1 Thessalonians 2:8-12: a reflection

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.

Paul describes his ministry among the Thessalonians in a way that reveals what real love looks like. We were ready to share with you, he says, not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. Notice that he did not merely deliver a message and move on. He gave himself. The people had become dear to him, and so he shared not just the truth but his own life, his labor, his heart.

There is a difference between doing something for people and giving yourself to them, and Paul knows it. He could have preached the gospel at arm's length, a professional delivering content. Instead he worked night and day among them, and he dealt with each one, he says, like a father with his own children. The message came wrapped in a life poured out, in genuine affection, because they had become dear to him.

That is a searching picture of how to care for others. It is possible to serve people, even to tell them the truth, while keeping ourselves at a safe distance, giving the message but not the heart. Real love, Paul's kind, shares itself. It lets people become dear, and gives not only what it knows but who it is. Whom are you serving from a distance that God may be calling you to actually love, to share not only what you can do for them, but your own self?

Lord, teach me the love that shares not only a message or a service but my own self. Keep me from caring for others at a safe distance. Let people become dear to me, as they did to Paul, so that I give not only what I know or can do, but my own heart.