Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Thessalonians 3:12

"Now them that are such we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread." — 2 Thessalonians 3:12 (ASV)

We command—This is the fourth time this severe word is used in this chapter. Perhaps “we order” might convey the meaning even more sharply. But immediately, so that such severity would not provoke rebellion, he adds, “and we beseech,” also stating the grounds on which he rests his appeal: in our Lord—that is, on the strength of our union in the Body of Christ (Compare 1 Thessalonians 4:1).

That with quietness they work—This is the opposite of being disruptive and idle. They are to eat their own bread, not the bread of others. This passage tempts us to take the marginal reading in 1 Thessalonians 4:12: “have need of no man.”

The phrase is not fatal to the idea that a form of communal living was established. The bread would still be “their own,” meaning they would have a right to it, assuming it had been earned for the community through hard work. Otherwise, with or without such a system, the bread was stolen. Commentators fittingly compare a rabbinical saying: “When a man eats his own bread he is composed and tranquil in mind; but if he is eating the bread of his parents or children, much more that of strangers, his mind is less tranquil.”