And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. 1 Thessalonians 4:11
Personal photography is different these days from what it was when I was a kid. Back then, we had Kodak Brownie cameras that captured our pictures on film that we had to send away in the mail to be developed. We took pictures of family members, friends, and special places. But we never took pictures of ourselves! The selfie of today could never be imagined back then, not with the cameras that we used. The cameras in today’s cell phones enable people to snap photos of themselves in all kinds of poses and with all kinds of people in all kinds of places. And people do it! Overdo it, is more like it. You will see those selfies everywhere on social media such as Facebook. The average cell phone user has more pictures of themselves than they have of anyone else, it seems. It’s just one symptom of a very self centred world, where everybody has to take centre stage and be the centre of attention. It’s a far cry from the type of world that is described in our text today.
Do we really want to be silent and invisible and away from the activities of life? No. Good, because that is not what the quiet in our text is referring to. This kind of quiet is that of a huge stone in the middle of a fast-moving stream. The stone is unmoved and unchanged by the roaring and the swirling of the water, or even by the flotsam and jetsam that come splashing by. So we are to be settled in our faith in our God, not allowing the changing world and all its excitements and troubles to change us from being faithful and profitable servants for our Lord. No, that is not easy to do. That is why our text tells us to study, apply ourselves, work at it, so that eventually we will be the quiet and stable witness that we should.
Included in this formula is doing our own business, says our text. The modern way of saying it is minding our own business. Minding our own business means that we don’t try to run other people’s lives for them, or question and criticize their judgments in matters that don’t affect us. I don’t know about you, but I have enough work to do to keep my own doorstep clean and my own life in order without trying to run the business of anybody else’s life. Working with our own hands is part of it. Just as the idle mind is the devil’s workshop, so idle hands are the devil’s toolkit. If our hands are not occupied in doing something worthwhile, the tempter will find plenty of worthless things for them to do. God never intended that his people be lazy. And He has plenty of work for us to do, and plenty of reward for doing it.
A life in which self is the centre will be a life of worthless activity that benefits nobody, not even ourselves. But a life of quiet, faithful, and diligent service for our Lord is a blessing to all. -Jim MacIntosh