Biblical Theology For Transfomation - 7th Posting

“But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children…For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God.”
1 Thessalonians 2:7, 11-12


To all my fellow pastors out there, I offer to you an encouragement to take on the ministry of Christ in the way Paul explains in 1 Thessalonians. There is a double sidedness to our pastoral ministries. On one hand, we are to be like nurturing mothers, and on the other we are to be like fathers exhorting, encouraging and charging. There are plenty of opportunities to take advantage of both of these calls to ministry. I think part of the lack of strong pastoral ministry today comes in the form of a lack of balance. There are those who focus primarily on the soft, gentle care that the pastor is to give to his people. Then there are those who are strong in their charging the people and often forget about those who need a shepherds gentle care. I must be honest, I struggle with both of these. It can sometimes be hard to tell what kind of role to play in dealing with people. So, I write this with both roles in mind. I want to encourage you to be a charging pastor who cares for his sheep.

Notice in verse 7 how the “mother” is described as “nursing”. Mothers are generally known more for their loving tenderness more so than the fathers. But Paul does not just make the analogy of being a mother, but being a nursing mother. My wife and I had our first born son just over two months ago. As I see her care for him and compare it to the care my mother now shows for me, a 25 year old man, I see why Paul challenges us to be like a “nursing” mother. My wife has a desperate need to care for our son all day everyday. He needs milk, love, caring affection, he needs to be held and needs love all day. I, on the other hand, do not need all those things from my mother anymore. Of course I will always need her love, but my physical growth does not depend on her close comfort to me. So I see why Paul charges us not just to mothering our people but mothering with a sense of urgency and NEEDED care. And Paul say, “taking care of her OWN children.” We are called to love our people with desperate affection as if they were our own children who need the care of a nursing mother. This can be one of the most difficult things to do as a pastor. My son needs his mother and knows it, but people need the care of a shepherding pastor and sometimes don’t know it. That is why we need to seek them out to offer comfort. A baby will not seek out it’s mother, but the mother must seek out the child to care for it. This is what a shepherd does, seeks to find the lost sheep.

Then Paul goes on to charge us as pastors to exhort, encourage and charge our people like a father. Fathers are most well known, not for their soft comforting side, but for their strong guidance. The Greek word for encourage literally means to comfort. The Greek word for exhort actually shares the same root word as encourage. Along with these two we are also to “charge”. The Greek word for charge literally means to “scourge the sin, not the person.” So how does this make out to be a strong father role in the pastorate? We are to scourge the sin in the lives of people by charging them to change. We have seen pastors do this in ways that leave their people feeling hopeless and discouraged. Forcing people to change or they will end up wasted and worthless or even worse, in hell. That is why Paul first tells us to be comforting as fathers, because there is a sense of care and comfort that must accompany the charge. If people are feeling like they have been yelled at they will, as children often do, curl up in a ball and not respond. But when our charges to change our sinful patterns are addressed with care, concern and comfort, people respond. They will feel an actual concern coming from their pastor. I am not one to give fluffy messages or sissy care, but I do know that Jesus was one to truly care about the sinner as He told them to sin no more. In all this we will be better able to equip people to “walk in a manner worthy of God.” If our desire is to see Jesus glorified, then our method must be Biblical. Clearly our method needs to be two sided, comforting and charging. One without the other will leave your people confused and without direction toward true change.

Pastor, we need to care for our people in a nurturing, comforting way that demands change from their sinful lifestyles. We need to be like a nursing mother and a father with his children. In essence, we need to love our people in the most Biblical way possible.