January 2, 2025

This chapter involves a warning about those who may be bad influences on us.  There was a belief that Jesus could come back at any moment.  The disciples seemed to be looking for his return in their lifetime and anticipated that the time between his ascension and his second coming would be short.  There were some who used this idea of the LORD returning soon in the wrong way. Rather than working hard in anticipation that Jesus was going to come back they stopped working at all.  They chose to lazily wait around until Jesus would come back. Their idea was Jesus could come back today so we might as well sit and watch to see what happens.  This would be a distraction to those who were trying to live for Christ.  Paul wanted these people warned that they need to get back on the right track.  
Jesus calls for Christians to be active and faithful, not lazy.  We have never been called to sit around and wait for the LORD's return.  Rather, everything in the New Testament suggests that we should work even harder because we know that Jesus will return someday.  In truth we should find time to rest, and overworking does not make us more effective.  But when we read about Sabbath in the 10 Commandments it says to work 6 days and have a rest on the 7th with an understanding that day one comes back around after our rest.  Overall, Paul is pointing out we need to be serving the LORD actively and need to be very careful that the laziness of others does not become an excuse for us to cease in our service to the LORD.