Our distance from 1 Thessalonians

"Paul's recollections about the time he and Silvanus and Timothy spent in Thessalonica and the depth of emotions in those recollections might be instructive for a church that seems in danger of treating its ministers like disposable commodities."

—B.R. Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, Interpretation (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998): 9.

I wonder if those recollections of the apostle do not rather speak of the dedication that servants ought to have working with the holy communities, instead of seeing their work as jobs and themselves as salaried employees, preachers for churches (for such is the common language), rather than coworkers together with the saints.

First Thessalonians records a church planter who writes in relieved thanksgiving at the faithfulness of the converts under pressure and hopes to consolidate the faith of new Christians in a recently established community. Today's preachers are usually workers whose jobs are to maintain well-established churches and keep the wheels of activity turning. With that difference, it is often hard, it seems, to capture the spirit of deep feeling that Paul demonstrates in 1 Thessalonians.