1 Thessalonians 2:6-16

⁶ We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. 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. ¹³ And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe. ¹⁴ For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, ¹⁵ who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men ¹⁶ in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.^[1]

This is a rather long section and we do not have time or space to comment on all of it. However, most striking to me is the response of the people to the faithful and diligent efforts of Paul, Timothy and Silas as they labored among them. Their approach was not cumbersome or burdensome. They could have lorded their position over the people and demanded all kinds of concessions from them but they did not. Instead they dealt with the people “as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging [them] to live lives worthy of God, who [called them] into His Kingdom and glory.” As a direct result the people received the gospel as the Word of God, and not as words of men. The proof of their acceptance was evidenced in the manner they lived their lives. They “became imitators of God’s churches in Judea” even while they were being persecuted.

So much of ministry today has become materialistic and commercialized. People enter ministry as just another profession seeking what they believe they should receive instead of what they should give. They forget the example of Jesus and the apostles that came to serve and not to be served. Whether one has been called to pastoral ministry or just to be a witness for our Lord, believers are all called to some form of ministry. How we go about it is important. We should not concern ourselves with the ones who persecute us, for they will incur the wrath of God. Our concern should be our level of faithfulness in spite of the suffering we experience.

Dear Lord, we confess that we have often gotten off track in our ministries, in our service to you and your people. We have coveted what we have seen in the world and forgotten your promises. Forgive our sin and enable us to reorder our steps and our ministries so we become imitators of You and the world begins to imitate us. Amen.