And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you[1 Thessalonians 4:11]

"And that ye study to be quiet... do your own business "

How does one study to be quiet? Does it mean I would have to keep my mouth shut or stop talking altogether? To study to be quiet: Is there a school that teaches or grooms one on how to keep the mouth shut? Am I to go and take a course of study on quietness, discipline myself, or go through some self denial processes and graduate with a degree on Perpetual Quietness or achieve non-verbal communication? Is this what the Bible means?

It is clear that the goal of most schools today is to produce men who can talk very smartly. Schools love to roll out Lawyers who are articulate in speech, they labour tirelessly to produce teachers and professors who can lecture brilliantly. They pride in reeling out Politicians and policy-makers who are orators. Is the Bible prohibiting all these endeavours that require talking, since I need to undertake a Study in Quietness? Is godliness synonymous to keeping quiet? How about the preachers and the teachers of the word of God?, will they cease to preach and teach in order to be quiet? Will that not be a contradiction of other Biblical instructions like the great commission, which commands men to go ye therefore and [speak, talk] the gospel... ?

Well, in studying the word of God, one must never approach the Bible in the perspective of English Language. The Word of God is spirit and it is life, therefore, it must be approached for spiritual nourishment and not for addition to mental knowledge. Each word of scriptures is loaded with treasures that ordinary English meaning cannot reveal.

It is beginning to get clearer therefore that when the Bible says "Study to be quiet", it is not talking about keeping the mouth shut, it is not referring to the absence of speech but, something spiritual, not physical. What does it mean to study, and what does it mean to be quiet? These are two big words in the Bible even though they are considered small and easy in English Language. They are deep, spiritual words which I am praying that God will help us to break.

"...be quiet..." "

When a drum is empty, it contains nothing. It is light and has no weight except the weight of the material it is made of. If you put the drum on the road and begin to roll it, what happens? The noise is deafening, everyone in town will know that there is an empty drum on the road because only empty drums make the loudest noise.
There are many people who are empty drums. Any little movements from one place to another, the whole town must know. Visit a social site like facebook, you will find several Empty drums that cannot keep shut. The whole world will know that they just visited London, or are en-route to New York. If they just bought a car, be sure to find the pictures with a nice pose on the social media. If peradventure they have a new dress, new house or new certificate, then, nobody will rest again because the pictures and the noise of this will deafen all the sites. They are quick to display, shout and flaunt self - a clear reflection of their emptiness. When they give birth to a baby, they will put the picture of the baby on facebook When they play any prominent role in a gathering, the world must know. When they just bought new bicycle for their kids, they will put the picture of how the kids are struggling with the bicycle and they will laugh aaaahhhhg... and write some funny notes underneath...These are Empty drums that make the loudest noise. Push them a little, and they are ready to shout.

If you are rolling an empty drum down the hill, and there are two or three stones inside the drum, you will hear a deafening noise that will clearly show the emptiness of the drum, and you can easily tell the number of pebbles it contains. Two stones cannot fill a drum, so all these little items that men have here and there, causing them to make a hell of noise, is a clear indication that they are empty people possessing nothing. But get a drum filled up and roll it down the road, the sound it produces will be quiet, soft, and accommodating. The reason why a filled drum is quiet despite being pushed is because the drum has got something inside, it is full.

When the Bible talks about quietness, it does not mean let’s keep our mouth shut. The quietness here is a spirit, it is an inner content, a life, the stuff or the worth within that a man is made up of. To be quiet then means "to have a spirit of quietness , a quiet nature, a life that is quiet within.

Light men are noisy men, only heavy, weighty men are quiet, and heaviness (weight) is determined by the contents of your inner spirit. Quietness is not a function of whether you speak out or not, it is purely spiritual, a function of what your inner man is made of. When quiet men speak, their words are weighty and full of treasures, blessings and grace.

Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. [Colossians 4:6] "

When quiet men talk, you want to hear them again. Their words are deep and powerful. They speak mysteries that have been hidden from ages, and their words are spoken out of the abundance of treasures that they have stored up within. Quiet men are like the householder, who brings forth treasures - both new and old in their seasons, they are depthless, and their words are convicting.

Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. [Matthew 13:52] "

For noisy men, even their carriage already betrays them before they open their mouths. A few words that noisy men speak sound noisy in the ears. Noisy men may speak more words than quiet men, so quietness is not determined by how much words is spoken. Noisy men can be quiet, while quiet men may speak all day.

If you want to make trouble with a drum full of water or pebbles, and you punch it so hard with your fist, I suppose that it is yourself that will suffer some pains and not the drum. This is simply because "the drum is full, and there is so much stuffed up on the inside".

The difference between a noisy life and a quiet one is not in the sealing of the lips, rather, it is in the inner content that they are made of. When an X-ray of your inner life is done and you lack content, then, yours is a noisy life. But when your life is full of deep stuffs of the right contents, yours is a quiet life.

"And that ye study..." "

We now come to the issue of "study". The studying to have a quiet spirit or a quiet nature, is simply the stuffing of my inner man with the correct content. Studying is the process of adding treasures into my inner man. It is the act of filling up this drum (my inside) to the brim, so that whenever I am being rolled on the ground, the only thing I produce is a quiet sound (a quiet nature). What I do in order to get my inner life weighty, heavy and full is simply what the Bible terms "study".

I must study, I must stuff my life, I must keep on pouring and pouring divine treasures into my inner man, I must stuff it with as much as possible, so that I can be full. Hence, the studying is a storing up, it is a putting into, so that my inner man can be full. It is not just achieved by going into a University so that I can learn how to seal my lips. It is not a matter of self discipline

Many will say, "I don’t want to talk so that I can lead a quiet life, I am studying to be a quiet man...". The daily prayer of many people is: "Lord help me NOT to shout back at men! O God, help me that when men talk against me I will just keep my mouth shut, so that I dont say something wrong, help me to be quiet...", But this is wrong. You can keep your mouth shut for a whole week, you can even put a big padlock on your lips to prevent speech, and yet be a very noisy man.
How much is in you that gives you weight?, What have you that gives you gravity and heaviness?, How can your spirit man be deep, so that whatever you do, what men see, is a quiet spirit that oozes out of you? The labour that you should engage yourself with now is “how can I be filled? , and “With what am I to be filled?”

FILLING UP

Many fill themselves with so much junk, and remian as noisy as ever. Is there something in the Bible that informs me what I must daily stuff into my inner man in order to be weighty, deep and full?

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. [Colossians 3:16] "

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, heavily, mightily, abundantly. Let the word of Christ fill the inside of you. If I am therefore going to be labouring to lead a quiet life, my concern is "how can I get much of the word of God stuffed on the inside of me"?. It is NOT the amount of the word of God that you hear or that you casually read that adds to the content of your inner man, rather, It is the quality of the word of God that you meditated upon that becomes alive in you.The word of God that you have chewed and eaten is the one that has added spiritual nutrients to your inner man, and has become a part of you.

You might have attended several weeks of Bible studies for several years, but the quantity and frequency of those studies you attended is only physical. The question is: how much of those years of studies do you have alive, stored up within, and has added to your Spiritual weight? The studies you heard only adds to your brain, but the Bible you ate, mediated upon and store", is the one that has become treasures, filling you up with additional weight.I am only getting heavier when on a daily basis, I am reading, studying, meditating upon the word and storing it.

When suddenly you saw somebody, perhaps preaching on the pulpit, but the preaching is like noise. Though, he is preaching God’s word, but ah! It is just like that noisy pebble inside the rolling drum, making loud, unpleasant noise!!! He may be shouting, charging and sweating on his suit and tie, yet, the whole show is like noise in your ears, why? This is because the man is empty. All he is saying is all he has got within. Hence, those things coming out of him are noisy. If his message was coming out of a store of treasures filled up within, the message will be weighty, powerful and convicting.

An empty man could spend three hours in prayers before the delivery of a sermon so that he can "discharge", but since he is not a prayerful man by nature and by daily practice, he will get something quite alright from the Lord, at least at that period, but what he will be saying will only be what he has just got, the words will not be weighty, they are not coming from a treasure base within. Even though he will not be speaking blasphemy, yet, his words will not be heavy and convicting, as those that come out from the abundance of the heart treasures.

What makes a man quiet is the heaviness within. A quiet man speaks, but his words are coming out of a store. He could speak on for hours without break, yet, the well of treasures never run dry, it keeps pouring out, and the words are life and very fresh. Out of his belly continue to flow out rivers of living waters. The mouth is sweet as if you should lick it, new things that you never heard get released unabated. Everyone knows that such a man has stayed much in the presence of God, he has received much from God and the much that he has received has become treasures on the inside of him.

When the Bible now says "study to be quiet", it means "leave the company of all these noise makers, go into your closet, go and get treasures from the presence of God, feed on His word and allow it to be stored up as part of the living treasures within you".

When the Bible says "...that ye study", it is actually a sitting in the presence of God for heavens to open so that treasures can flow through the word of God unto a man. You will take that word, eat it, mediate on it, ruminate on it and allow it to be seated in your life, so that it can add to your weight. Wherever you go, spiritually or physically afterwards, the weight is in you. Your words will drop like a bomb when you speak, like the two-edged sword that pierces and breaks any heart that hears it.

When you suddenly go and preach and your words are piercing, and you see souls getting saved and you wonder, "how?", It is because the spoken word is a treasure coming from a base that has been stored up on the inside of you.

With this understanding then "And that ye study to be quiet!!!", means "and that you dwell in the presence of God to be full and enriched in His word so that you can have a spirit that is quiet!!!".

Many times when you read Bible like a newspaper, you may never get the riches of divine revelations. So when you read a passage like "and that ye study to be quiet", you will be praying the wrong prayer: "O God, help me to keep my mouth shut, these people are provoking me, help me Lord to keep my mouth shut..., as I am going to the office today, I know that Mrs. ABC is there and she is going to be wagging her tongue, provoking me, please God, today just help me so that I can keep quiet". Well, even though the prayer sounds good, yet many things are wrong:

• First, it is a prayer of hypocrisy. You will only be keeping your mouth shut to bury up an evil anger that is deep seated within, without having a total victory that Christ has purchased. You may look victorious outside, but you are a loser within. What Jesus Christ came to achieve in us, is to uproot that evil within, and NOT to wrap rottenness up with good garments of external display.
• Second, you would have missed the treasures in this verse of scripture, which if you had received, would have given you permanent victory over your temper within and without . You are praying the wrong prayer.

The quiet life still speaks. A quiet man will talk, and a noisy man can keep quiet, but that does not make him a quiet man.

Have you got a quiet spirit? May the Lord teach us to have a quiet spirit, to stay in His presence daily, so that our inner man will be filled up with His goodness and fullness, Jesus Christ Himself.