Today, we will be looking at and thinking about 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12. It is a short text, but it’s rich in insight and helpful instruction. Let’s read it:

 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody [or “have need of anything”].

This passage continues Paul’s instructions on how to live to please God. He dealt with sexual integrity in verses 3-8, and now he broadens his scope to include relationships and work. And the first relationships he considers are those between Christ-followers.

Think about that for a moment. Paul does not turn first to biological family relationships, though he does address those in various letters. Nor does he turn first to work relationships or to relationships with non-Christians, though he speaks to those too. But the relationship that gets the most attention in the New Testament – by far – is the relationship between Christians.

Why so much emphasis on this relationship? For a couple of reasons. First, this relationship between Jesus’s followers was a new thing to these recent converts. They had navigated family and work relationships for years, with varying levels of success, but this was uncharted territory. They were trying to figure out what their relationships with other Christians should be like.

Second, the relationship between Christians is a first order relationship in God’s kingdom. It is enormously important to the church’s witness. Jesus had explained that it was through Christian’s love for one another that they would be recognized as his disciples (John 13:35). It was through their unity with each other that non-Christians would come to know that God had sent Jesus (John 17:23).

No wonder Paul applauds the Thessalonians’ love for each other. And no wonder he tells them to “do so more and more” – literally, “overflow more” in their love. There may be nothing more important to the church’s witness than its peoples’ love for each other. And there may be nothing more detrimental to the church’s witness than discord between its members. It is no wonder that our adversary’s chief tactic is to create conflict in the church.

Paul thinks it unnecessary (v. 9) to write about this since the Thessalonians themselves have been taught by God to love each other. “Taught by God” echoes Old Testament promises made in the new covenant and in Isaiah (54:13), where we read, “All your sons will be taught by the Lord.” Jesus affirms this promise in John 6:45. God himself undertakes the instruction of his people.

The phrase, “taught by God,” translates a rare Greek word (its only biblical use is here) that means, “God-taught.” If you believe in Jesus, you have been God-taught. Had not God spoken to your heart, you would not have believed in Jesus. It is God’s instruction that enables you to grow in your knowledge of Christ. Every Christian, whatever their age and however long they have believed, is a student and God is their instructor.

We will be calling a new pastor one of these days. Of course, we want him to be a capable teacher, but it is even more important that he is God-taught himself. No matter how knowledgeable or eloquent he is, his principal teaching role is to help other people be God-taught. A preacher’s best messages are not the most eloquent or inspiring; they are the ones that God himself can use to teach his people.

And one of the chief lessons God teaches his people to love each other. A church where people love each other is a light; a church where people are in discord is darkness. A loving church is a welcome sign. A cold church is a “Keep Out” notice. A united church is an apologetics masterwork. A divided church is an atheist manifesto.

The Thessalonians were loving their fellow Christians as brothers and sisters. They were committed to each other. Yet, Paul urges them to love even more. He doesn’t urge them to collect more money, or preach more evangelistic sermons, or to take their worship music to the next level. He urges them to love more and more.

And notice who they are loving: It is not just their local church members whom they know well; it is the other brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. These were people they did not know well, perhaps did not know at all. Yet when they found a Christian, they treated him or her with love and acceptance.

That was a striking testimony to the reality and power of Christ. This passage makes it clear that it is not enough for us to love the people who belong to Lockwood. God teaches us to love Jesus’s people at First Baptist, New Life, St. Charles, First Presbyterian, and Pine Ridge Bible Church. This is our duty. It is also our privilege and joy. And it is our most convincing witness to the power of God.

Too many times, the local church sees other churches as competitors for market share when they should see them as extended family, or perhaps as fellow soldiers in God’s kingdom. In the biblical picture, earth is occupied territory. God invaded through Jesus’s incarnation and, when he returned to heaven, he left operatives here to prepare for the second wave, the return of Christ. The true church, wherever it exists, is a base of kingdom operations. Whether this church or that, Jesus’s people belong to God’s kingdom and to each other, not merely allies but brothers.

During the Second World War, a battalion of the 141st Infantry was surrounded by the German army in the Vosges Mountains in Northern France. They dug in and waited for help against insurmountable odds. People referred to them as Lost Battalion.

The 442^nd Regimental Combat Team, which included 3,000 Japanese American volunteers, was ordered to rescue Lost Battalion. The fighting was intense and often hand-to-hand. Of the 600 men of Companies K, L, and I who fought their way to Lost Battalion, only 60 were still on their feet when they reached them.

When the soldiers of Lost Battalion saw the 442^nd coming, do you think they complained that the 442^nd had no business getting involved in their mission? Did they criticize their ancestry and refuse to acknowledge them? No, these were their people. The same is true of Christians wherever they are from.

One more thing before we move on. We misunderstand this text if we think that the holiness Paul mentioned in verse 1 is only about the sexual integrity he describes in verses 3-8. It also involves the love we read about in verses 9 and 10. Love is the core of holiness and is the principal way that we please God. If you aren’t loving, you’re not holy.

But Paul doesn’t stop there. Though the NIV ’84 (and about half of the best known Bible translations) ends the sentence with verse 10, the NIV 2011 is right to continue it into verse 11. What difference does that make? Only this: it shows that Paul is still going over the instructions the Thessalonians had been given for living in a holy, God-pleasing way. We might think that little things like leading a quiet life and going to work every day have nothing to do with sanctification. We’d be wrong. They are part of a life that pleases God.

The first phrase in verse 11 is surprising. Some scholars suggest translating it as, “Be ambitious to be unambitious.”[1] The first verb comes from a compound word that means “to love honor.” It’s about what you would want to be known for, hence the translation, “be ambitious.” When we think of ambition, we think of being known for titles, or wealth, or power. So, when Paul says, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life,” it sounds like the opposite of ambition. That is not the American way.

But it is God’s way. He looks for people who make it their ambition to lead a quiet life and then employs them in accomplishing his purpose. Moses had escaped the political life and was quietly living as a shepherd on the edge of the wilderness when God gave him a world-changing role. Elijah the fire-bringer quietly resided in a guest room in the strategically unimportant town of Zarephath. Gideon, who was the least of his small clan, was quietly trying to stay out of sight when God tasked him with saving his country.

Jesus gave this advice: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast … take the lowest place… For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:8, 10, 11). God loves to find the person who is not trying – or has given up trying – to be the star of his own show.

The word translated “quiet life” is used elsewhere in the Bible of silence after speech, the end of an argument, and rest after labor.[2] It has the idea of tranquility and calmness. A couple of years ago, Greg Fowler shared with us his struggle with alcoholism and how he got and stayed sober. Nowadays, Greg is always alert to those times when the tranquility and calmness he has found is being threatened. He makes it his ambition to lead a quiet life, not a stressful life of selfish ambition. He knows from experience where that leads.

The ambition to be somebody does not lead to the quiet life. The ambition to be like somebody—Jesus – does. We would all be better off if we could say like David: “My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me” (Psalm 131:1). We can make ourselves too big to accomplish much. God prefers smaller tools.

I think Joel Belz, writing in the latest issue of World, is right: “…telling the truth, living chastely, paying our bills on time, living within our incomes, caring for the needy who are closest to us, worshipping faithfully. Little things, all of them. But if we really did them, instead of getting regularly sidetracked with impossible global visions, who knows what might happen? We might even take over the world!”[3] Or rather, Jesus might.

Paul tells believers to make it their ambition to lead a quiet life, but we won’t be able to do that (v. 11) until we learn to mind our own business. But we will not know what our own business is until we know who our boss is. If you are a Christian, your business is to do what your boss – the Lord Jesus – wants.

Does that mean you can never have any plans of your own? Not at all. God wants children, not robots, and he wants them to grow into capable, confident adults. For that to happen, we must use our brains, render decisions, and make plans. But we mustn’t hold those plans so tightly that we can’t change them when God makes it clear he wants us to do something else.

In the Battle of Copenhagen, the admiral in command signaled Vice-Admiral Nelson to retreat. Nelson didn’t want to retreat, so he raised his spyglass, pointed it at the signalman’s flags, but put it to his blind. That was the origin of the phrase, “turn a blind eye to.” Nelson’s problem was not that he had a blind eye, but that he didn’t acknowledge who the boss was. That can be our problem too.

When people start minding other people’s business – even the business God has given other people – they inevitably stop minding their own. God’s work doesn’t get done by busybodies.

Paul goes on in verse 11 to tell people to work with their hands. There is a background to this that we might not know. In Greek culture, slaves were expected to do manual labor. It was beneath his dignity for a free man to work with his hands. So, when Paul instructs these Greek culture believers to work with their own hands, he is telling them to act counterculturally.

This brings up something that is apparent throughout this passage and throughout the Bible. Christians do not take their cues from culture. They do not rely on cultural standards of right and wrong. We saw that clearly in verses 3-8, where Jesus’s standards for sexual integrity differed radically from the cultural standard. Most Greek people – at least most Greek men – would have thought Jesus’s instructions were far too restrictive.

It is easy to go along with what culture says. We are worried about what people will think of us. We are afraid that we’ll appear irrelevant. Over the past decade, there have been millions of people in the U.S. who have been rethinking their faith. They say they are “deconstructing” it. That may be necessary. It can be helpful. But if people who deconstruct their faith rebuild it using the blueprints that culture supplies, they have stopped deconstructing and are merely destroying.  

Paul told the Thessalonians to work with their hands. But the Thessalonians had grown up in a culture that regarded people who work with their hands as inferior. To a lesser extent, so have we. We must reject that belief as strenuously as Paul did.

Even churches can buy into the idea that manual labor is inferior. In some churches, to get on the board or join the leadership team requires a college education and a white collar job. It mustn’t be that way at Lockwood. What is required is a genuine, growing relationship with Jesus that acknowledges that he alone is Lord.

In verse 11, Paul gives two reasons for these instructions. The first is to win the respect of outsiders – that is, people who are outside the church and have not yet submitted to Jesus.

Paul clearly thought that church people should try to bring their neighbors, friends, family members, co-workers over to Jesus’s side. We should be thinking about how to talk to people about Christ, how to win them for Jesus. But that will never happen if we don’t have their respect.

A recent survey found that only 21% of non-Christians have a positive attitude about the church. We won’t win those people unless we win their respect, and we won’t win their respect by mocking them on the one hand or mimicking them on the other. We’ll win their respect by loving each other, leading quiet lives, minding our own business, and doing good work.

To win others for Christ, we think we need to be clever when we really need to be loving. We think we need to be important when we really need to be content. We think we need to fit in when we really need to be different.

The other reason behind these instructions is so that we won’t be dependent on anybody or, as it could be translated, so that we won’t need anything. Paul did not believe in a parasitic Christianity. He insisted that able-bodied Christians earn their own way. But he went further than that: he wanted Christians to be in a position to share with those in need. Christian generosity is one of the best ways to win the respect of outsiders.

Patrick Green is an atheist from San Antonio who threatened to sue the county for its nativity display at the courthouse. In an interview, he told the newspaper, “My wife and I … never had a Christian do anything nice for us.” Then he suffered a detached retina, lacked the money to pay for surgery, and had to quit his job driving taxi.

He was surprised when a local church called him to ask if there was anything they could do. He said, “If you really want to contribute something, we need groceries.” He thought they might bring a few bags or give him $50. They gave him $400. Then they gave him some more. Then they gave him some more.

He said, “I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. These people are acting like what the Bible says a Christian does.” I don’t know if Green ever became a Christian, but he stopped fighting the nativity display and even contributed a star to decorate it.

Those Christians who gave him money won his respect simply by doing what God told them to do. What is God telling you to do? Have you been God-taught this morning? Will you do what he is teaching you?

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[1] See Morris.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Joel Belz, “Time to think smaller,” World, July 29, 2023.