BEHAVING PROPERLY TOWARD OUTSIDERS
1 THESSALONIANS 4:9-12
NASB
9 Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 10 for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, 12 so that you will [a]behave properly toward outsiders and [b]not be in any need.
4:12 [a]Lit walk [b]Lit have need of nothing
NLT
9 But we don’t need to write to you about the importance of loving each other,[*] for God himself has taught you to love one another. 10 Indeed, you already show your love for all the believers[*] throughout Macedonia. Even so, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you to love them even more.
11 Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. 12 Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.
[4:9] Greek about brotherly love. [4:10] Greek the brothers.
Have you ever noticed how many Christians constantly teeter on the edge of extremes? We seem to live in a continual tug-of-war between “either” and “or.” Rarely do we experience the calm equilibrium of “both/and.” I’m convinced that Satan is the expert of extremes. He loves to encourage us to take a part of the truth and make it the whole truth . . . to take a fraction of the facts and run with them like nothing else exists.
Think about a few “either/or” extremes that should be “both/and” balances. We’re either so zealous for the lost that we forget the need for prayer and personal Bible study, or we’re so committed to the personal disciplines of the Christian life that we forget about the lost souls around us. We’re either so zealous for the purity of the church that we’re willing to split over every difference or infraction, or we’re so bent on the unity of the church that we’re ready to give up doctrinal commitments without much of a fight. We’re either so confident and self-assured that we run ahead and make a mess of things instead of waiting on God, or we’re so afraid of risk and the walk of faith that we become dull and visionless, unable to lift a finger in the Lord’s work.
Here’s the last one, the one we’re going to focus on in this section of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. We’re either so inward focused and exclusive that our whole world revolves around other Christians —those on the inside —or we adopt the attitudes and actions, priorities and pursuits of the world, blending in to the cultural norms in a sort of camouflage Christianity.
While Satan would love to see us take one of these extremes, the Lord Jesus wants us to maintain a precarious balance on the razor’s edge of reality. In John 17, Jesus prayed regarding His disciples, “They themselves are in the world. . . . And the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one” (John 17:11, 14-15). It was as if Jesus were praying, “Father, don’t isolate them from the world, but insulate them from its dangers.” With this plan comes a challenge. Christians must remain distinctive from the world, yet attractive to the world.
How do we do this? How do we behave properly toward outsiders while maintaining the sanctified lifestyle prescribed in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8? Paul addresses this in 4:9-12.
— 4:9-10 —
In their genuine conversion to the one true God, the Thessalonians had turned their backs on their previous lifestyles. What a sure sign of their genuine faith, love, and hope! After all, Paul commended them that they had “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God” (1:9).
But as often happens, some of those new believers likely took this healthy repentance to an unhealthy extreme. In their newfound zeal for Christ, those early Christians may have removed themselves from the world, cutting off ties with pagan family members and friends and gradually withdrawing from the society and culture around them.
In response to this extreme, we might imagine that Paul would encourage the Thessalonians to reestablish contact with the non-Christians in their lives. Instead, Paul focuses on what the world first notices about Christians —how they treat one another. It’s as if Paul knew that the tendency toward extremes was most threatening in the aftermath of a correction. If he were to say, “You’re huddling —time to scatter!” they might separate from each other and lose the intimate fellowship that had made their church so strong and healthy. So he begins by commending and encouraging them to continue in the love they have for one another.
Paul’s own words (4:9) prove that a genuine love for one another was not lacking among the brothers and sisters in Thessalonica. Regarding “love of the brethren,” Paul says they had “no need for anyone to write” to them (4:9). The Greek term translated “love of the brethren” is philadelphia [5360]. It refers to “the love that particularly binds together the children of one father.”[24]
But this shouldn’t be seen as a lower form of love that falls short of the unconditional, agapē love that ought to characterize Christians. Paul acknowledges that the Thessalonians themselves were taught by God to love (agapaō [25]) one another (4:9). Because of their self-sacrificial, other-focused love, the Thessalonians lived together like a tight-knit family. In fact, this unconditional brotherly love overflowed even beyond their own local congregation, affecting “all the brethren who are in all Macedonia” (4:10). Naturally, Paul didn’t want to discourage this love among the brethren. So, like a coach addressing his team on a winning streak, he urges them to “excel still more” (4:10).
Paul says the disciples have been “taught by God” to embrace this love (4:9). It shouldn’t surprise us, then, when we see this kind of self-sacrificial, one-another-focused love embodied and exemplified in Jesus’ own life: “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). The phrase “to the end” in Greek means more than “as long as He could” or “until His last breath.” According to A. W. Pink, the phrase suggests Christ loved His disciples “to the farthest extent of their need and His grace.”[25] That’s extreme love! And that’s the kind of love for which Paul both commends and encourages the Thessalonians.
Now, we can already begin to imagine how such a self-sacrificial, other-focused, pervasive, and contagious love among the brothers and sisters in the church of Thessalonica could begin to turn the heads of outsiders. When they saw believers caring for each other, providing for each other’s needs, putting others first —they would take note. In fact, it’s easy to imagine that they would want to be a part of something like that. The magnetic force of Spirit-empowered love that held the church together also drew outsiders in.
But that was only half the calling of the Christian. If the Thessalonians had stopped there, with a passive, indirect witness to outsiders, they would have been living in a half-truth. They would have been out of balance, exaggerating one important aspect of the Christian life to the neglect of a direct, active witness to those outside. Paul attempts to equalize the balance in the next two verses.
— 4:11-12 —
Not to make you paranoid, but you need to know that you’re being watched! I know this isn’t nice to hear, but Christians who take their calling seriously can’t have a completely private life. We’re called out of the shadows of a barricaded, boarded-up, behind-the-scenes lifestyle and commissioned to be lights in a dark world.
In 4:11-12, Paul gives no fewer than four specific areas we tend to play down when it comes to living among the world of outsiders in winsome ways. Let me warn you, though. There’s nothing here about leaving tracts on a table at the local diner. No instructions on how to position yard signs to invite people to your trendy new church plant. No advice on the best venue for megaplex crusades with giant crowds and loud music. Not that God hasn’t and doesn’t use these traditional and innovative methods of drawing attention to the gospel . . . but that’s not what Paul and Silas had in mind when they wrote to the new believers in Thessalonica about how to behave properly toward outsiders.
This first one’s going to hurt. Our favorite methods of witnessing all have one thing in common: words . . . usually lots of them. But Paul’s first bit of advice on how to behave properly toward outsiders is to lead a quiet life (4:11). In fact, he tells his readers that they should make it their ambition to do so. Leon Morris notes that the Greek verb for “make it your ambition” originally meant “to be ambitious” but that its meaning later intensified into “a whole-hearted and energetic pursuit of the object.”[26]
Now that’s a strange command, isn’t it? “Strive with all your might to be quiet!” But it’s not simply referring to the use or nonuse of verbal speech. Rather, it likely refers to a quality of life or quiet disposition —that is, the avoidance of agitated, excitable, and restless preoccupation with things that mark Christians as out-of-step quacks rather than followers of Christ in step with the Spirit.
It may very well be that the Thessalonians had even taken a healthy hope in the Second Coming (1:9-10) to an unbalanced extreme. Some scholars have suggested that an out-of-whack fervency for the return of Christ could have motivated some of the Thessalonians to quit their jobs and to engage in sign-seeking or apocalyptic preaching that distorted their testimony. If this were the case, instead of perceiving the Christians as winsome witnesses, non-Christians may have viewed them as lazy vagrants.[27] In any case, Paul wanted them to channel their enthusiasm into “quiet,” ordinary living. Until Christ returned —and nobody knew when that would be (5:1-2) —they needed to do all the things that were necessary to live in the world, but not be of the world. That included living normal lives —supporting their families, being good neighbors, helping the community, and staying levelheaded.
Second, related to this exhortation to live calm, quiet, responsible lives, Paul also urges his readers to attend to their own business (4:11). We should picture being personally diligent, steadily and faithfully working at one’s assignment in life. This means not letting our 24-7 devotion to Christ become an excuse for dropping out of our 9-to-5 dedication to our employers. Face it: From an outsider perspective, religious fanatics can make terrible employees. And sometimes that’s not just a perception. Sometimes believers become so fanatical about their religious activities that instead of attracting people to Christ, they repel them. The truth is we accomplish far more for the gospel by being dependable, hardworking, and honest than by letting our duties slide while we try to convince skeptics how much better people we are with the Lord in our lives.
Third, Paul instructs the Thessalonians to work with their hands (4:11). Whether it was motivated by their end-times fervor or by their single-minded evangelistic zeal, some of Paul’s readers may have concluded, “What’s the use in building something today when the world could end tomorrow?” or “Why waste my energy on temporal trivialities when people’s eternal souls are at risk?” Again, Paul wasn’t facing off against false reasoning, but against incomplete reasoning. This pattern of putting off the practical, everyday activities would get so bad that Paul would have to address it with an even heavier hand in his next letter to the church in Thessalonica: “For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread” (2 Thes. 3:11-12).
When we refuse to earn our own wages while we’re perfectly capable of doing so, the eyes of the world will roll in disgust or place us in deserved contempt. To put it bluntly, an irresponsible, lazy lifestyle discredits the gospel. As those bearing Christ’s name, we need to be among the first to work with our hands, provide for our own, and maybe even earn extra to share with others.
Finally, Paul warned his readers about being overly dependent on others (1 Thes. 4:12). This is a fitting outcome of the first three commands. By living quiet, respectable lives and attending to their own business by working productively with their hands, the Thessalonians would “not be in any need” (4:12). Of course, sometimes the bottom falls out of our lives, and we do need help from others. But that’s how it’s supposed to work in the body of Christ as we love each other, look out for each other’s interests, and care for one another. The goal of Christ-followers, however, is not to mooch off the charity of hardworking brothers and sisters, but to labor hard so we can look after others who may be struggling financially.
All of these things, Paul says, are simple, practical ways we can “behave properly toward outsiders” (4:12). Anything less will distract people from Christ rather than attract them to the Savior.
APPLICATION: 1 THESSALONIANS 4:9-12
Living in Wisdom
A little over a decade after he touched on how to behave properly toward outsiders in 1 Thessalonians, Paul would pen some additional instructions on this same theme in his letter to the Colossians: “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person” (Col. 4:5-6).
These are some wise words of practical advice for how to handle our responses and responsibilities to non-Christians in everyday life. As we consider practical ways to approach this, let’s combine the wisdom taught in 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 with the principles of Colossians 4:5-6. I observe three practical principles in this passage to help us behave properly toward outsiders.
First, remember that unbelievers are watching and wondering, so conduct yourself with wisdom. This means punctuality and honesty in the work place . . . willingness to cheerfully take on assignments others don’t want . . . or treating all people at every level of the business with friendliness and respect. The smallest acts can reap great rewards as non-Christians notice that we’re not only talking about Christ, but living like Him.
Second, remember that unbelievers are listening and learning, so speak your words with grace. Our interactions with others should never be harsh, demanding, or demeaning. Holier-than-thou attitudes expressed through higher-than-thou words can turn people off like a light switch. Be aware of the words you use. Let them soften a rough demeanor or color a bland disposition. Let them be pleasing in their kindness and truth as well as seasoned by insight.
Finally, remember that individuals are important, so respond with dignity and sensitivity. Sometimes it’s easier to give people a canned presentation of the gospel or a rehearsed response to their sincere questions than to actually listen to them, get to know them, and care about them as individuals. But Paul says we need to know how to respond “to each person” (Col. 4:6). The language of grace is attentive and genuine. It treats people the way we would like to be treated. It’s the language of Christ.