For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
All Commentaries on 2 Thessalonians 3:10 Go To 2 Thessalonians 3
The Apostolic Constitutions
AD 375
Let the young persons of the church endeavor to minister diligently in all essential matters. Mind your business with all suitable seriousness, that so you may always have enough to support yourselves and those who are needy, and not burden the church of God. For we ourselves, besides our attention to the word of the gospel, do not neglect our inferior vocations. For some of us are fishermen, some tentmakers, some farmers, that so we may never be idle. So says Solomon somewhere, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways diligently, and become wiser than she. For she, having neither field, overseer, nor ruler, prepares her food in the summer, and lays up a great store in the harvest. Or else go to the bee, and learn how laborious she is, and how valuable her work is, whose labors both kings and common men make use of for their health. The bee is desirable and glorious, though she be weak in strength, yet by honoring wisdom she is improved” … Labor therefore continually; for the blot of the slothful is not to be healed. But “if anyone among you does not work, let not such a one eat” among you. For the Lord our God hates the lazy. For no one of those who are dedicated to God ought to be idle. .
