Inspired by First Thessalonians 2:7-13, two friends in a small-town coffee shop sit with a man who called himself both a mother and a father to people he’d only known a few weeks. They talk about the difference between loving somebody’s kid and loving your own, about handing out a pamphlet and then driving off, and about the one thing neither of them can bring themselves to do, which is tell somebody the hard thing straight. It ends on whether the Word’s actually working in them or they just can’t tell on a Tuesday morning.
Tom: Where were we in First Thessalonians?
Ray: Chapter two. The mother story.
Tom: Right. So it keeps going, and then it switches.
Ray: Switches to what?
Tom: Father. He does both.
Ray: In the same paragraph?
Tom: Pretty much. Mother first, then father.
Ray: Huh.
Tom: And the mother part’s specific. He says like a nurse with her own children.
Ray: Her own.
Tom: Yeah, that’s the part. Not somebody watching a kid for money.
Ray: There’s a difference.
Tom: Big difference.
Ray: My sister did daycare for a while. She was good at it. But it’s not the same as her own, and she’d tell you that herself.
Tom: Right.
Ray: She loved those kids. Just, different.
Tom: That’s essentially what he’s saying. He says he gave them the gospel and then gave them himself too.
Ray: Both?
Tom: Both. Like the message wasn’t enough on its own; he threw his life in with it.
Ray: That costs more.
Tom: Way more.
Ray: Anybody can hand somebody a pamphlet.
Tom: Ha. Yeah.
Ray: I’ve done that. Felt good about it too.
Tom: Yeah, me too.
Ray: And then you drive off.
Tom: Yeah.
Ray: So what’s the father part?
Tom: He says he dealt with every one of them like a father with his kids. And he lists three things. Urging them on, steadying them when they’re hurting, and then just telling them straight.
Ray: That last one.
Tom: Yeah.
Ray: That’s the one I can’t do.
Tom: With your boy?
Ray: With anybody. I can do the first two all day. The third one I just, I don’t.
Tom: Why not?
Ray: I don’t want it to go bad. Once you say it, you can’t take it back.
Tom: Yeah.
Ray: And I’m not even sure I’d be right.
Tom: That’s fair.
Ray: Is it though?
Tom: I don’t know. Probably sometimes. Not always.
Ray: Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.
Tom: The thing that got me is he says every one of you.
Ray: Meaning?
Tom: Meaning he wasn’t preaching to a room of people. He was going person to person.
Ray: For how long? He wasn’t there very long.
Tom: A few weeks maybe. Couple months.
Ray: And he got to everybody?
Tom: Says so.
Ray: Man, I’ve been in the same church eighteen years, and I know maybe nine people’s actual names.
Tom: Ha. Nine’s not bad.
Ray: Nine’s bad.
Tom: Nine’s probably average.
Ray: Average is still bad.
Tom: Yeah, alright.
Ray: What’s the last part?
Tom: He thanks God that when they heard it, they took it as God talking. Not as his opinion.
Ray: How’d they know the difference?
Tom: I don’t know that they thought it through. He just says they received it that way.
Ray: Because I’d have questions. Some guy shows up in town.
Tom: Right, and that town was full of guys showing up.
Ray: Exactly.
Tom: I think that’s why he spent all those verses on how he lived in front of them.
Ray: So they could tell.
Tom: Maybe. I’m guessing a little.
Ray: Yeah.
Tom: Last line is the one I keep looking at though. He says that the Word works in people. Like it’s actually doing something.
Ray: Working how?
Tom: Doesn’t say here. Just that it’s not sitting there dead. Remember the fruit of the Spirit though.
Ray: Hmm.
Ray: I don’t always feel that way.
Tom: Understandable.
Ray: Some mornings it’s just words on a page; they don’t sink in, and I’m thinking about the truck.
Tom: Yeah, distractions and life can get in the way.
Ray: And then other times.
Tom: Other times.
Ray: Maybe it’s working, and I just can’t see it that day.
Tom: Could be.
Ray: Or I’m kidding myself.
Tom: Could be that too.
Ray: Ha.
Tom: I’m not gonna pretend I know.
Ray: No, that’s fine. I’d rather you didn’t.
Tom: You want the last of this? It’s still hot.
Ray: Nah, I gotta run. Tell Dana I said hey.
Created by Steve
God’s Word…
Holman Christian Standard Bible
First Thessalonians 2:7-13
7Although we could have been a burden as Christ’s apostles, instead we were gentle among you, as a nursing mother nurtures her own children. 8We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. 9For you remember our labor and hardship, brothers. Working night and day so that we would not burden any of you, we preached God’s gospel to you. 10You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly, righteously, and blamelessly we conducted ourselves with you believers. 11As you know, like a father with his own children, 12we encouraged, comforted, and implored each one of you to walk worthy of God, who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
Reception and Opposition to the Message
13This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the message about God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the message of God, which also works effectively in you believers.