2 Thessalonians 3:11

The γάρ goes back to 2 Thessalonians 3:6. “Whereas I am told that some of your number are behaving in a disorderly fashion, not busy but busybodies,” fussy and officious, doing anything but attending to their daily trade. “Ab otio ualde procliue est hominum ingenium ad curiositatem” (Bengel). The first persecution at Thessalonica had been fostered by a number of fanatical loungers (Acts 17:5). On the sensible attitude of the primitive church to labour, see Harnack's Expansion, i. 215 f. M. Aurelius (iii. 4) warns people against idle, fussy habits, but especially against τὸ περίεργον καὶ κακόηθες, and an apt parallel to this use of ἀτάκτως lies in Dem. Olynth., iii. 34: ὅσα (funds or food) οὗτος ἀτάκτως νῦν λαμβάνων (i.e., takes without rendering personal service in the field) οὐκ ὠφελεῖ, ταῦτʼ ἐν ἰσῇ τάξει λαμβανέτω.