«As you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children» (l Thessalonians 2:11).
WITH THE FAITHFULNESS of an administrator, Paul knows that the message is God’s property. It doesn’t belong to him, it has been entrusted to him on loan. is why he defends, protects, and makes proper use of it. It is not money to guard or a treasure to hide, it is necessary to invest the capital, to produce, and to make it grow.
Paul knows he does not own it; he is an administrator. He knows he is accountable. They treated him as a mercenary and thought he wanted to make money from that message, but he is certain before God and men to be a faithful administrator of all of God’s message.
Paul was a spiritual father to the believers and a good father cares, sustains, and exemplifies. Paul lived a holy life, righteous, integrated, irrepressible, always close to people. He exhorted, encouraged, and comforted. Spiritual children need an example to follow rather than a dissertation to listen to.
In I Thessalonians 2:7, Paul says that he had tenderness for the people and cared for them just as a mother does her children. Paul did not leave them in the care of others. The same one who preached to them continued to pray for them, and now writes to them, visits them, and devotes his time and energies. He was loving, patient, and persevering.
My mother was a fighter. She left Italy at the age of fourteen, escaping war, and made her way own way in life, without any studies, without knowing the language, but knowing God. At the factory where she worked, they would give her cookies at lunchtime. Instead of eating them, she brought them home for my brother and me. I have seen her work even helping my father build the house.
Now I want to dwell on one thing. She would take me by the hand every day to my school that was about seven blocks from home. She did it until that day when she helped me cross the street, placed me on the sidewalk that went straight to the school, and with no other streets to cross, and said, «Go ahead on your own. I’ll be watching.» And so it went. I walked on my own knowing that I was doing so under the watchful eye of my mother. Every time I turned my head, there she was, accompanying me with her gaze.
With the faithfulness of an administrator, the protection of a father, and the love of a mother, let us walk to eternity under the watchful eye of God.
