1 Thessalonians 4:11
and that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you;
WEB
And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;
KJV
What 1 Thessalonians 4:11 means
It tells believers to aim their ambition at a settled, steady life: staying calm, minding their own affairs, and working with their own hands.
Paul is writing to brand-new Christians in Thessalonica, a busy Greek port city, around twenty years after Jesus. It is one of the oldest documents in the New Testament. Some in that church were so convinced the world was about to end that ordinary life had started to feel beside the point; a few had stopped working altogether and were living off the others.
Paul's counsel plays with a contradiction on purpose: he uses an ambition word, the kind normally aimed at honor and public standing, and points it at the least glamorous goals available. A calm life. Your own affairs. Work done with your own hands. In verse 12 he gives the reason: so that outsiders respect you and you depend on nobody. Ambition is welcome; he simply redirects it at faithfulness in small, daily things.