The missionary team of Paul, Silas, and Timothy had targeted Thessalonica only two or three years before. But thanks to mob incitement (see Acts 17:1-10a), it had proved to be a short-term engagement. Now the same three have signed this follow-up letter to those into whom they'd briefly but intensely poured their lives. In the letter, Paul recalls their original encounter.

1. Why might some have considered the mission team's stopovers in Philippi and Thessalonica a failure?



2. But why (v. 13) was it actually a success?



3. We know from the account in Acts (17:2) that Paul preached Sabbaths in the synagogue. But what else (v. 9 and Acts 18:3) occupied their time?



4. Why did they make their campaign self-financing (v. 5)?



5. In what respects does Paul say his team acted like a mother (v. 7) to their new converts?



6. Does this gentleness imply timidity (v. 2)?



7. How did the team members act like a father (vv. 11-12)?



8. What motivated this team to the self-sacrifice it demonstrated (vv. 4, 8)?



9. What did Paul cite (vv. 19-20) as the ultimate reward for their intense evangelistic effort?

Ask God to point you to one or more persons you can pour your life into for His glory.

¹You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. ²You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. ³So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.

⁴For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. ⁵Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! ⁶As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else.

⁷As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. ⁸We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God's Good News but our own lives, too. ⁹Don't you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God's Good News to you.

¹⁰You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. ¹¹And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. ¹²We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory. ¹³Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn't think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God—which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe.

¹⁹After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when he returns? It is you! ²⁰Yes, you are our pride and joy.

Prayer for the Week

Father, I want to be a tool in Your hands to reshape the lives of people for whom Your Son died.

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