Abstract
2 Thessalonians 3:6-15, which encourages the Thessalonian believers to work and threatens them if they refuse has drawn several scholarly explanations. Much previous scholarship tended toward an eschatological account, in which Thessalonian Christians changed their behavior based on Paul's earlier predictions of an imminent end. Recent scholarship has differently tended to explain the Thessalonians' supposed indolence in terms of Greco-Roman patron-client relationships, in which some persons abdicate work responsibilities in favor of social climbing and favor seeking. While not discounting the importance of these perspectives, I seek to establish a third vector in explaining the threat: (SIC) ("If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" [2 Thess 3:10 ESV-CE]). In particular, specific lexemes link 2 Thess 3:6-15 to passages of 1 Corinthians having to do with eucharistic communion and ecclesiastical censure. The imposition of ecclesiastical separation (2 Thess 3:6, 14) frames the central warning. In addition, the casuistic structure of 2 Thess 3:10 grammatically parallels other Pauline exclusion statements. Rather than making a mere statement of principle or threatening to take away food support from needy members, 2 Thess 3:10 is proposing instead to remove indolent community members from eucharistic table fellowship.