In the sermon 'The Pastor as Mother and Father' by Brian Borgman, the speaker delves into Paul's first epistle to the Thessalonians, focusing on Paul's metaphors of being a nurturing mother and an exhorting father to illustrate his pastoral care. Borgman emphasizes the importance of pastoral integrity, relationships, and the unique bond between pastors and their congregations, which is only truly fostered within a local church setting. He highlights how Paul, during his brief time with the Thessalonians, demonstrated integrity by working hard and living blamelessly, countering any allegations against him. Paul's affectionate and sacrificial love for the Thessalonians is likened to that of a nursing mother, while his exhortative role is compared to a father's firm guidance. The sermon underscores the pastoral calling as a life of sacrifice and the necessity of living a holy life to effectively shepherd a congregation. Ultimately, Paul's goal was for the Thessalonians to walk worthy of God's calling into His kingdom and glory.

Well, I'm going to do what I love to do best, which is just simply take a text of scripture and work through it. And so I'm going to ask if you will take your Bibles and turn to Paul's first epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, and we will read verses seven through 11. 1 Timothy 2, or sorry, 1 Thessalonians 2. Scott has me messed up here. I'm going to say Timothy for a while probably.

First Thessalonians 2. Paul writes, But we proved to be gentle among you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children, having thus a fond affection for you. For we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaim to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses and so is God.

How devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behave toward you believers, just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father with his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. Father, thank you for your word forever settled in heaven and we now pray, Father, for the assistance of the Holy Spirit. We know that apart from you we can do nothing And so we pray that you would come by the power of your spirit in the proclamation and in the hearing of your word. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

I love Paul's letters to the Thessalonians because there's so many things about them that are pretty unique, especially when you consider that the apostle was with the Thessalonians really for a very short period of time. He was there in Thessalonica, what he says, three Sabbaths. And so, here's the apostle. He goes into Thessalonica with Silas and Timothy, and they proclaim the gospel. They have to leave because of persecution and yet there's something that happens in those three, three and a half weeks, whatever those three Sabbaths, however many days that was, there's something that happens between Paul and the Thessalonians that's remarkable.

And so these epistles, which are certainly Paul's earliest, depending on how you date Galatians, these epistles represent, in a sense, a Pauline pastoral theology. And Just to give a brief background, he starts in chapter two, and in verses one through six, what he's going to do is he's going to talk about the importance of pastoral integrity in the ministry. It's very, very probable that as the apostle and his companions had to leave quickly, there no doubt were allegations and charges against Paul, trying to slander Paul. You could imagine people saying, hey, some of the prominent women, he was just after the money. And so here's Paul, and he is underscoring the importance in 2.1 to 6 of the integrity that is needed in pastoral ministry.

And I don't need to tell you how much we should be looking at that part as well for today. Now, my take on what Paul's doing is He's not defending his apostleship in the same way that he does in Galatians or even 2 Corinthians because he says this statement repeatedly, just as you know what kind of men we were. So he can look at the Thessalonians and he can say to them, you know that whatever is being said about us is not true because you know how we were when we were with you. But then what Paul does is then in 7 to 12, he now moves from the importance of integrity in pastoral ministry to the importance of relationships in pastoral ministry. And what Paul does for us in this text is he actually models for us the different relational roles that pastors need to fulfill.

And so looking at Paul as a model we can make certain conclusions and that is that there should be a special bond that exists between the pastors of the flock and the flock. It's a relationship of intimacy that really isn't reproduced in conferences. It's not reproduced with big name ministries. It's not reproduced with guys that are online. It is the special unique bond that exists only in a local church.

Only where you're able to look at these people and they're able to look at you eyeball to eyeball. You are in their lives as Pastor Al Martin used to say, you have your fingers down deep in their wool. And so Paul models that for us even though he was there just a short time. And so One of the things that we should be reminded of is the vitality and centrality of our local churches. There are a lot of things that can supplement diets today, but the main diet consists of the word of God that comes through pastors delivered to the sheep of a local congregation.

And in fact, it's only in a local church that the relational aspects that Paul models can be actually lived out. We had these neighbors that lived next door to us for several years, and we'd invite them to church all the time and have conversations. And whenever we would see them sitting on their front porch as we were coming home from church, we'd go over and we'd say, you know, we'd really, we'd love to see you at church sometime. We had a wonderful service today and they would say, well, we watched our pastor on TV this morning. Well, the first time I stupidly asked, who was that?

And of course they said, our pastor's pastor Joel, not Joel Carlson from Bayview, Idaho, but Joel Osteen from Houston, Texas. And I remember, I couldn't help myself, I said, you don't really expect him to come and visit you when you're in the hospital, do you? The kind of thing that Paul models for us only takes place in a local church. And so Paul starts, verse 7, and I'm glad this is like the first session after lunch, where energy is being directed towards your digestive system and that you're lacking a little oxygen here. I'm glad that's the case because I wanna talk about a textual variant for a second.

Now, so the New American Standard says, but we proved to be gentle among you as nursing mothers. Well, this is a classic textual variant. The word gentle was in Scott's text, apioid, okay? There's a variant reading though that's napioid, and that's infants or young children. And the interesting thing, without getting into all the things that I would love to talk about, but you probably wouldn't love to hear.

There are a number of possibilities as to why this variant exists. We were gentle among you or we were infants among you. Now There is a third variant in one manuscript, and that is hippie-oi, which is horses, which seems highly unlikely. Now, let me just say that I think that the case for infants is a stronger case than gentle. And if you're interested, send me an email, I'll send you a short paper that I wrote on that defending that.

And you might think to yourself, well, that kind of jolts the flow of the metaphors. Well, Paul is not against mixing his metaphors because he does it all the time. And I would actually argue here that what he does is he talks about he himself and his preaching companions as infants, as mothers and fathers, and then at the end even as orphans. So Paul's not opposed to mixing his metaphors, and so it probably can come down to a point of punctuation so that we could probably translate the idea something like this picking up from the second part of verse six. As apostles of Christ we could have made demands of you but were infants in your midst period and then moves on to the image of mothers.

But what I want to point out is that the metaphor or the picture of being infants does actually fit well with Paul's overall argument as to what he's getting at, because what the imagery is, is it's a direct contrast to the very things that were possibly being said about him. And so the imagery would be in direct contrast to error, to uncleanness, to deceit, to man-pleasing, to flattery, to covetousness, to glory-seeking, and demanding honor. The apostle could say that when we were in your midst, you know that we were innocent in our work. We were free from pretense. We were free from bad motives, just like infants, just like little children.

And then he moves to nursing mothers. The nursing mother imagery is also profoundly interesting because he says as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Now when Scott started on this in the last sermon, I thought, there he goes, he's preaching my sermon, and I started to feel like I wanted to write a blog about him. But I refrained, I refrained. The nursing mother imagery, as Scott pointed out, is actually striking imagery.

So here's the apostle. I don't think anybody could doubt that the apostle Paul was a man's man. The Apostle Paul was a manly man. He was a man who endured hardship. He was a man who endured great suffering.

And yet, one of the things that he says to these Thessalonians is, we were like nursing mothers among you. And so the imagery is absolutely striking, but the picture is of this attachment and love that he had for the Thessalonians. And so you stop and you think about that mother and her milk is coming in and that little baby starts crying, letting that mom know it's time for me to eat and that mother never says, you know what, you're always so inconsiderate at the time you want to eat. You don't ever care that I'm sleeping. You don't ever care that I'm doing something else.

No, that mother actually goes for that baby, grabs that baby, holds that baby to her breast, and actually demonstrates one of the most tender pictures that exists in humanity of a genuine bond and attachment between two people. And the apostle says, we were like nursing mothers among you. We were attached. We were there to hear your cries. We were there to minister to you, whether it was day or night.

We were there. John Calvin makes this excellent observation. He says, a mother in nursing the child makes no show of authority and does not stand on any dignity. A mother in rearing her children reveals a wonderful and extraordinary love because she spares no trouble or effort, avoids no care, is not wearied by their coming and going, and gladly even gives her own life blood to be drained. In the same way, Paul declares that his feelings towards the Thessalonians were such that he was prepared to lay down his own life for their good." What an image of loving, caring, feeding the flock of God.

What a picture of pastoral love and care. And so what does a faithful pastor do? A faithful pastor loves his flock tenderly, loves his flock tenderly, so tenderly, that he could be likened to a nursing mother feeding her own child. Now Paul's going to expand on this tenderness in verse 8, and he says, having thus a fond affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our very lives, because you had become very dear to us. And so once again, you gotta remember that short period of time that Paul was with them and the incredible attachment that grew.

And I was preaching one time in China, and you know, you go to these places, and I can't even speak the language. I have to speak through an interpreter. But you just, you become fast friends with these people. You realize they're brothers, they're sisters, they worship the same Christ that I worship, they have the same spirit who indwells me, also indwells them. And there is a sense in which you make fast friends and you become close to these people in a really short period of time, so that those bonds that are forged end up being lasting bonds.

And so here's Paul, and he says to these Thessalonians, even though he was just with them such a short time, he says, we have this affectionate longing for you. The word that Paul uses here is actually pretty rare, used only here in the New Testament, and the meaning is the idea of having this strong yearning or longing for somebody. Again, just like a mother's love, Paul had this deep yearning for them so much so that he says, so when we were with you, you understand, we were well pleased. We didn't do this begrudgingly. We were well pleased.

It thrilled our souls to impart to you not only the gospel of God but our very lives. We, again, well pleased is a strong, affectionate word. Affectionately longing for you is obviously an affectionate word. And Paul says this is what this is what thrilled us was to give to you the gospel of God There was no greater joy that we had than to give to you the words of life the words of forgiveness through a through a Wonderful loving Redeemer and and to tell you of the marvels of His grace and His mercy, we delighted to impart to you the very good news of our God. But We delighted to do something more than that.

And that is, we delighted to actually impart to you not just the good news, but our very own lives. There was a sense in which Paul could say to the Thessalonians, you know that when we were with you, we held nothing back. We gave ourselves to you. In Paul's words to the Corinthians, we were willing to spend, to be spent for your sake. And then he says, as if they didn't get it the first time, because you've become very dear to us.

I mean, this section, it just gushes with emotion and notice the repetition, the beginning, the end, book ending. For Paul, this ministry to the Thessalonians was more than just a mere duty. This was more than just following his marching orders from his commander in chief. This was a God-given love that compelled him and Timothy and Silas to just give them their all. Do you know that when people are convinced that you're giving them your all, they will bear up with a lot of what you have to say?

If they are convinced that you do not have their best interest at heart, and they are convinced that you are holding back, the criticism will grow. But oh, to bear up under hard words. So I've been the planting pastor at Grace Community Church for 32 years. And there are times that I say things to our congregation that I know they bear with me because they love me. And they take what I have to say, even though maybe hard, they take what I have to say because they know I love them." And so here's Paul and He says, we didn't hold anything back.

We just poured ourselves into you. We were pouring gospel into you. We were pouring ourselves into you. And it was a sheer delight. Verses nine and 10, Paul points out that they were hard workers and men of integrity.

He says, you remember our labor and our toil, laboring day and night. So the work ethic of the apostle Paul really was second to none, right? And the words that he uses, Kappos and Mokthos, have the idea of hardship caused by exertion. This wasn't just punching a time card, sitting at a desk. The apostle says, you know, the hard long day, like long days of labor, maybe a reference to his tent making.

And, and he says, you know how hard we worked. You were there, you saw it. And we did that so that we wouldn't be a burden to any of you. The apostle actually in Thessalonica chooses a bivocational approach even though he had his right to live from the gospel, 1st Corinthians 9 13. And so what is Paul doing?

He's simply saying, I removed any and all barriers that I thought might stand between you and me. I removed all possible allegations. If anybody was gonna accuse us of being lazy, I proved them otherwise. If anybody was going to accuse us of being lazy, I proved them otherwise. If anybody was going to accuse us of going after the money, I proved them otherwise." And then he says, and we preach the gospel of God to you.

And so here's this wonderful picture. So here's Paul, he gets up early to go to his tentmaking job and not only is he preaching and teaching night after night to the Thessalonians, but his workshop becomes a gospel platform for everybody who comes in. After he closes up shop, he goes and he teaches the gospel some more. And for him, it was just like, this is the best thing I can do for you. Calvin again, he says, he must have certainly burned with an amazing and superhuman enthusiasm in doing even manual labor along with the task of preaching in order to earn his livelihood.

Remember many years ago, my parents lived in, well, my mom lives in heaven, but my dad still lives outside of Sacramento. And during the holidays, while I was in seminary, we would obviously go home for the holidays. And my mom and dad at that point were looking for a new church. And they said, hey, we're really glad that you're here because we wanna go try out this new church. It's a church plant, like what you're getting ready to do.

And so we thought that we might check it out but we want you to go with us. And as we stepped into the little room at the community center, the guy gets up and he says, He says, you guys need to understand something. My hours are from nine to five. Don't call me before nine in the morning. And don't call me after five in the afternoon.

I need time with my family, and I don't want you interrupting that time. Now, I'm all in favor of spending time with your family, But let me just say that sounds more like a higher lane than somebody who's called the shepherd the flock of God. You know, there was something, and my wife was great in this when our kids were little, There sometimes are shifting priorities when you're in ministry. And so whenever I could tell somebody no, I would tell them no. So if Elaine called and it was 730 at night and we were getting ready to have a quick game of Monopoly as if there was such a thing.

And Elaine would say, it's an emergency, I need you to come over. I could say to Elaine, knowing Elaine, how about I call you in the morning and then I sit down and play Monopoly with my kids. They know that dad just made a choice. But there were other times when we would be getting ready to do something together as a family, and all of a sudden you get that emergency call that is a real emergency. And so there was a sense in which my wife was great because she would always encourage the kids when I was able to stay, she would actually just tell the kids that dad's staying and tonight's a family night and it's not going to be interrupted.

But then when I had to leave, she was great in supporting, saying, you know what, dad has a call from God and he has to shepherd these people and take care of them, and so-and-so's in the hospital, and they need daddy right now. It wasn't this rigid, I've got my time, and then I've got church time. When you're called to pastoral ministry, it is a life of sacrifice. It is a calling. It's not a job.

It's not a career. It's a calling. And that calling is to shepherd God's people and to take care of them. And so pastoral work is not a job. Paul says, and you know our conduct.

He uses three words, which are interesting. He says, how devoutly, uprightly and blamelessly we conducted ourselves. You are witnesses and so is God. So it's very possible that the opponents in Thessalonica had done everything they could to smear Paul's conduct and his motives, and he turns around and he says, you know, God's witness, and your witness is too. Now, his language, by the way, of God is witness is is a very strong echo of Samuel's words to the Israelites before Saul was made king, but he says, so you know the Thessalonians could look at Paul And they knew what his character was.

They knew what kind of man he was. They knew it because he was involved in their lives. How devoutly that is a life pleasing to God, a holy life. You know, you can fake it, but you can't fake it for that long. People will see the genuineness or the authenticity of your love for Christ.

Or they won't. How uprightly, quality of character, righteous in terms of conduct, and then blameless. And by that, Paul did not mean, I was absolutely perfect among you, what he means by blameless is that there were no charges of hypocrisy or phoniness that could actually stick. The evidence was always to the contrary. Brothers, we live in a day.

I know you're weary of it, I'm weary of it. Our congregations are probably weary of it, of hearing about another fallen pastor. And it's almost, it seems like it's almost weekly. One of the things that is absolutely true is that the ones that fall that have notoriety and everybody sees their fall, people don't see them up close. Live life with your congregation so that they can see how you treat your wife and how you treat your children and how you respond under pressure.

Live your life in a devout and upright way so that they could testify to your character. Have a good group of elders around you that really truly are your friends and that you can ask the hard questions of each other to hold each other accountable to live uprightly. There's not a single one of us in this room, no matter who we are, there's not a single one of us that Somehow we're above accountability. It's not true. As far as celebrity pastor culture goes, really there's only ordinary pastors.

And what happens in our local churches is the most significant thing so that if somebody says something about me in our community to one of our congregants, I expect that congregant to know me in such a way that they immediately know that that's a falsehood. About a month ago now, Pastor Albert Martin died and there was a controversy that was going on and there were allegations of authoritarianism and all of this. And I remember I was in Montville and we were staying with one of the families in the church, and this husband and wife said to me, You know, there's terrible things being said about our elders, but we know our elders. We know their love and care for us, and we know that they're godly men. I've heard the statement by Robert Murray McShane sometimes scoffed at as pietism, but I think it's true.

He said my people's greatest need is my holiness. There is so much brothers that is riding on a walk with God that demonstrates itself in an upright life. So Paul says you can commend us because you know what kind of men we were. Verse 11 gets to pastors as fathers and the metaphor then shifts again. And Paul says, just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children.

And so J.B. Lightfoot says, when the apostle wishes to dwell on his tenderness and affection for his converts, he uses the figure of a mother. While here, where he's dwelling on his teaching and advice, he adopts that of a father, which is more appropriate. And so notice Paul's both. And so a father with his own children, again, three things he says, how we exhorted you as a father.

That is, there's a sense of correction, but also a sense of urging, how we comforted or consoled you as a father, and how we charged you. The idea is to solemnly testify or even solemnly insist or to implore and you can imagine what the apostle's talking about here. So to be honest with you, when our kids were growing up, there were times where mom just, she was just a little easier to talk to Because she's understanding. And sometimes, especially with my boys, there was a, I know if I go to dad right now, he's gonna tell me exactly what I need to hear. Right?

And so here's Paul, and he says, you know what you were like to us? You were like that little infant that we just held up and just nursed and took care of, we're so tender. But we were also a dad. And we also knew what it was to look you in the eye and tell you the truth and to insist that you listen to us and to implore you and to exhort you. I mean there are times and thankfully we didn't have to do this with our daughter, but boy with our sons.

Sons are a gift from God. And there were times where you just had to look him in the eye and say, look, you need to take responsibility for what you've done. You need to own it. You need to accept the consequences. You need to listen to me.

What I'm telling you, you're not going to hear from your boss. What I'm telling you, you're not going to hear from the world. What you're hearing from me is you're hearing from me as a father. Father. And sometimes they could see it in your eye.

If he could put his hands around my neck right now and get away with it. I think he would." Here's the fascinating thing, is that Paul says, we did this with every one of you. This was personal, this was individual. You know, sometimes as pastors, we gotta say hard things to people. Sometimes we gotta say things that we know they're not going to like.

I was just talking to a man recently, and he and his wife are praying about this business endeavor, and the wife feels very uncomfortable about it because it involves—the business endeavor involves alcohol, and she feels like as Christians they shouldn't be involved and the husband sees this. And so we're sitting down and we're talking and I was going through Romans 14, but at the end I looked at the man And as lovingly as I could, I simply said, you can't make your wife go against your conscience, and you may need to sacrifice this dream if you're gonna love your wife as Christ loved the church. That's not what the guy wanted to hear. He wanted to hear me tell his wife, submit. And instead the message was, you may need to sacrifice this dream for a Christ-like love for your wife.

And I said, brother, I know that's hard. And he teared up and he said, I know that it's hard. He says, but it's what I needed to hear. And so here's the apostle who's lovingly devoted as a spiritual father to these new Christians. He ministered to them not as this heavy-handed dictator but he ministered to them as a loving devoted father and I would just say He did this with each one of them, which is a reminder to us of the danger of holding people at arm's length.

Calvin again, and I don't know why Calvin is so, Calvin's always good, but it just seemed like he was exceptionally good here. He says, no man will ever be a good pastor unless he himself shows himself to be a father to the church that's entrusted to him. Paul does not state that he had been a father merely to the whole body, but also to individual members. It's not enough that a pastor in the pulpit should teach all the people together if he does not add particular instruction as necessity requires and occasion offers to individuals." So why does Paul do this? So all these images, all the facets of these relationships of the ministry all have one grand design.

And that is, Paul could say, we were innocent among you like babies. We were nursing mothers. We were firm fathers. And for one reason, that you would walk worthy of God. The apostle had a passion that the Thessalonians would actually live in accord with God's standards.

The gospel had changed these people and now the goal was that they would walk in Christ, that they would walk in that realm of the new life which makes much of God. And Paul saw the connection and he says, here, I want you to walk worthy of the God who has called you into his own kingdom and glory. I want you Thessalonians, I'm willing to look foolish as a nursing mother. I'm willing to be innocent like a little baby if what that means is that the God who sovereignly calls sinners to himself calls you into his kingdom and glory. That was most important to him, that God would be glorified and that the Thessalonians would enter into that eternal kingdom.

Al Martin used to say in the early days of Trinity Baptist Church, he said, I used to plead with God, oh God if you just give us a hundred people that I can minister to, and we all get to heaven safely, that will be enough. And so brothers, effective pastoral ministry is marked by gentle, nourishing care and concern. Effective pastoral ministry has authentic affection for God's people, as well as in a delight in pouring ourselves into their lives. Edmund Hebert says, such a ministry is costly, but it is the antidote to professionalism. And So we see with Paul tenderness, firmness.

Some of us need a good dose of tenderness. Sometimes pastors can take pride in being a hammer. I just shoot straight. I'm just direct. I just tell it like it is.

And really, you're just an overbearing, domineering jerk. Watch out for pride in being the tough pastor. There are some of you that need a good dose of toughness. Watch out for pride in being so sensitive that you never address anything directly. And so, brothers, may God help us and may God bless our churches by giving them, nourishing mothers and loving fathers as pastors.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for Paul and his ministry to the Thessalonians and Lord so much to learn. We pray, Father, that you would use this time in your word as a corrective to us where we have gone astray, Lord, whether it's simply being too tight with our own time too possessive of our own time or Lord whether it's being too hard on people or too soft Lord you know each one of us and we pray that you would work in us that we might be the kind of pastor that reflects our Lord Jesus Christ and does good to the souls of men. In Jesus name, Amen.