Dennis Tuuri

The Sabbath is a picture of resurrection life. God brings us back to life to worship him as we have done and as we’ll continue to do this day. But he also does this to give us a message to take with us into the world and all that we do.

The scripture reading for the sermon today is 1 Thessalonians 2:7-9. This is the word of our King.

1 Thessalonians 2, verses 7-9: “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted to you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail, for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.”

The topic today is the apostle as mother. I suppose I should say the apostles, the sent ones, since the epistle is written from not simply Paul but from Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus—Silas and Timothy, that is. And in the context of these verses we’ve just read, the plural is used. But in any event, the apostle as mother.

1 Thessalonians 2:7-9. I’ve given you a summary statement of what we’re going to be talking about at the top of the outline. The apostle, like the mother, gently nourishes and guards those whom he is endeared to, self-sacrificially laboring for their well-being. The outline simply breaks out each of those points. We go right through the verses in pretty much the order the concepts are presented in these three verses to consider what Paul is telling us and what it means to us today.

Now, of course, we’re in the context of the book of First Thessalonians, as we’ve been going through it for a number of months now. And specifically, you’ll remember that we said the first general section that we’re approaching the end of toward the end of chapter 2—the first section in this epistle—is Paul’s thanksgiving for the Thessalonian church. He gives a summary of that thanksgiving in the first few verses and makes reference early on in chapter one to the manner of the apostles, those that brought the gospel to the Thessalonians.

So what we’re involved with now is expansion in chapter 2 of what he had touched briefly upon in chapter one. Remember we talked about how they were supposed to be imitators of Paul and that the manner of the men is important in terms of the transmission of the gospel. The transmission of the gospel being faithful men. What we’re involved with here, this section we’re in the middle of now, is a picture of what these apostles were like. It’s important for us because it’s a model to us and was a model to the Thessalonians as well.

Last week we decided to use several verses, bunch them together—the first six verses—to talk about the fact that the apostles were courageous. For the last couple weeks, we talked about courage. You remember as part of his defense of the fact that they were not like some of these other people out for their own gain or anything. In verses five and six of this last section we looked at, he says, “We didn’t use flattering words as a cloak of covetousness. God is witness. Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you nor yet of others. When we might have been burdensome, even as the apostles of Christ.”

So what he has done here for the last few verses is to give the negative. We weren’t like that. We didn’t use flattering speech. We didn’t have any pretext by which we’re trying to enrich ourselves. We didn’t seek glory of men. And by implication, we do seek glory from God who sent us to preach the gospel. So it’s kind of negative what he said up to now—these are the things we weren’t like. And now he goes on to the positive side of it and says this is the way we actually were.

I’ve decided to break the verses up so that today we’ll talk about the apostles as mother, as it were, and then the last couple of verses of this little section as father. The positive is kind of framed out that way. All of these first verses—five and six that I just made reference to—the essential aspect in them is selfishness. He says we weren’t selfish. And then he goes on to say how we were selfless for your sake and for the sake of the gospel.

Now one other caveat before we get into this material: next week we’ll give not the balance but the fuller picture of what we’re going to talk about this week. This week we’re going to stress the motherly side that Paul makes reference to. Then he talks about being as a father to them as well. The pictures kind of go together. If you just had this first couple of verses the second half, you wouldn’t have the full picture of the apostles’ manner that we’re supposed to imitate. So it’s important that we consider that we’re in the middle of a section here.

Okay. So, having said that, what kind of men were these that we’re supposed to imitate and that were so effectual for the transmission of the gospel? After all, as we said, we’re supposed to be imitators of the apostles and we’re supposed to then become models to other people. And what did he say about himself here in a positive light that he was?

Well, the first thing he says in verse 7 is “We were gentle among you.” Gentle. So the apostle as mother is first of all gentle. I might just say that not just first of all, it kind of is a summation of what comes. I don’t remember which commentator I read, but one commentator said that really the word gentle here is defined by the rest of these next few verses. What does gentle mean? It’s like so many words we have talked about up to now in the epistle—faith, hope, love, and others. We tend to import our own meaning into the text. But if we let the text speak for itself, he’ll give us a picture here of how he was gentle among them.

He obviously is speaking again of the fact that he wasn’t chargeable to them. He’ll get into that a little bit later. So he did not lord it over the Thessalonians, as it were. He was gentle. He was free of these lower motivations that were described in the past six verses. So that has something to do with the idea of being gentle as well. They didn’t throw their weight around.

Hendrickson says the term implies that the apostles were affable, easy to talk to, mild and kind in their dealings with the Thessalonians. And that’s probably true.

There is another section of scripture in 2 Timothy 2 that gives us a picture of this gentleness as well. It would be good for you to turn there in 2 Timothy 2:23-24. We have a reference to the same characteristic. The same word is used, actually, in the context of those who bring strife and what to do with them. He says in verse 22, “Flee also youthful lust, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strife. And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves. And then he says, if God peradventure would give them a spirit of repentance.”

So the same concept of gentleness is described again by way of opposition in 2 Timothy 2:23-24. If you’re gentle, you’re not striving in a pugnacious sort of sense with other people. And he says here that the servant of the Lord—speaking specifically of church officers in this context—the church officers are not to be pugnacious or striving even with those who would bring contentions, but rather gentle. And then goes on to talk about being apt to teach and patient.

So gentleness in the context of Second Timothy has the implication of being able to teach people not bombastically but to lead them from where they’re at and the foolish questions they may bring up. Don’t get sucked into that kind of strife and warfare but rather teach them gently and patiently, weaning them away from those kind of arguments, teaching them along that path that they might then come to repentance and might get with the program, as it were.

And so when we read the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 that the elders should be apt to teach, we see other adjectives as well thrown into that general discussion of being apt to teach in 1 Timothy 3 that apply also to the 2 Timothy passage. Being apt to teach is in the context of those who bring strife and division to the church. That’s not the only place you use the gift. But the point is that’s what it says specifically here.

I bring this up because Paul’s gentleness among the Thessalonians meant that he was patient with them. He was willing to work with them along a particular path and not give into strife or pugnacious discussions with them. He was gentle with them.

Now it is also important to recognize that the fruit of such a thing is the Holy Spirit himself. In Galatians 5:22 we read that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, and faith. As we said before, really the elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 are simply marks of the gifts of the spirit given to an individual. The spirit is the basis for gentleness in a Christian’s life.

Our Savior himself rebuked James and John at one point for their lack of gentleness. In Luke 9:54-55, James and John saw some disciples and they said, “Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down upon heaven and consume them, even as Elias did?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them and he said, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.”

The Holy Spirit brings gentleness into a life and not contention. So the gentleman is not quick to cut people off at the path, even in witnessing to those who have not yet come to repentance or come to the faith, but rather he gently leads them into the truth.

Now, one other way of counterbalancing that aspect is important to recognize. In such verses as Jude 1:22-23, other ways of dealing are spelled out. It says, “Of some have compassion making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.” There are different ways you are to treat different sorts of people. I’m not suggesting that gentleness is always appropriate when you have somebody railing against the gospel. Rebukes are important in terms of the context of evangelism at particular points.

After all, we’re dealing with the glory of God ultimately, not the well-being of people. But the scriptures are clear that generally speaking, in terms of evangelization and then in terms of discipling these young believers as well, Paul was gentle with them and led them slowly along a path, not expecting too much of them.

This basic concept is drawn out even further, of course, in the verses that come. The next thing he says, defining now his own gentleness, is “We were gentle among you, even as a nurse.” A nurse. This particular word nurse can have reference either to a nanny or it can have reference to an actual mother. Mothers are also called nurses in the scriptures.

The idea really is that whoever this is—and it probably does refer specifically to the mother, since it talks about her own children—what’s being emphasized here is the root meaning. The word nurse here means to nourish or to feed. And when we read various places in the scriptures how God feeds the birds—the ravens are fed by God—this word, basically the same root as this word, is used. So a nurse: Paul is saying that we were gentle among you, nursing you as it were, nourishing you, feeding you. Essentially, the root concept here is nourishment.

So Paul is saying that we were gentle. We wanted to bring you along, and we were willing to be self-sacrificial in terms of nursing you, as it were, from the word of God.

Calvin, in commenting on this particular usage here, says that a mother in rearing her children reveals a wonderful and extraordinary love because she spares no trouble or effort, avoids no care, is not wearied by their coming and going, and gladly even gives her own life blood to be drained, as it were.

So that concept is beginning to be developed in this text and will be drawn out in full force here in a couple of minutes. While the primary point here is to enforce the concept of gentleness by way of analogy with a nursing mother and the gentleness and patience she shows toward the child that she is nourishing, Paul does indeed, in a similar fashion, nourish the Thessalonians not with the perishable milk of the mother but rather with the imperishable feeding of the word of God. He feeds them with Christ, as it were, and he then causes these disciples to grow in maturity with Jesus Christ.

This concept is not new to the New Testament. The idea of the apostle or the messenger as a mother: In Numbers 11:12, Moses says, “Have I conceived all this people? Have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child unto the land which thou swearest unto their fathers?”

Moses says, “Now, what is the idea here? Why am I having to nurse these people like a nursing father or mother? Why do I have to feed them? Did I bring them into the world?” And of course, Paul, in the book of Galatians, says that he did bring the particular congregation into the world. In a sense, he said that he had birth pains—that he did actually birth them, as it were, in terms of bringing them into the new birth and preaching the gospel and so delivering them in that sense.

So this concept of the apostle as mother, gently nourishing and feeding the disciples of Christ, is one that is repeated in old and new testaments and is good solid foundation.

The apostle goes on to talk about how “as a nurse cherisheth her children.” So third, the Apostle Paul says here that not only is he gentle as a nurse, but he also cherishes them as a nurse cherisheth her children.

Those of you who have been here a couple of years, you’re real familiar with this basic pattern. But this word cherisheth here comes from the Greek word that was used when a mother would protect the birds—a mother bird would protect the chicks in her nest with her feathers and protect them from the environment. So it has the connotations of to warm or to protect or guard from environment.

Ephesians 5:29 is the only other use of this word. And that’s where we read that “no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.” Remember there that we have that same basic principle of guarding and nourishing.

Adam had a garden he was supposed to bring to maturation. He was supposed to guard it as well—the garden from outside dangers. And so a man, what you do with your body, the scriptures tell us as a point of fact, is that you feed your body and bring it along, mature it, and you feed your soul. You also protect your body. You wear clothing to protect it from the elements. Some of you buy guns to protect it from those that would break in or from eventual hunger in the future. And that’s an appropriate usage of what God has called us to do.

And of course in Ephesians 5, that’s related to the way we’re supposed to treat our wives. That same thing is true.

Well, Paul says the same thing is true in terms of those who go to preach the gospel and disciple believers. They are to nourish them. They are to feed them the word. They are to be gentle in doing it and patient. They are to cause them to be also protected from areas of potential harm as well.

One other usage of that Greek word—by the way, in terms of warming—in Job 39:14 we read of the bird which leaveth her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in the dust. And in the Septuagint—the Greek translation of that Old Testament that was in existence during the time of the early church—that “warmeth them in the dust” is translated with the same Greek word, which means to protect from the cold environment.

So the apostle as mother gently feeds, as a nurse or as a mother, and guards the disciples. He does this because he is affectionately desirous of them. In 1 Thessalonians 2:8, the first phrase: “So being affectionately desirous of you.” And then later in the text he says “because ye were dear unto us.”

So besides these general aspects of what he actually does for them, here he stresses his heart motivation toward them as well. How much he loved them. And this was the same motivation that causes the mother to give her own lifeblood, as it were, to cause her strength to go to her children. So the apostle gives of himself to the disciples because he loves them with the same love, or with more of a love, than the mother has for the child.

You see, he uses this very unusual word here that is translated in the King James as “affectionately desirous of you.” This is the only place it’s found. It’s very rare in the Bible—a very rare Greek word in terms of New Testament usage. In the Septuagint, again from Job 3:21, this word is used. Job 3:21 reads of those which long for death but it cometh not, and those who are under extreme punishment, as it were, extreme pain, may actually long or desire death. It’s the same Greek word used in the Septuagint as this word about being affectionately desirous of you. To really want their well-being is what’s behind this.

In a sepulchral inscription of this same age—a Greek burial place—the sorrowing parents of a child who was buried were described as greatly desiring their son. The same Greek word is used. And so you can imagine that if your son, by God’s providence, is taken from you, if one of your young sons or daughters is gone, how much you would want to be with them. Your great love for them would cause you to desire to be with them.

Well, that’s the same thing that Paul is saying here. He was being affectionately desirous of them. He loved them with great love, and that was why he was gentle as a mother, to nourish and to cherish them, to feed and to guard. And as I said, later he talks about that they were dear unto you. “Ye were dear unto us.” The term dear at the end of this verse has its roots in the concept of the agape love described in the New Testament. So “ye were dear unto us”—you were beloved, as it were.

So Paul has this heart attitude toward them of great love for them and a desirousness of helping them and assisting them to come to maturation. The same way that the mother has that kind of love for her children—that causes her to self-sacrificially give most of her life for a good twenty years for the well-being of those children that God has placed in her trust. That’s how Paul felt about these people and is the model for us in terms of how we’re to feel about those that we evangelize and then disciple.

In Acts 4:32, we read of the early church that “the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.” These various words that Paul uses to describe his affection for the Thessalonian believers have grammatical as well as essentially the same meaning—the root meaning—as this phrase here: being one heart and of one soul.

So what Paul is saying is as the mother is essentially part of the child—they are one, in that sense. So Paul is one with these believers, and therefore he is willing to greatly sacrifice himself for their well-being.

Lensky, in commenting on these first few verses—the fact that the apostle was gentle as a nurse, cherishing, nourishing them, and because he was affectionately desirous of the believers and they were dear unto Paul—Lensky says that “here we have the true missionary pastoral and Christian spirit: voluntary and happy desire to bestow the divine gospel and all the love of our souls upon others.”

So that’s the picture we’re given.

Now he continues in verse 8 to say “We were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls.” So in addition, the apostle as mother is self-sacrificial.

What he’s doing here is he’s laid out a picture. The first picture he lays out is that nursing mother, and he uses that then to describe, by way of picture, his love and what he had accomplished for the Thessalonian believers. Now in verse 8, he moves over to talk about the reality that the picture portrays. What’s he really talking about? He wasn’t literally their mother, but what’s he talking about? What he’s going to be talking about here is that they were self-sacrificial through heavy labor and toil and how they didn’t take remuneration from the Thessalonians but instead gave of themselves and their lives through all this hard work they performed to be able to preach the gospel to these people.

So he moves here from the figure to the reality of what he is talking about. He says that “we were willing to have imparted unto you.” So he’s talking about how self-sacrificial they were. This word “willing” in the King James doesn’t really catch the sense. A better translation would be to say that “we were delighted to be able to do this.” We took great pleasure in imparting unto you not only gospel but also our own souls.

The concept is that we really liked doing it. It wasn’t that we were willing—”Okay, I’ll do it.” It was that “Yeah, this is something we really wanted to do.” It was what God had given them to do, and they joyed in that task.

He uses the same phrase when he says later to the Corinthians that “I would be willing rather to be absent from the body.” He is more desirous of being with Jesus, absent from the body, than he was to be present with the Thessalonians. He’d rather be present with Christ than with other men. And it’s that same sense here. He was willing to have imparted unto them. He was greatly desirous of it.

What he’s talking about, of course, is the giving of themselves to the Thessalonians through hard work. So the apostle, like the mother, is self-sacrificial.

Now, the verse we just read from Isaiah 58 at the opening of the service—verses 13 and 14—Isaiah 58 is concerned with what the Sabbath is all about and what a true devotion to God consists of. In verse 10, he tells us that one of the requirements of really meeting God’s holy purpose of the Sabbath. I’ll quote now from verse 10: “If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day.”

Then the transition occurs. That’s what Paul was doing here. Paul and Silas and Timothy—they were drawing out their very soul to the hungry, literally hungry in terms of food. He was not taking their money. But more than that, he was doing whatever was necessary, self-sacrificially giving up his life if need be, for the greater sake of imparting the gospel to these people. Remember that indeed persecution was a great factor here, and it might have been necessary to give their lives.

There’s an old Italian proverb that says that the teacher—the good teacher, that is—is like the candle which gives light to others by consuming itself. Giving light to others by consuming itself. And this was Paul’s heart desire for those that God had brought along his path. It wasn’t just a job he was doing or a duty. He was giving of himself so that it might grow.

He in fact tells us in Romans 9 that he was willing to be accursed if that could accomplish the salvation of the Jewish nation. I mean, this is a man who understood the idea of giving of himself the way that Christ gave of himself so that others might be blessed.

Now, in terms of application of this, you know, it is one thing to have the courage of death come upon us as we minister to people, but some of us can’t even get beyond the simple need for courage to simply be transparent. As we talked about last week with the other, when Paul says that he was willing to impart to them not only the gospel but his own soul if need be, he doesn’t use the word for his physical body only. He talks about all that he is.

And Paul was willing—and we know from the record that he frequently did this—he was willing to talk about what a sinner he was for the greater glory of helping these people mature in the faith. It wasn’t something he would like. He wasn’t proud of it. In fact, he was ashamed of it, being the chief of all sinners. But he was willing to be transparent, to show people what he had gone through, for the greater sake of maturing them in Jesus Christ.

These verses talk about the need for us to be self-sacrificial—not just of our physical lives, but of giving up our pride, our sense of reputation if need be, for the assistance of others. Giving of our very selves and causing them to mature.

Now, this is very similar as well—really the same analogy is being carried on—to the mother self-sacrificially, if need be, dying for her children. Of course, the place where that comes out most is during the birth pangs themselves. Birth pains in the scriptures are given as a picture of the ultimate pain, as it were, that points to death—very great pain. I believe that it is. I thank God that I’ve never had to experience it myself. But you know, children should consider the fact that this is the beginning of the mother’s sacrifice for them.

That’s the picture Paul is drawing on here to talk about what he accomplished for the Thessalonian believers.

Okay. So, sixth: the apostle labors. “Ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail.” This is a double word. These two words together—labor and travail. Some have suggested you should call it “toil and moil” because the two Greek words kind of have that word play going on. They sound like one another.

The first word—its root means to cut or to bleed. It implies the letting out of life. Again, the same image is portrayed. It means to work hard, letting out of our strength, as it were, for something, for a greater purpose. Heavy toil is implied. Great weariness. This is the same word that he commends the Thessalonians for in chapter 1—their labor of love. So they did indeed see the example of Paul’s labor and imitate it. He’s greatly laboring for them here.

The second word means again toil. In 2 Corinthians 11, it’s translated “painfulness.” 2 Corinthians 11:27: “Paul says in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness.” This is what he had to go through. In weariness and painfulness is the same Greek phrase here.

Here Paul says, “Remember our labor and travail.” In 2 Thessalonians 3:8, these same two words are spoken of again. In his second epistle to the Thessalonians, he says, “Neither did we eat any man’s bread for nought, but wrought with labor and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you.” Obviously a parallel passage to the one we’re looking at here.

So this double word is used to talk about the great toil and trouble it was for them. Paul says, “We labored and travailed night and day.” He doesn’t mean by that he worked in the night so he could preach the gospel during the day. He means that there were portions of the nighttime and portions of the daytime—that’s the Greek idiom—in which he labored. The general point here is that his laboring was talking about the work that he performed with his hands. So he would not have to live off the goodness of the Thessalonians while he was ministering to them, but rather would be self-sufficient so he could take away that possible stumbling block from them.

So that’s what’s going on here. These two words are enfeeling to the individual. Paul was—let’s see, when Chris W. and I were first engaged, I was going to Multnomah School of the Bible and working at night. I was working a full-time job and going to school during the day. I got real tired.

And Paul here is working night and day, as it were—full-time, two full-time jobs. One to support himself and the second to preach and to teach and to disciple the Thessalonian believers. This is an enfeeling process. It was self-sacrificial toil. He labored night and day.

Now, it’s interesting that he was able to do this. The Talmud, in telling parents what they should do with children, says they have three responsibilities toward a son. First, to circumcise him. Second, to teach him the law. And the third responsibility is to teach him a trade. Teach him a trade. The rabbis said that “he that teacheth not his son a trade doth the same as if he had taught him to be a thief.”

So they were real big—and they are to this day, the Jewish people—in teaching their children trades. Paul accordingly, this is going on for a long time, Paul accordingly was taught a trade when he was young. Now, this didn’t just talk about middle-income families or poor families doing this. The very richest of the Orthodox Jewish families would also have a requirement to teach their children a trade in addition to a profession. The idea was, of course, in economic terms. There was the concept that in terms of economic necessities, you’d always have something to fall back on.

Now, Paul’s motivation was much more noble. He wasn’t falling back on something. He was doing this so that they might actually be benefited by it—that is, the Thessalonians—because he didn’t want them stumbling over the fact that he would charge them while he was ministering to them.

Now, you remember this same group later on in chapter 4—we’ll talk about how some of them needed the admonition to work in order to eat. Some of them needed that example of Paul, really spending his life and continual work and exertion, to show them what the Christian life is supposed to be about.

So Paul here paints a picture of the apostle as mother, working night and day, as it were, for the well-being of this church that he is founding and these disciples that he’s brought into the faith. He gives us a picture that the apostolic life was not a life of contemplation, was not a life of just studying and then kind of going off in your room and thinking things through and kind of mildly pondering things. He was working all the time.

Remember, we’re talking about a model here for ourselves. So Paul did this for their greater well-being.

Now, it’s interesting to me that in the Old Testament, you see the same double combination of work words used in various places. I’ve listed a few of them for you. I’ll read one. Psalm 90:10: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten. And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away. Labor and sorrow.” And that kind of concept is found in the books of Ecclesiastes and Jeremiah.

It’s interesting that we have in our lives—many people’s lives consist of labor and toil and a lot of trouble. But those who are on that second path that we read about responsibly from Psalm 1—their life becomes sorrow. And through all that there’s no productive use to all that toil, as it were. But Paul shows us the picture of blessing. He toils and labors not for his own well-being but for the sake of others, and he is blessed as a result from God and he is blessed mightily.

Now, finally, then, the purpose of all this is for the well-being of those that the apostle is ministering to. He says “the reason that we were working so hard is so we wouldn’t be chargeable unto any of you. We preached unto you the gospel of God.”

So as I said, they don’t want to be a burden, as it were, and put that stumbling block in the way of the Thessalonians. Remember, Paul’s image here—he’s giving us a picture of the mother who’s maturing her children, bringing them along. He has a desire to first see them converted to the gospel of Christ, to the faith, and then to mature them in the faith.

He says, and he makes this clear in other epistles, while he has a right to be supported by those he works and labors in the context of the gospel alone, he declares that right in several places. It’s not wrong to receive remuneration for preaching the gospel. But if he does that with this group, and he knows there are various people out there who are willing to slander him, he doesn’t want that kind of stumbling block in the way of the disciples that he is talking to here at the city of Thessalonica.

So he does it for the greater purpose of not putting a stumbling block in their way. His whole motivation here is the well-being of the Thessalonians. The same way that the mother’s whole motivation in all of her work is the well-being of her children.

Okay. So essentially, here then, what we’ve got is the apostle giving us a picture first: the gentle mother who feeds and guards her children. He takes that analogy to talk about his own work amongst the Thessalonians, laboring and working away for the well-being of the Thessalonians and for their maturation in the faith—the same way the mother self-sacrificially gives of herself. The motivation for both mother and apostle here is the endearment that they feel for those they minister to, the love that God puts in their hearts toward their children in the case of the mother, or toward those that they’re ministering to in the case of the Apostle Paul and his fellow laborers.

Now, one thing I want us to see from this first of all is a definition of what gentleness is. Gentleness in this context does not mean weakness. In fact, Paul paints the picture of a very strong person, working a lot and having a life full of lots of activity. But his gentleness is in the fact that the reason he does all these things is he is patient with the fact that these are little tiny immature Christians—at first not Christians at all—and his patience and gentleness is seen in the very fact that he labored so hard for them to bring them up slowly and mature them.

Gentleness is doing whatever is necessary so that those you work in the context of can be nourished and guarded along in terms of the maturation of the faith.

Paul, I think here as well, puts his stamp of approval not just on labor. He sees the importance of that—it is repeatedly seen throughout this epistle and others. But I think he also gives us a picture here of the stamp of approval upon this kind of mothering—the mother who does give of herself, self-sacrificially, for her children. Otherwise the analogy breaks down.

So he points to the mother and he puts the stamp of approval on it, and then uses that as the basis for explaining to them how he was with them and also by way of giving them a picture of the way they’re to be one toward another and toward those that God calls them to minister to.

He tells them then a series of actions that he did. He tells them the emotional nature of all this—his attachment, his emotional attachment, as it were, and commitment to those that God had placed in his path. He tells them that all this is toward a purpose. Gentleness is not seen in this passage ultimately as a goal in and of itself. Gentleness is toward the end that the Thessalonians are matured and brought up in the faith so that they then can work hard, and indeed by the time he writes the epistle they are laboring in love like he was.

The model has worked. They have indeed imitated him and become a model then for other believers. He warns them of sin and he nourishes them with the word.

Now what does this mean to us in terms of our families? First, some application to the mothers. Obviously, it’s a great picture, by way of application, to what motherhood is all about and what should be attained to by mothers. They should have the same sense of self-sacrificial love for their children and devotion and compassion. Understand that their job, just like we said before with the father—the father’s job is to nourish and guard his wife—the mother’s job according to Paul is also to nourish and cherish her children.

So mothers have a responsibility to provide them physical nourishment and guarding, of course, but more importantly than that, spiritual nourishing and guarding.

Now, secondly, by way of application to the children—and we’re all children of some mothers, and I hope many of us have mothers still living—it’s important for us to recognize that we need to adopt our definition of gentleness to this definition that Paul gives us.

Some of you may say, “My mother’s not particularly gentle with me. She’s not nice to me sometimes.” But I think you need to meditate upon the fact that, as we said, beginning from your very birth, your mother self-sacrificially gave of her own life blood, as it were, for you and then worked and worked hard for a number of years. This is something to be commended and to be thankful to God for. That in terms of even outside of the Christian faith, there is enough common grace in the world that mothers frequently do this very thing. So it is important that children are thankful first of all for the work that their mothers do and it is important that they recognize that this has been a labor of love on the behalf of the mothers.

I would like everybody today to be thankful in their heart for their own mothers to the degree that they met this image that Paul has set forward. Many of them do, particularly in the context of this church where women are motivated in various ways to see the benefits of childbearing, see the benefits of things such as homeschooling, to talk about self-sacrificial action. The model that Paul draws out here is exactly the model of mothers in this church who day by day sacrifice their own time and labors for the well-being of their children. If you’re a homeschooled child, you should be very grateful and thankful to your mother for meeting this image that Paul has set before us.

But of course, the real point of all this is not really talking about mothers. It’s talking about the role of those who are called to ministry—the way they deal with and minister to others. There is an application of this to all of us, however, as we work with new converts or those who are newly converted to the Reformed faith, for instance. The same model is called for from us.

So we should be gentle in our dealings with people, not leaving them behind in the dust as we race along in our theological path, but rather be willing to put a lot of time and effort into slowing down and helping people understand the Reformed faith and how it applies to their life.

You have that story of Jacob when he went back to Esau. You know, he’s got all these blessings that God has given to him, and he’s going back, and he says, “Well, I know you want us to get there real fast to meet us and everything. But we’ve got to go slow here. I’ve got little ones. I’ve got young children. I’ve got young livestock here. I don’t want to go too fast for them and leave them behind. I don’t want to go so fast it would actually do damage to them.”

And so we must be cognizant of our relationship in terms of maturing those who are younger in the faith—not going too fast, moving them along slowly but surely.

One of the most difficult things to do is to have patience with people as they move. Now, we know that nobody is neutral. Scriptures tell us people are serving one of two masters. Nobody’s neutral. Everybody’s moving. They’re either moving closer toward God or they’re moving further away from God. Our responsibility as we mature those who are new to the faith or new to the Reformed understanding of the faith is to be patient if we see them moving in the positive direction.

Rebuke and strong language comes in when we see them moving in the other direction. But as they’re moving, even somewhat slowly, in the right direction, we must be patient with them. See that our responsibilities are to guard them and to nourish them. We want to feed them the word of God. We want to protect them also from stumbling blocks that may fall in their way.

So there are things in your own particular thing that you may know are completely lawful for you to do and yet would be a stumbling block to somebody new to the faith. It is appropriate to lay that aside for a while, the way Paul laid aside his appropriateness of being recompensed by those he worked in the context of.

Now, of course, there’s an application to fathers as well. Paul gives us a picture here of really all relationships of functional superiors to functional inferiors—mothers to children, apostles to new converts. Church officers certainly should have this kind of attitude and action toward those under their care. But really fathers as well to their households. It’s very important that they see their relationship to this as well. And of course, by way of application to their wives. We’ve talked about that before, but it’s very important to see that.

Now, I said last week we talked about the courage to greet visitors and to try to have them welcomed into the household of faith here at RCC. The way of application here as well is obvious: this is the sort of attitude and actions that should characterize the way we approach visitors. We should want their well-being. We should be willing to sacrifice of our own pride, whatever it is in our life, for the greater purpose of serving them and having them grow in maturation of the faith.

As I said before, the gentleness here spoken of is goal-driven and has a purpose in mind. That purpose is maturation.

Now, we said that this is a mark of the spirit. The application is to functional superiors to inferiors. But really, the same attitude applies to all of us—this idea of being gentle and longsuffering, as it were, and patiently bringing people along.

It’s interesting to me—I’ve been thinking a lot about the historical context of the book of First Thessalonians. I think we mentioned before it’s one of the first epistles written. It’s written, we’ve noted at the end of every chapter, with a reference to the coming of Christ. I’m presently going through a series of studies delineating that coming in terms of understanding while much of that pointed to AD 70. We don’t know exactly—I don’t know how many references in the scriptures point to that, but a number of them obviously are pointed to God’s coming judgment upon Jerusalem in AD 70.

The Thessalonian church was birthed at a time that would, within a generation, see a tremendous judgment upon the Jerusalem church and persecution leading up to that of Christians as well. It’s interesting to me to see that Paul, as he’s ministering to this church and others at the time of the great times of persecution that would come upon the church—and that was already there in this church—the thing that he stressed ultimately was the relationships that they built into the family of God in terms of the local church. The hard attitude of being endeared to others. Then the relational things of being patient, slowly moving people along, encouraging each other to go the extra mile with one another, being gentle as mothers one with another.

It’s interesting to me that Paul had this in mind.

Now, we know that we live in a world that is in rebellion against God. That God’s judgment is being worked out in the context of that world. It would be easy for us then to ignore some of the relational things that are spoken of here in place of trying to work eighty hours a week to get enough money to avoid the coming economic collapse, for instance.

But Paul saw his responsibility to work overtime if need be—not for the sake of accumulation of wealth, but for the sake of the accumulation of the greater wealth of the growth of the kingdom of God in the lives of people.

Now, we have guarding responsibilities to our family. I understand that we’ve got responsibilities to apply God’s word in terms of our economic calling and our vocational calling. But I’m just saying that it is very important to see Paul’s heart attitude for the believers that he ministered in the context of.

And here at Reformation Covenant Church, we have a context that God has placed us into. We should have that same kind of love for each other and heartfelt desire to accomplish the well-being of each other in our lives as well.

Now, there’s something else about that. Consider here that the group he writes to were aware of this. He keeps saying over and over in this chapter, “You know this is true. You are witnesses of this. I don’t have to tell you this again.” They were willing to be taught. They were willing to put themselves in a position of subjection to Paul the Apostle, and they’re willing to be seen and not feel embarrassed, that he calls them essentially his children.

In this passage, he refers to himself as their mother. Next week we’ll talk about him referring to himself as their father. They’re willing to humble themselves to the Apostle Paul as he sought to build them in the faith. So when we mutually encourage each other in this church, we have to have the humility to go the extra mile, trying to teach people. In some cases, you have to have the humility to learn from people as well and to subject ourselves to them, the way that the child willingly subjects themselves to the [mother].