Scripture Daily

Context No. 196 of 4322 · 1 Thessalonians

Context · Reflection

1 Thessalonians 2:8-12: in context

8Even so, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us. 9For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail; for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached to you the Good News of God. 10You are witnesses with God how holy, righteously, and blamelessly we behaved ourselves toward you who believe. 11As you know, we exhorted, comforted, and implored every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12to the end that you should walk worthily of God, who calls you into his own Kingdom and glory.

First Thessalonians is probably the earliest of Paul's surviving letters, written to a young church he had to leave in a hurry after trouble in the city. This passage is him describing how he behaved while he was with them.

The central sentence is the one worth the whole passage: we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. He puts the message and the person on the same list, and gives the reason as affection rather than duty.

Then the working conditions. You remember our labor and toil, working night and day so that we might not burden any of you while we preached. Paul made tents. He is reminding them that the man who taught them held a day job through it, deliberately, so that nobody could say the message came with an invoice. Then three words for his conduct, holy and righteous and blameless, with them and God as joint witnesses. And the image he chooses for his leadership is not a general or a teacher but a father with his own children, exhorting and encouraging and urging each one. Not the group. Each one. Who have I been giving good material to, while holding back the part of me that would cost something?

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