1 Thessalonians 2:9-12 For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail: for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable to any of you… The narrative in the Acts, if very strictly pressed, might lead us to suppose that the apostle had only spent at Thessalonica twenty-seven days at the utmost — perhaps only twenty-one or twenty-two (Acts 17:1, 2, 10); but it does not absolutely demand such narrow limits of time, and two circumstances seem to require its extension — the conversion of many idolaters (1 Thessalonians 1:9), and Paul's own expressed statement that he remained long enough in Thessalonica to receive assistance "once and again" from Philippi (Philippians 4:16). In any case, the spectacle of such an one as Paul so working, even for something less than a month, would be a memorable one — a thing to attract attention, and to be long remembered and discussed. This would especially be the case n the Church of Thessalonica. A shopkeeping and industrial community would instinctively know whether such an exhibition was a piece of charlatanism or a reality. Even if St. Paul's stay was cut short by a riot, they might be perfectly aware whether these few weeks were a fair representation of the frame and mould of his general life. It is certainly strange to think how far the idea which we instinctively form of the great apostle, as one utterly absorbed in theological thought or seraphic devotion, when not employed in preaching or missionary work, must be modified by such a passage as this. The language here used about "working night and day," would show that in Thessalonica, at least, one unbroken day in the week only could be undividedly given to directly apostolic labour. It is vain to conjecture how much time may have been at his disposal upon the other days of the week. It has been added to the list of St. Paul's difficulties that he thus worked manually "at an age when the bodily frame refuses to perform a new office." This is surely not so. Men of station and education among the Jews diligently learned trades. The same obligation has been imposed by custom upon persons even of royal birth in different nations and countries. Eginhard tells us that Charlemagne had his sons taught mechanic trades, and his daughters spinning and weaving. Each member of the Prussian royal family at the present time is apprenticed, and enters into a guild of tradesmen. St. Paul's motives in continuing to work were three — I. INDEPENDENCE, the being able to take what has been ingenuously called "a lay position." II. EXAMPLE. (2 Thessalonians 3:8, 9). III. CHARITY, having something to give in alms (Acts 20:34). (Bp. Alexander.) Parallel Verses KJV: For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. |
    |