For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate.
2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 (NIV)

Growing up, work was an expectation as soon as I was old enough to do so. I had a newspaper route when I was twelve, which was sort of a brilliant way to learn business at that age. Not only did I have to deliver the newspapers, but I also had to collect the money from my customers and fill out a sales ledger each month. At thirteen I was a bus boy at a local restaurant, and then took advantage of the Iowa caucuses to get hired on with a Presidential campaign. I pollinated corn and mowed lawns in the summer. I shoveled driveways in the winter. I was a babysitter. I was a lifeguard. Basically, I did just about anything to make a buck.

A year or so ago, I was giving the message among my local gathering of Jesus’ followers and was explaining that I wasn’t a staff member of the church. I mentioned that I had a “tent-making” operation during the week. I had more than one person who didn’t get the reference and thought my business was manufacturing tents.

“Tent-making” is a metaphor that comes from Paul. He was raised in his family’s tent-making business in Tarsus. Tarsus was a key post for the Roman army in Greece and Paul’s family was likely a supplier to the Roman legions. While we’ll never know for sure, it’s possible that their tent-making service to Rome may have earned his family their Roman citizenship.

While taking Jesus’ Message to the Roman world, Paul continued to make tents. Wherever he traveled he would hang out his shingle and work. In fact, Paul felt passionately about it, which is abundantly clear in today’s chapter. Paul saw work as a form of spiritual discipline. He didn’t want to be dependent on anyone’s gifts, donations, or financial support. He believed that hard work was part of his daily witness to others, and in today’s chapter writes that he has heard reports of individuals who are “idle” among them. He bluntly admonishes the believers in Thessalonica: “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”

In the quiet this morning, I am whispering prayers of gratitude for growing up in a time when work was a part of both childhood and adolescence. I have been blessed to have had so many different jobs and had such diverse experiences. I learned a lot along the way.

Along my life journey, I have rarely, if ever, heard anyone teach about Paul’s teaching on work as a witness or the trap that living in financial dependence on others can become. I find it an important lesson in the development of personal and spiritual maturity. Paul repeatedly writes that he was a living example with his tent-making. I pray that my life, and my work, is an example as well.

Note: Tomorrow, our chapter-a-day journey begins Ezekiel!

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.