1 Thessalonians 2:9

For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail In ch. 1 Thessalonians 1:3 (see note) the Apostle spoke with thankfulness of his readers" "labour of love;" this laborious spirit they had learnt from himself: comp. 2 Thessalonians 3:8-9, where it appears that to some of them his example was a reproof.

"Travail" is added to "labour," as in 2 Thessalonians 3:8; 2 Corinthians 11:27 (the reference being in each case to manuallabour), to indicate the difficulty, as labour the toilsomenessof the Apostle's work.

St Paul was a "tentmaker by trade" (Acts 18:3). Jewish fathers, even if wealthy, had their sons taught some mechanical craft as a remedy against poverty or idleness; and Paul had learnt in his youth at Tarsus the business of cutting out and stitching the coarse goats" hair cloth used in Cilicia for making tents. He found this skill hi his wandering apostleship a great resource. An irksome kind of labour, to be sure, and but ill paid. It was a pathetic sight when the Apostle held up "these hands" to the Ephesian elders, hard and blackened with their rough task (Acts 20:34). But he thus earned for himself the necessaries of subsistence, and avoided burdening the infant Churches with his maintenance. In this way he was free to direct his own movements, and raised himself above mean suspicions. At the same time, he did not refuse occasional aid from a Church like the Philippian, in which he had full confidence, and whose affection would have been hurt by refusal. On this subject read 1Co 9:1-19; 2 Corinthians 11:7-12; Philippians 4:10-20; Acts 20:33-35. Silas and Timothy, who are included in this statement, may have had other means of support. But in Acts 20:34 the Apostle speaks of "these hands" as "ministering" also "to the needs of those with me."

for labouring night and day Omit "for," and read this clause in apposition with the last. Ye remember … our labour ant travail: working night and day … we preached, &c. Busy in teaching and preaching during the daytime, the Apostle often pursued his tentmaking far into the night.

because we would not be chargeable unto any of you St Paul puts it in a more delicate way than this: that we might not lay a burden on any of you. It was consideration for his Thessalonian flock, rather than regard to his personal independence, that influenced him. How different was he from the false shepherds who "eat the fat and clothe them with the wool, but feed not the flock" (Ezekiel 34:3). Most of the Thessalonian Christians, doubtless, were poor; while at Philippi there was "Lydia, a seller of purple," and perhaps others of considerable means, who could afford to "send once and again to" Paul's "necessity" (Philippians 4:15-16). Yet Jason of Thessalonica, in whose house the apostles lodged, seems to have been a man of substance (Acts 17:5-9); and there were "of the first women" of the city "not a few" amongst Paul's adherents in this place.

Thus "making the gospel without expense," as later at Corinth (1 Corinthians 9:18), we preached unto you the gospel of God) "Preached" is proclaimed, heralded. St Paul refers to the circumstances of his "entrance" (1 Thessalonians 2:1) and the manner in which he and his companions then bore themselves. The Herald, or Town Crier, in ancient cities was commonly a salaried official.

A third time the Apostle writes "the gospel of God" (comp. 1 Thessalonians 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Thessalonians 2:8) a phrase occurring only thrice in all the other Epistles. It suggests in 1 Thessalonians 2:2 the greatness of the charge entrusted to Paul; here, the greatness of the boon gratuitously bestowedon the Thessalonians.