As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
9For,
brothers, you remember our toilsome labor and hardship, ones working night and day
toward not to be burdensome [to] any of you [while] we preached to you the
gospel of God.
This verse very naturally follows the previous. In v8, Paul
just said, “We loved you so much, we were willing to share with you not only
the gospel of God but our own lives as well; because you had become so dear to
us.” Back in verse 7 Paul compared their work to a nursing mother. What he is
continuing to describe is love. Love in action. Now he adds this element of
being willing to work “night and day” for someone else’s welfare. What he is
describing is a life of giving. A
mother is of course a prime example of such giving and such love. Her work is
exhausting. It is endless. It is often thankless. But on she trudges, changing
diapers, reading stories, making bottles – whatever her baby needs. The baby
essentially has nothing to offer her except its preciousness – but even that is
an expression of her own love. She would literally die in her giving if her
baby needed it.
Paul in our passage here is saying that the same kind of
love motivated him and the other missionaries. In particular, Paul points out
how he and the others were willing to forego any support from the Thessalonians
themselves, how he was willing to provide for the most part his own support.
This generates a good deal of discussion in the commentaries about pastoral
remuneration. Apparently some hold that pastors should support themselves. They
emphasize passages like this and the example of Nehemiah (as seen in Neh
5:15,18). Others run to passages like I Cor 9:14, “…the Lord has commanded that
those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel,” insisting
that ministers deserve their support. The whole question is subject to debate –
and that both from the perspective of the minister and/or from that of the
people and their responsibility to support him.
I’d like to suggest there is one huge element missing from
this debate:
Love.
Love is all you need.
What do I mean? The first question that a heart ought to ask
is, “Do I love?” Is my heart set on the kind of selfless, giving love of a
nursing mother? Whether pastor or people, am I right now loving or not? If not,
then nothing else I do matters. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and
angels, and have not love …” God is love. If what is flowing through me right
now is not love, then it is not of God. And that prerequisite still holds when
a minister considers his support and when a people consider how they support
him.
It also still holds while people debate about pastoral
support.
I would suggest the reason why you see such a variety of
practices in the Bible is because love may express itself in different ways in
different situations. For Nehemiah, love meant foregoing his support. For Paul
in Thessalonica, it meant for the most part providing for himself (although he
did receive some support during this time from at least one other church – Phil.
4:15). On the other hand there were
times when he and all of the other apostles accepted their support from the
people, and, once again, the Lord Himself has asserted that “a servant is
worthy of his hire.” I would suggest, rather than trying to decide a set of “rules”
for when a minister should be supported or not, and how much, etc., the first
thing that should be established is love – love in the hearts of anyone involved
in the discussion. I suspect, in that case, it isn’t “difficult.”
I suspect, from my own life, that what makes these kinds of
questions “difficult” is first of all considering them as “hypothetical”
situations (in other words not at a time when we actually need to make a
decision – in which case, why should the Lord give us wisdom, if it isn’t
needed right now?). Then secondly, the problem is that the question is
approached legalistically, as if we just need a set of rules to follow and then
all is well. Love doesn’t care about “rules.” Love sees the person, sees the
needs, and will give itself tirelessly for the good of those loved, like the
proverbial candle that “burns itself to give light to others.” Real love
requires a great deal of wisdom, but I guess what I’m suggesting is that we’ll
only get that wisdom when our heart is set on loving.
I’d like to add the thought that this subject is much larger
than just pastoral support. It is certainly an important question for each of
us in our own church settings, but I would like to suggest this same giving
love ought to characterize our entire lives. It ought to move us to go to work.
It should be in our hearts even as we work, as we interact with our co-workers
and bosses and clients and students. It ought to move us while we mow the grass and do
dishes and while we're walking through the grocery store.
I find all of this personally very challenging. I know it is
true, “All you need is love,” but I am still learning how to live that truth.
I certainly know what it is to have to work “night and day.”
I feel like I go 90 MPH all day every day and get up tomorrow to do it again.
But am I loving? Am I careful enough to make sure that it really is love that
drives me? I suspect too much of the time, the answer is no.
It should.
I want it to.
The Lord wants it to.
He will help me.
And you.
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