Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Thessalonians · About this commentary
Gentle as a Nursing Mother
1 Thessalonians 2:7-8
7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother cherishes her own children. · WEB
Against the authority he declined to use, Paul sets the least authoritative image available.
But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother cherishes her own children. The contrast is with the apostolic weight of the previous verse, and the figure chosen is as far from it as the language allows.
The noun is trophos G5162, a woman who nurses — and the qualifier matters, since such a woman was often employed to nurse another's child. Paul specifies her own. The care described is not professional competence but the thing a mother does without being asked.
Verse 8 extends it past the metaphor. Affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls.
That is the sentence the paragraph exists for. The gospel could have been delivered — accurately, faithfully, at arm's length — and Paul says that would have been less than what happened. What was handed over included the men handing it. The reason given is not duty: because you had become very dear to us.
It is worth setting beside the letter's occasion. He is describing weeks of work with people he then had to leave in the dark, which is why chapter 3 will be about not being able to bear the silence.
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