II Salonika

In his first letter to the new believers at Salonika, Paul encouraged them to endure persecution with patience, since their enemies would soon experience divine retribution. To quote the late Jerry Falwell's recipe for dealing with adversaries, "Love them, forgive them, outlive them."

The world these people lived in was facing radical (from the roots up) turmoil, and the people who were riding high at the moment had a date with destiny.

The problem is, when you hear that judgment day is upon us, and the world we now know is on its last legs, it gets really easy to lose one's own drive, momentum, energy, mojo. Apparently, many of the lazier people in Salonika used this news as an excuse to slack off, and start living on the charity of others. During the late sixties / early seventies, as the bungled Vietnam war was winding down, the hippy subculture preached the wisdom of "tune in, turn on, drop out." Who wants to expend energy neatly arranging the deck furniture on a sinking Titanic? This turned out to be really bad advice, even if the "drug of choice" was a vivid personal relationship with Jesus. Quite a few long-haired "Jesus freaks" bummed around the country, living on the charity of others. This was not a good scene. (sorry, my hippy argot keeps cropping up!)

Let's look at how Paul addressed the issue:

2Th 3:7 Bizleri nasıl örnek almanız gerektiğini kendiniz biliyorsunuz. Çünkü biz aranızdayken boş gezenler değildik.
2Th 3:8 Kimsenin ekmeğini karşılıksız yemedik. Herhangi birinize yük olmamak için uğraşıp didindik, gece gündüz çalıştık.
2Th 3:9 Yardımlarınızı hak etmediğimiz için değil, izleyebileceğiniz bir örnek bırakmak için böyle yaptık.
2Th 3:10 Hatta sizinle birlikteyken şu buyruğu vermiştik: "Çalışmak istemeyen yemek de yemesin!"
2Th 3:11 Çünkü aranızda bazılarının boş gezdiğini duyuyoruz. Bunlar hiçbir iş yapmıyor, başkalarının işine karışıp duruyorlarmış.
2Th 3:12 Böylelerine Rab İsa Mesih adına yalvarıyor, şunu buyuruyoruz: Sakin bir şekilde çalışıp kendi kazançlarından yesinler.
2Th 3:13 Sizlerse kardeşler, iyilik yapmaktan usanmayın.

Let's look at a few words. In vs. 7, Paul admonishes the folks at Salonika to follow his example. In the other translation I use, the verb the translators selected is izleyebileceğiniz. Let's tease that apart:

• iz -- footprint, track, trace, mark, evidence, clue
  
• izlemek -- to follow, watch, view, observe
  
• izci -- Boy / Girl Scout
  
• izleyebileceğiniz -- you will be able to follow. Combines the root izle with ebil (capability suffix) and ecek (future tense) and iniz (second person plural).
  

In the original language, Paul demonstrates a bit of word play in verse 11:

μηδὲν ἐργαζομένους, ἀλλὰ περιεργαζομένους·

The people he reproved were no longer busy, but had become busybodies. Erg- , the Greek syllable for work, shows up in the English word energy. Running one's own life well is a major-league project. It's so much easier to assert a right to run other people's lives for them. I guess that explains the perennial appeal of liberalism.