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We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. Instead, we were like young children among you. Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:6-12)

We can get the sense from some evangelical sources that what really matters in the grand scheme of things is authority and obedience: the authority of a leader or group of leaders to lay down a law or statement, and the necessity of followers to get in line with said teaching. \xa0This can become a rather cold, unfeeling machine of rules and expectations that steamroll a complex web of human idiosyncrasies into a flat plain of submissive uniformity. \xa0This kind of system does offer the benefit of clarity and feeling like you\u2019re part of a group that\u2019s going somewhere with purpose, but it also, as Pastor Michael noted yesterday, can leave room for unhealthy, impersonal dynamics to grow. \xa0

Paul, you will notice here, takes a different tack. \xa0\u201cWe could have asserted our authority,\u201d he says. \xa0But he and his companions didn\u2019t do that. \xa0Instead, they offered their lives and vitality in deeply personal ways for the sake of loving the Thessalonians well. \xa0In a string of three homey family metaphors, Paul describes the apostles\u2019 ministry among the Thessalonians in relational terms. \xa0They were innocent as young children, loving and self-giving as nursing mothers, and caringly invested in the Thessalonians growth to maturity just as fathers. \xa0Instead of asserting their authority with a \u201cbecause I said so,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m the apostle here" kind of aura, the apostles instead stooped down to get their hands dirty in the daily rough and tumble of family life with the Thessalonians, building a relationship of trust and respect with them through which the Gospel could be caught and imitated.

There is an important tension here. \xa0One that flows throughout the scriptures and its interpretation. \xa0It\u2019s this: is this faith primarily about submission to authority, or is it primarily about restoration of relationship? \xa0These two roads diverge already in Genesis 1-2, before sin and the Fall. \xa0In God\u2019s good Creation, something is \u201cnot good:\u201d the fact that the man is alone. \xa0But why is this alone-ness a problem? \xa0Is it because Adam\u2019s alone-ness renders him unable to procreate and therefore unable to submit to the command of \u201cfill the earth\u201d? \xa0Or is this alone-ness of Adam a problem because we are created to be in relationship (\u201cLet us make mankind in our image\u2026 in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.\u201d)? \xa0The story does not say. \xa0But the tension between these two possibilities plays out throughout the rest of the scriptures and even still in the church today.

My sense? \xa0It\u2019s probably both, such that whenever we exclude either of these options, we contort the faith. \xa0However, it\u2019s also true that the emphasis finally falls not on the \u201cauthority/submission\u201d dynamic, but the \u201crelationship\u201d one. \xa0The scriptures end not with the judgement hall, but with the wedding feast. \xa0Both are there, but one eventually outshines the other\u2014the relationship. \xa0The bride and bridegroom, Christ and his church, finally joined forever in relationship. \xa0

This, I think, is what Paul is getting at and what these pictures of authority flowing through the personal, self-giving love and care of family roles points to. \xa0And this is right. \xa0Fear of authority only works to a point, when we are still immature. \xa0At some point, we need to have grown to maturity such that we live what is right simply because it is right\u2014out of a the formation of our character. \xa0Only people whose character has been formed can enter fully into a healthy relationship. \xa0The love and care of our family is the space where this learning and growing to maturity happens. \xa0

Of course, families are often more complicated than that and we as people are often far less mature than we might hope. \xa0Nevertheless, this is the picture Paul draws on\u2014not \u201casserting authority,\u201d but rather, calling the Thessalonians to remember the personal bonds of relationship through which they have witnessed for themselves the mature character of the apostles, have imitated it, and have grown to up into this Christian character themselves.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together\u2014spirit, soul, and body\u2014and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he\u2019ll do it! The amazing grace of Jesus Christ be with you! (1 Thessalonians 5:23,24,28 The Message).