Being Up to The Task

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE THESSALONIANS

BEING UP TO THE TASK

1 Thess 2:6-12

As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, 7 but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. 8 We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. 9 Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

NIV

Certainly, the labor deserves a wage, but here Paul says that although they labored among them in sharing the Gospel and their lives, they did not receive any wage from the people. Instead, they worked at his trade as a tentmaker to support himself and his fellow evangelists. Today, there might be a few pastors of extremely small size churches, feel the need to have an outside job to support their own ministry because the church just cannot afford to pay them. On the flip side, there are pastors who are living very well and paid handsomely. It would seem there is no general rule regarding this area of ministry, but here Paul makes sure these Thessalonians know that he never expected any such support from them. His ministry was motived out of love. This serves as an example for ministry for anyone who has the call. The task of sharing the gospel as well as pastoring a church should be driven by the love for the people. How could it be possible to be effective in any ministry if we did not have love? Paul also serves as a picture of the attitude we should live, as not being a burden on anyone, but supporting our own lives and that in our service to others we need to be an example of holiness, righteousness, and being blameless. As Paul says he not only shared the gospel with them, he shared his life with them. This serves as an example of how we need to have this transparency among the church, sharing our lives with each other. We fear we might fail all too often in this area as we have a tendency to keep to ourselves in regard to many areas of our lives. We come together to worship, but for the most part that is all we share. There are and perhaps will always be little cliques that perhaps share a little more intimately than the general population of the church. Still, Paul makes the point especially about those who share the gospel and preach the word that there is a need to live their lives as an open book, and that book needs to be about holiness, righteousness, and blamelessness. In addition, serving others as one who cares for their own family. We wonder how successful we are, or how much we have failed to live up to this example. Are we encouraging and comforting and urging others to live a life worthy of God? That requires some self-examination. We can only hope we can live up to the task.