A quiet life

But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing. – 1 Thessalonians 4.9-12

Lead a quiet life
Mind your own business
Work with your own hands
Walk properly to those on the outside

I think I want to adopt this as my new motto. It is so basic and so practical and so simple.

I read words like a quiet life, minding my own business, doing my own work, and have a proper walk before the world and I have to wonder if we have not got something wrong in the way we behave today. It seems that a lot of us think that being loud and vocal and confrontational and such is the way we can best please God.

Peter said that we pray for leaders that we might lead a ‘quiet and peaceable lives.’

I read an article by John MacArthur about church closings and how we respond. He said things like God’s people do not march in protests. We don’t rebel. We don’t harass and harangue. We don’t picket. We don’t demonstrate. We live quiet and peaceable lives where we mind our own business and while we get our work done and we live exemplary lives before our neighbours. We aren’t troublemakers. We don’t stir the pot. We are quiet and we mind our own business and we do our jobs and we have a good testimony toward those those on the outside.

May God give us the grace to live quiet lives. That’s what the church in Paul’s day – and look at the impact it had.