A recent worldwide study of attitudes to work shows that UK citizens are least likely to say that work is important in their life, and among the least likely to say that work should always come first, even if it means less leisure time. Compared with other nations, the UK is also relatively less likely to agree that work is a duty towards society. While the Bible condemns grasping ambition and earthly-mindedness, it also commends diligence, productivity, and generosity. This is an application of the eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” In his commentary on Ephesians, James Fergusson looks at how Paul explores the transformation that takes place in every area of life when someone comes to know Christ savingly, including a radically changed attitude to work. In the following updated extract, Fergusson identifies the eighth commandment as informing Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 4:28, “Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”

Knowing Christ transforms everything

The knowledge which the Ephesians had of Christ was inconsistent with a licentious life. “Ye have not so learned Christ” (Eph. 4:20) It is not every sort of learning Christ, or knowledge that may be had of Christ, which excludes profaneness.

We rightly and savingly learn truth, when the knowledge of truth attained by our learning is such as Christ’s knowledge was, i.e., not merely theoretical and speculative, but practical and operative.

Three things are required from, and effectually produced in, the person who learns and knows Christ in this effectual way.

The first is a daily striving to “put off” (or “mortify”) “the old man” (v.22). This doesn’t mean the substance of our soul and body, or even the natural and essential faculties of the soul, but the natural and inbred corruption which has infected and polluted all these, and which we give way to in its “deceitful lusts.” The right order to go about the duties of sanctification is to begin with mortification in the first place, and then proceed to the duties of a new life, for the plants of righteousness do not thrive in an unhumbled, proud, impenitent heart.

The second thing is a serious endeavour to have your mind and understanding more and more renewed, or made new, by getting a new quality of divine and supernatural light implanted in it (v.23). It is not sufficient that we cease to do evil, and labour to mortify our inbred corruption, but we must also learn to do well, and endeavour to have the whole man adorned with the various graces of God’s Spirit, making conscience of all the positive duties of a holy life.

The third thing is the daily task of putting on the new man (v.24), that is, being more and more endued and adorned with new and spiritual qualities, by which not only is our mind renewed, but also our will, affections and actions.

Christians observe each of the ten commandments

The apostle then presses on them the exercise of some particular virtues. These belong to all Christians of whatsoever rank or station equally, and they are all enjoined in the second table of the law. He exhorts them, first, to lay aside and mortify the sin of lying (v.25), forbidden in the ninth commandment (where someone speaks what they know or conceive to be untruth, with an intention and purpose to deceive), and to “speak the truth, every man with his neighbour,” that is, to speak as they think, and to think of what they speak as it really is, so that our speech would conform both to the thing itself, and to our conceptions of the thing.

He exhorts them, next, to restrain and moderate their anger (v.26–27), for anger is forbidden in the sixth commandment. Anger is a natural affection, planted in our first parents at the first creation, and it was indeed also found in Christ Himself, who was without sin. So anger is not in itself a sin, nor always sinful. Instead, it is in its own nature indifferent, and becomes either good or evil according to the grounds, causes, objects and ends of it.

Christians keep the eighth commandment

In verse 28, the apostle exhorts either those who, when they were unconverted, acted contrary to the eighth commandment, stealing their neighbour’s goods, or those who were yet, after professing faith in Jesus Christ, guilty of that sin in some degrees and respects. He exhorts them to “steal no more.”

Christ redeems us from stealing and deceitfulness

The sin of stealing includes all the fraudulent and deceitful ways in which we may wrong our neighbour, without his knowledge, in his goods or outward estate, whether by taking what belongs to him (John 20:19) or withholding from him what is his (James 5:4), or indeed by partaking with those who do so (Psalm 50:18).

The apostle exhorts them also to the opposite duty, as a remedy of this evil. They should instead labour diligently – even to weariness (as the word means) – in any good and honest calling, supposing it is only in some labouring work or manual trade.

This remedy is all the more recommended because of the advantage which follows from it, i.e., that by doing so, and through God’s blessing on their diligence, they will not only acquire to themselves sufficient worldly goods that they will be kept from any necessity of stealing, but they will also be able to use some of what they have to meet the needs of others.

Jesus Christ does not reject the vilest sinner, not even thieves, or worse, for anything they have been. Yet they must amend their life subsequently. Nevertheless, some, after they have made a profession as Christians, continue to live in the practice of base and shameful sins, which hardly can be called the marks of God’s children. It is clear that some of the Ephesians were guilty of this sin before an offer of mercy was made to them in the gospel, and indeed that some were yet living in it.

In God’s good and wise way of ordering things, he has established property rights and differences in the ownership of goods and possessions. He has not left all things to be communal, as if everyone has an equal right to everything. Otherwise there could not be such a sin as stealing, nor would it be necessary to forbid theft. This ordering is intended to avoid confusion, strife, contention, and other problems. It also serves as an opportunity for some to show charity, and others to show patience.

Christ wants His people to labour in an honest way

Lack of a job, or idleness in it, brings about poverty and want, with the result that people are liable to temptations to steal, and to take other sinful courses of action, to keep themselves from dire straits. It is therefore the Lord’s will that everyone sets themselves to labour diligently in some lawful calling and employment. This is a remedy, not only against the evil of stealing, but several others also, which flow from idleness, and too much ease (2 Thess. 3:12; Psalm 73:5).

It is not absolutely necessary, nor yet convenient, or possible, for every individual to find work in some manual calling, or trade, and to “labour with his hands.” Not everyone is able to go about such a calling, and there are other lawful callings which require labour with the mind, comparable to those which require labour with the hands (1 Tim. 5:17). Yet there is no calling so lowly (providing it is honest), to which a person should not betake himself (whatever he be for birth, and nobility of descent) and spend his strength in it, even to weariness, rather than to steal, or use any sinful tactic to save himself from straits. “Let him steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands.”

Even those things that were imposed on fallen mankind for a curse and punishment of sin, have their nature changed to believers, and are turned into a blessing and an effectual remedy against sin. In Genesis 3:19 it is imposed on Adam as a part of the curse, that he was “in the sweat of his face to eat his bread.” But here working is enjoined and commended by the apostle to believers, as an effectual remedy against the evil of stealing.

No necessity or want whatsoever can warrant someone to employ himself in any calling which is not lawful and honest, or which tends only to gratify the lusts of pride, vanity, prodigality and uncleanness. Our calling ought to be such as we may serve God in it with a good conscience (Colossians 3:23), and promote the good of either the church, family, or society (Galatians 5:13). To prevent stealing, the apostle restricts them in their choice only to good and lawful callings, “… working … the thing which is good.”

Christ blesses diligence enough for us to share our success with others

The Lord’s ordinary way is to bless conscientious diligence in a lawful calling with such a measure of success as the person may have whereby to sustain himself and to be helpful unto others. Exceptions are when the Lord see it otherwise fitting, to test and exercise that person’s faith, patience and other graces (2 Corinthians 8:2). The goal of labouring in a lawful calling proposed here (“that he may have to give to him that needeth”) is for the most part attained, otherwise it would have been no encouragement.

It is the duty of all whom God has blessed with any measure of worldly substance, to bestow some part of it for the help of others. So in the exercise of our callings, if we would expect the Lord’s blessing on it, we ought to intend not only the enriching of ourselves and ours, but also the means to do good to others.

Everyone is under obligation to give their might for the help of the indigent – not only the rich, but even the poor labourer, who can hardly get his livelihood from the work of his hands. We ought to give alms out of what is our own lawfully purchased, and not out of the gain of oppression, or hire of an harlot (Deuteronomy 23:18).

The Lord sees it fitting always to keep some among his people, poor and indigent, even objects of charity. This contributes to the exercise of their faith and patience, and to testing the charity and compassion of others (Deuteronomy 15:11). So the only ones who are to be relieved by our charity are needy, and indigent, and cannot relieve themselves, but not those who, being able to work in a lawful calling, simply choose instead a life of ease and idleness, and live on the charity of others. We are to give “to him that needeth.”

This extract from James Fergusson’s commentary on Ephesians dovetails with what he also discusses in his commentary on 2 Thessalonians 3:10 (“… that if any would not work, neither should he eat …”).

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Are we sinners because we do bad things, or do we do bad things because we are sinners? A recent survey in the US found that a clear majority of professing evangelicals would say that we are born innocent. This optimistic view of human nature may well chime with what many would like to think, yet the Bible paints a much bleaker picture of fallen human nature, with Paul going so far as to say that by nature we are “children of wrath.” Without a clear picture of the seriousness and urgency of the problem of our sinfulness, we are unlikely to put much effort into how we can be saved from it. The God whose grace rescues us from our sin will also seem less glorious than He really is. In the following updated extract James Fergusson opens up Paul’s words of Ephesians 2:1–3. Fergusson’s comments show clearly how what we need saving from is not something superficial, and the salvation God provides is not only radically transformative for us but on His part impressively rich and generous.

Every one of us by nature, and before conversion, is dead, not to sin, but in sin. Paul addresses the Ephesians as, “You who were dead in sins” (Ephesians 2:1). That means we are wholly deprived of all ability and power to convert ourselves (Rom. 9:16), or to do any thing which is spiritually good (Rom. 8:7). While Paul says that the Ephesians were dead in sins before God quickened them, he is speaking of a thing common to them with others, which is why he includes himself and the other believing Jews with them (verse 3).

The fountain-cause of this spiritual death was Adam’s sin (in him all have sinned, Romans 5:12), and through the merit of his sin imputed to us, we are deprived of original righteousness (Romans 7:18), and a perverse inclination to all evil has come in its place (Genesis 6:5). Additionally, every individual’s own particular actual sins lay him lower under this state of death, and make it all the more difficult for him to be delivered from it (Jeremiah 13:23).

The evidence of spiritual deadness is sinful activity

The evidence that they were dead in sins and trespasses is their walking in and making a daily trade of sin, without striving against it, and without any thorough remorse for it. “Ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air …” (verse 2). Paul illustrates this woeful walk from the two guides which they followed, and which carried them on and encouraged them in their sinful course. The first was, the universal corrupt course and custom of “the world;” and the second guide was Satan, here called “the prince of the power of the air.”

Walking in sin is different from falling into sin

Although the regenerate still have a body of sin and death dwelling in them (Romans 7:24), and do sometimes actually fall in sin (indeed, even very gross sins, 2 Samuel 11:4, 12:9), yet they do not walk in sin. That is, to the child of God, sin is not like the way of the traveller, so as they make it their daily trade and employment (Psalm 1:1), or sin without any reluctancy flowing from a spiritual principle against what they know to be sin (Galatians 5:17), or walk after sin by making sin, and suggestions to sin, their guide whom they willingly follow (Romans 8:1). Sin may conquer the regenerate, and carry them as an unwilling captive (Romans 7:14, etc.), but they no longer “walk” in sin; for Paul says that for them it was “in time past ye walked.”

Such is the power of converting grace, that it causes people to change their former way and course, however deeply they were rooted in it and habituated to it. There is a change from how they walked in “time past,” such that they do not so walk in the time present.

The Lord is not at all moved by the merit or worth of those whom He doth convert, to bestow converting grace on them rather than on others whom He leaves in their unconverted state. In fact, He makes this grace of His to fall on those who are in no respect better than those whom He passes by. These Ephesians, before conversion, were second to none in sin and wickedness, yet He converted them.

The general corrupt custom and example of those with whom we live, or those who lived in the former times, is a strong incitement in the minds of many – and sufficient excuse – to follow them in doing evil, without further inquiry. But it is clear evidence that someone is still in an unrenewed state, when they make the example of others the highest rule according to which they walk, and when they labour to conform themselves more to other people than to the will of God.

We are all sinful by nature

Paul speaks in verse 3 of “the lusts of our flesh … the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” Our obstinate rebellion comes out in the fact that we follow the “lusts,” that is, the impulses and motions and sudden flashes, of our inbred corruption (here called “flesh”), which, flowing from Adam’s first sin, has infected his whole posterity (Christ alone excepted, 2 Corinthians 5:21) and seats itself in all the powers and faculties of our souls and bodies, even including the understanding and will (Romans 8:7; Colossians 2:18). All corruption and sin, even that which is in the mind, is called “flesh,” because it is conveyed by fleshly generation (John 3:6), the fleshly members of the body are the instruments by which all sin is carried out (Romans 6:19), and every sin draws the person away from God to earthly and fleshly things.

This inbred corruption of their natures Paul subdivides into two, the “flesh” and the “mind.” When the term “flesh” is contrasted with the “mind,” it is distinguished from the “flesh” beforementioned. Here it must mean the corruption which is seated in the sensual appetites of the soul, while the “mind” means the more noble faculties of the soul, i.e., the will and understanding, in so far as they are also corrupted. Then the “desires” of the flesh are the deliberate and fixed resolution to follow those lusts and suggestions of corrupt flesh, which, accordingly, Paul says they “fulfilled” and accomplished to the utmost.

Paul then points out the root and fountain-cause of this their miserable slavery and subjection to sin, that is, their natural sin and misery. “Ye were by nature the children of wrath, even as others” (verse 3). We were all, from nature, that is, from the very cradle, birth, and conception, “children of wrath,” i.e., by reason of our original sin, liable to God’s eternal wrath.

By nature all of us are wholly sinful

Whatever differences may be among the unregenerate as to circumstances in life, externals in religion, or the particular sins to which they are enslaved, yet all of them are alike vile in God’s sight. Paul pronounces of himself and all of them, Jew and Gentile alike, that they were children of disobedience, because one way or other they followed the lusts of the flesh.

Those who lead a blameless life before the world in their unconverted estate (and therefore thought their condition abundantly good, Philippians 3:7) will, when converting grace comes, see themselves to have been as vile and wretched as any. They will not only see that nothing they did was truly good and acceptable to God, for it was not done in faith (Hebrews 11:6), but also that the root of all sin was in them, budding out without any check or restraint, except from respect to self-interest, reputation, pleasure, or advantage (Matthew 14:5). The more blameless they were before the world, the more their spiritual pride abounded (Philippians 2:7), and so they were all the more loathsome to God (James 4:6).

The whole person, both soul and body, is infected with sin by nature, so that not only the sensual part, but even our will and understanding, are corrupted by it. In the understanding there is not only ignorance but also mistakes about God and good (1 Corinthians 1:23). In the will there is a crooked perverseness and averseness from what is spiritually good (Romans 8:7).

Every unregenerate person is a slave to sin in all these ways. Paul affirms of us all that before conversion, not only flesh was in us, which lusted after unlawful things, but those lusts came the length of fixed resolutions and desires – and not only so, but we fulfilled and accomplish them. Respectable people do not wholly fulfil the lusts of the fleshly appetite, yet they fulfil the desires of the mind by their pride, vanity of spirit, self-seeking, and such like.

All are guilty of original sin by nature, and from the first moment of conception (Psalm 51:5), and therefore, in the course of divine justice, liable to the stroke of God’s wrath and anger, and this by nature also. So the misery of the unregenerate is never sufficiently seen until it is traced back to this bitter root and fountain, the sin and misery in which they were born. When Paul says we were “children of wrath by nature,” he implies that we were also sinners by nature, seeing wrath always follows sin, and sin is the root, fountain, and headstone of all our misery.

Seeing our sinfulness helps us to appreciate holiness

The apostle Paul is intending to establish the Ephesians in the doctrine of salvation by free grace in Christ. In order to do this, he sets out the happiness of the state in which free grace had placed them, by showing the misery of their previous state, before conversion. “You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). That is, they had been dead – not naturally, but spiritually, for there was nothing in them of the spiritual life which consists in the union of the soul with God (John 5:40) – nothing of the power of the soul, flowing from this union, to do things which are spiritually good and acceptable to God (John 15:5). Natural life consists in the union of the soul with the body, whereby the person is enabled to move, speak, and do the actions which are competent to that life. Analogously, their spiritual deadness tells of their separation from God (Psalm 58:3), and their total inability to do any thing which is spiritually good (Romans 8:7).

Seeing our sinfulness helps us to appreciate God’s mercy

God is rich and overflowing in the exercise of His attribute of mercy. This is apparent when we consider that there is no creature towards which He does not exercise His mercy (Psalm 104:24), and that mercy is exercised, not only without, but also often contrary to, the deserving of those on whom it is exercised (Ezekiel 36:21–22). Yet there is nothing in which God does more to manifest the riches and abundance of His mercy, than in the work of bringing dead sinners to life, and of carrying on the work of grace in them until it is perfected in glory. Just think of the misery of the objects of His mercy (Ezekiel 16:3, etc.), and their bad deservings (Jeremiah 14:7), the greatness of the good things which He bestows on those miserable objects (Luke 12:32), the course He takes for satisfying divine justice, so that those good things can be given without wronging justice (John 3:16), and the multitude of sins which mercy covers in those objects, not only before their conversion (Isaiah 55:7), but also after it (Proverbs 24:16)! All these, and many considerations besides, manifest God to be rich in mercy in quickening dead sinners. “God, who is rich in mercy, hath quickened us.”

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With worries about war, food shortages and the cost of living following the anxious times of the pandemic, how are people coping? A recent survey of UK adults found that more younger adults pray compared to older adults. Follow up reporting suggests that across a range of cultural and religious backgrounds, younger people are open to exploring spiritual things. Yet there may be a perception that prayer is a spiritual activity that can be whatever you make it. Prayer can sometimes be valued simply for the groundedness the ritual gives us, or the comfort that comes from voicing our fears and wishes. There is an inbuilt human longing for connection with something and someone beyond ourselves, which can really only be fulfilled by knowing the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit, and receiving the everlasting salvation He gives. Guidance as to what this looks like comes from what the apostle Paul shared about his prayer life, for example when he told the believers at Ephesus how he was praying for them. In the following updated extract, James Fergusson gleans some pointers about true prayer to the true God from what Paul says.

Who Paul prayed to

In Ephesians 1:17, the apostle gives a short summary of his prayer to God for the Ephesian believers.

First, Paul refers to God the Father (to whom he is praying) as “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ” and “the Father of glory”. The Father is in His own nature infinitely glorious, the fountain of the whole Godhead and all the divine attributes in the Son and the Holy Ghost. All glory is due to Him from created beings.

What Paul prayed for his friends

Paul then mentions what he sought from God for the Ephesian believers. This was “wisdom,” or a further increase of the saving knowledge of God which the Holy Spirit gives, together with a clearer insight into the Scripture where the same Spirit reveals these truths. This “wisdom” mainly consists in the saving, believing, and operative “knowledge of him,” i.e., of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul wants the Holy Spirit to remove the natural blindness of their understandings and to bestow a clear discerning of the things of God.

We should have definite things to pray for

We should not necessarily restrict ourselves to a set form of words when we pray. Yet we should have set purposes worked out, and a definite point to aim at, when we pray, so that we would be able to give an account of what we are praying for, whether that is for ourselves or for others.

We must pray to the true God

Our prayers should be directed to God only. No one else knows us, or the secrets of our hearts. Anyone or anything else is unfit to receive our prayers.

Also when we draw near to God in prayer (whether for ourselves or others), we should do so with confidence and reverence – for these are not mutually exclusive. We should think about God, and express what we are thinking about Him, in a way that will most strengthen our faith and most strike our hearts with reverence towards Him. To strengthen his faith, Paul refers to God as “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ” and to bring his heart into deep reverence he calls him “the Father of glory,” or “glorious Father.”

We should pray out of faith in Christ

In order to have access to God with boldness through Christ, it is necessary to renew the act of faith which applies and appropriates Christ to ourselves. Then, being made one with Christ, we will be seen by the Father as clothed with Christ’s righteousness. This is the way that God will accept both our persons and our imperfect prayers – that is, through Christ. Paul here appropriates Christ to himself as his own, calling Him “our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It is necessary also that when we embrace Christ in this way, we do not divide Him into parts, but take to ourselves the fullness of all the perfections which are in Him. This is an evidence of our sincerity in embracing Him, but additionally, nothing less than the whole Christ is necessary to cover all our imperfections, bear us up under all our discouragements, and help us in all the infirmities which beleaguer us in our approaches to God. He is our “Lord,” full of power and sovereignty for our good. He is “Jesus,” a Saviour, who saves sinners. He is “Christ,” anointed by the Father to do this very work.

We should pray reverently

In Ephesians 3:14-15 Paul begins another prayer for the believers at Ephesus. Again he sends his prayer to “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” denoting both the Father’s relation to Jesus Christ and His relation to His church, His “family,” who take their name from Him.

The expression Paul uses here, “I bow my knees,” denotes the humble, reverent spirit of his heart in prayer. We are not restricted to any specific posture in prayer, yet our outward posture can both express something of our reverent inward spirit, and remind us what we are doing when we pray. We should draw near to God with deep reverence for His majesty, coupled with very low thoughts of ourselves, because of our unworthiness.

Deep reverence is entirely consistent with faith and confidence in approaching God as a reconciled Father. Both reverence and confidence ought to be joined together in prayer, and indeed, when they are sincere, they mutually reinforce each other, so that the more we put our trust in Him, the more our hearts will fear and adore Him.

We should think more about God than about ourselves

In making our approaches to God for anything, especially salvation, it is most necessary that we lift our eyes above anything that is ours (whether our good or our evil), and fasten them by faith on the inexhaustible fountain of mercy and power in God. He is not only willing (from His mercy) but also able (from His omnipotence) to give us whatever we ask that is in accordance with His will. He will grant it “according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 3:16).

We should have our priorities right

We must not neglect our outward and physical needs, yet the spiritual state of our immortal souls is what we must care about most. Paul prays in verse 16 for their “inner man,” for if things go well with the “inner man,” our outward concerns will trouble us the less. Ministers especially should pray mainly about the inward and spiritual state of their flock.

We should open our hearts for the best answers to prayer

Paul prays, “that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (v17-19).

The love of God in Christ to lost sinners is so large, so free, and in every way so wonderful. But our hearts are so narrow, and His ways of showing His love are so unexpected and strange to us, that even though it is revealed in the gospel, God Himself is the only one who can make us see it and grasp it. Paul prays to God for the people at Ephesus that God would let them comprehend and understand it.

The answer to Paul’s prayer will give us stability in times of trouble

As trees cannot long stand against the blasts of boisterous winds, unless their roots are deeply fastened in some good ground – and as houses cannot long remain firm and strong, unless they are built on some sure foundation – neither can we hold out for any space of time against temptations unless we are undergirded and supported by some strong foundation. That stability and constancy comes from the faith of God’s love. If we are not “rooted and grounded” in the love of Christ, we are like trees without a root and a house without a foundation. The only sure foundation for our souls is the unchangeable and free love of God in Christ revealed in the gospel and grasped by faith. No conceit of our own righteousness, or courage or resolutions will do.

The breadth of Christ’s love extends to all ages of history and all sorts of people. Its length reaches from eternity to eternity. Its depth stoops down to the lowest depths of sin and misery and pulls sinners out of there. Its height reaches up to heavenly joys and happiness, and carries sinners up to there. It is called “the love of Christ,” not to exclude the love of the Father or Holy Spirit, but because the love of the whole Trinity is conveyed to lost sinners through Christ and His merit. It passes created understanding to know it.

We must not content ourselves with a superficial view of God’s free love in Christ. Instead, take the most accurate inspection of it in all its dimensions, and endeavour at least to know it as far as you can. Our delight in it and the comfort we get from it is constrained by the narrowness of our thoughts and the shallowness of our insights about God’s love in Christ. The love of God in Christ, and the love of Christ to lost sinners, is so rich and unsearchable, so matchless and unparalleled, so vast, boundless and, well, infinite, that in the end the most we can say is that it “passeth knowledge.” How much this should stir us up to seek it!

Our prayers should take confidence from who God is

Paul towards the end of his prayer refers to God again, this time as “Him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think…” (verse 20). Thinking of God in this way, Paul is so sure that God would answer that he is breaking out into thanksgiving already, as if everything he had asked for was already granted. “To him be glory!” (verse 21).

God is not only able to bestow more things and greater things than we can express, but also to bestow these greater things in a large and abundant measure. The conceptions we have of God when we pray to Him should be things that will furnish our hearts with reasons to have confidence in Him and the fact that He will hear us.

Especially we should stabilise our hearts in the faith of God’s omnipotence and power to grant what we ask. This is one of the best supports for prayer, seeing it is beyond all doubt that God will do whatever He is able to grant our petitions if we are seeking things which He has promised (1 John 5:14).

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In a culture where leisure time and relaxation are so very highly prized, it can be difficult for us to realise that idleness is a sin. And if our church culture perhaps prioritises spirituality over practicalities, we may hesitate to recognise the importance of sheer hard work. The apostle Paul navigates both these issues with his words to the Thessalonians, disapproving of idleness and highlighting the necessity and value of work. It may not sound very spiritual but preachers today should still include these notes in their preaching, for God’s honour and the church’s reputation and indeed the wellbeing of any who are lazy.

Idleness is a sin

Paul reminds the believers at Thessaloniki, “We commanded you that if any man would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). In saying so he condemns both the sin of idleness and their neglect of censuring that sin, because this was not only contrary to his example but also to his doctrine. He had commanded, and by apostolic authority enacted for a standing law, that anyone (who otherwise had strength and opportunity) refused to work, he should not eat. To “work” is to employ either one’s body or mind, or both, in some honest labour, for promoting one way or other the good of mankind. “He should not eat” means that he should not be borne with or maintained among Christians, but constrained to betake himself to some honest employment.

The Lord’s ministers should press on people, not only religious duties but also painstakingness and diligence in some particular calling. Likewise it is the duty of the Lord’s people, and of every one in their station, to give obedience to such lawful commands of Christ’s ministers.

Additionally, everyone should be concerned that the church’s charitable funds should be distributed wisely. This is especially the case for those who are entrusted with these monies, so that, to the best of their knowledge, they do not use it to furnish fuel to the lusts of any, or feed them in sinful idleness, or any other way misapply it to those who are not due objects of it. Paul’s command is given to all, and chiefly to the officers of the church, that they do not employ either their own charity or the church’s, to maintain idle vagabonds and wilful loiterers.

However, there are always some who do not work, not because they don’t want to, but either because they are not able to work, or although they are able and gladly would, yet they cannot get employment. It is the Lord’s allowance that such people, as far as possible, should be maintained on the charity of others, especially if they have nothing of their own by which to maintain themselves.

Idleness means the wrong sort of busyness

The “disorderly” ones in Thessaloniki, of whom the apostle had heard, have two features which seem to contradict each other, and yet are highly consistent, and in fact usually co-occur. They “do nothing at all,” he says in verse 11, i.e., in the things which they ought to do, and to which they have a calling, and yet they are “busybodies,” only too diligent about things which do not belong to them.

It is actually part of a minister’s responsibility, prudently to seek to know what fruits the gospel he preaches is bringing forth among the people of his charge. He should know what sins are most prevalent with them, and what virtues are exercised by them, in order to be the more enabled for speaking pertinently to them.

There have always been some in the church who take on a name for profession (and so possibly come to have some respect among the godly), yet, under a pretext of giving themselves to more than ordinary devotion, they abandon all care about a particular calling, and live hand-idle, to the hurt of those on whom they lived, and to the reproach of the gospel.

The mind cannot be wholly idle, but must be employed in something or other – if not in doing what is good and profitable, then of necessity in what is evil, useless or hurtful. Usually no one is more busy in other people’s matters than those who neglect their own.

Idleness is something we must give up

So, speaking to those who were guilty of walking disorderly, Paul both peremptorily commands them, and most affectionately exhorts them (verse 12).

In the name and authority of Christ the Lord, he commands them (1) to work, and so to quit idleness; (2) to work with quietness, that is, containing themselves within the boundaries of their calling, without creating trouble, either to themselves or others. From this would follow (3) that they should eat their own bread, gotten by their own labours, and not given them in alms, or in return for nothing.

Yet so great a tyrant is custom in any sin, and especially a custom of lazy ease and idleness, that once someone is habituated to it at all, they are only with very great difficulty driven from it. It takes both a command and an exhortation from Paul.

Some sins grow so common that either through the moral guilt in them or the civil inconveniences which follow them (or both), they portend no less than apparent ruin to the whole church. Then especially the Lord’s ministers should direct the utmost energy of their endeavours to suppress these sins, and to reclaim the Lord’s people from committing them. In Thessaloniki this sin of idleness threatened to dissipate the church, both morally, considering the great guilt that was in it, and civilly, considering how poor this church in all probability was. That is why the apostle is so fervent and serious about suppressing it and stirring up the whole church to take notice of it.

Yet God is so merciful that He does not wholly cease to have anything to do with sinners, as if they were desperate cases, after one or more rejections. He gives them many renewed opportunities, because some He intends to gain (John 4:7, 10, 13, 16, 21, 26) and some to make more inexcusable (Matthew 11:21–22). Although those idle people had received several admonitions with no effect, yet Paul, in Christ’s name and authority and by warrant from Him, again commands and exhorts them that they must work with quietness.

Correspondingly this should be a minister’s way of dealing with even most obstinate sinners, in order to win them back. The minister must make known that he does not think of them as wholly void of all sense of God and goodness, and must at least gently hint that he still has better thoughts of them. By doing so he will, if it is at all possible, enliven any dying principle of conscience, any sense of heaven or hell, any sense of right or wrong, and any awe of God which may yet be lurking in them. The reason why Paul exhorts them “by our Lord Jesus Christ” is to show that he did not think they had cast off all respect to Him.

Being busy means less trouble

The more someone is occupied with their own employments, the less leisure they will have to meddle with the affairs of others. Consequently, they will create less trouble either to themselves or to those who live alongside them. “Working your own work” is conjoined with “quietness” and quiet abstinence from meddling with or troubling others.

We also deduce that the Lord has established property rights from the way that Paul speaks of “their own bread,” that is, what they have a proper right to. (See also Ephesians 4:28) Beside the other ways of attaining right and property – that is, by inheritance (Gen. 15:4), gift (1 Sam. 9:9), contract or bargain (Ruth 4:9), this is one. Whatever someone purchases by their lawful industry and effort is properly their own, and may be employed by that person for their own good and necessary use with God’s allowance.

The Lord ordinarily blesses people’s conscientious diligence in their lawful callings with a sufficient measure of success that they may have something with which to sustain themselves, and be kept from being burdensome to others.

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