end ask them to pray for him,
something we have seen in both of his letters to the Thessalonians.
John
MacArthur writes “People from Paul’s day to the present have had a wrong view
of work. In fact, our society proudly
displays its skewed view of work on the back of its cars. ‘I owe, I owe, so off to work I go,’ reads one
bumper sticker, reflecting the view that work is a necessary evil; nothing more
than a way to pay off debts and fund one’s lifestyle. Another, extolling the virtue of laziness,
proclaims, ‘Work fascinates me—I can sit and watch it for hours. License plate frames announce that people
would rather be fishing, flying, RVing, golfing, skiing, sailing, hiking,
camping, four wheeling—anything but working.
In our materialistic, self-indulgent society, many people play at their
work and work at their play. Others work
only to achieve prosperity, success, fame, and early retirement.
“Such
perspectives rob work of any intrinsic value.
In essentially valueless work, people display that disdain for the
effort itself in doing only enough to avoid being fired, getting away with
whatever cheating they can, considering long hours and hard work to be
counterproductive, remaining loyal to their opportunity and employer only until
they get what they perceive as a better, more lucrative opportunity, and in
general showing utter indifference to the quality of their work.”
In
the Jewish lifestyle of Paul’s day many of the Jews did not want to work, but
only wanted to study the Law. The Greeks
did not want to work either, thinking it was beneath them to do any manual
labor.
This
kind of bad attitude made its way into the church, and we will have seen this
in the verses that we are studying in this section, and Paul gets on them for
having this kind of attitude.
When
we looked at the book that Solomon wrote entitled Ecclesiastes, Solomon asked
some questions “What advantage does man have in all his work which he does
under the sun? (1:3).”
“For
what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors
under the sun? (2:22)”
“What
profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils? (3:9)”
“This also is a grievous evil—exactly as a man is born,
thus will he die. So what is the
advantage to him who toils for the wind? (5:16)”
The book of Ecclesiastes is a book, unlike the rest of
the books in Scripture, in that Solomon writes mostly syndicalism in the book,
as he looks at the world from mans perspective.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “David” (2 Samuel 12:13).
Today’s Bible
question: “Publius was the chief man of
what place?
Answer in our next SD.
12/5/2014 12:28 AM
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