INTRO: This morning we are looking at the fourth and last case which I find in the NT that calls for the church to take certain measures when wrong is done by a member. It is found in 2 Thessalonians. The matter is the problem of idleness, failure to work with their own hands. It seems that the Thessalonians were plagued with this problem.
Now many commentators have concluded that this problem resulted from Paul’s teaching on the second coming. For example, the Jamieson Faucett and Brown commentary says, “Hence some neglected their daily business and threw themselves on the charity of others, as if their sole duty was to wait for the coming of the Lord. This error therefore needs rectifying, and forms a leading topic of the second epistle.” My own conclusion is that the problem resulted, not from Paul’s teaching on the second coming but it was a weakness of the nature of the Thessalonians themselves.
There are two basic reasons for that conclusion. First, Paul had detected this weakness in the Thessalonians when he was first there. When he wrote his first epistle he addressed this problem in 3:10-12 and 5:14. Then in 2 Thessalonians he has to address it again.
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