Gloriographs by Rick Reynolds

3 For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit. 1 Thessalonians 2:3

11 just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, 12 so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. 1 Thessalonians 2:11–12

Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians came on the heels of being beaten with rods and tossed into jail in Philippi (Acts 16:22-24). Oddly, this experience did not cause him to cower in retreat. Rather he was now even more emboldened in the face of new opposition in Thessalonica. But this boldness was not manifested in the customary way.

Whereas others might have changed their approach like a politician, softening the message so as to ensure donations and accolades, using error, deceit, and flattering speech, or by ratcheting up the rhetoric and volume. Instead, Paul was gentle, tender, and affectionate in his behavior, acting devoutly, uprightly, and blamelessly while shouldering his own burden, with endurance laboring through hardship.

Like a father would to his own children, using the “gospel of God,” he exhorted, encouraged, and and implored the Thessalonians as children in the faith, while at the same time exhibiting the gentleness and tenderness of a mother.

Instead of getting in “someone’s grill,” or yelling at them as they walk away, persuading someone to do the right thing, here and for us, to walk with God, is done from the side, with a gentle or massaging hand to the back. While we may give them an “ear full,” it will be the music they so desperately need to hear.