For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us
The apostle goes on to dissuade from that which denominates
persons disorderly walkers, and exposes them to the censure of
the church, and that partly by the example of the apostles, and
partly by their command. He appeals to them, to their knowledge
and judgment, it being a thing well known to them, that they
ought to walk as they had the apostles for ensamples; for who
should they follow but their spiritual fathers, shepherds, and
guides? and especially so far as they were followers of Christ,
as they were, in the case referred unto, working with their own
hands:
for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among
you;
they could appeal to them as witnesses, and God also, how holily,
justly, and unblamably they walked among them; see ( 1
Thessalonians 2:10 ) and particularly, that they did not live
an idle and inactive life among them.