1 Thessalonians 2:7

ἐν βάρει ἶναι = “be men of weight,” or “be a burden” on your funds. Probably both meanings are intended, so that the phrase (cf. Field, 199) resumes the ideas of πλεον. and ἀνθ. δόξαν (self-interest in its mercenary shape and as the love of reputation) which are reiterated in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12, a defence of the apostles against the charges, current against them evidently in some circles (probably pagan) at Thessalonica, of having given themselves airs and unduly asserted their authority, as well as of having levied or at any rate accepted contributions for their own support. ἀπόστολοι were known to any of the local Christians who had been Jews (cf. Harnack's Expansion of Christianity, i. 66 f., 409 f.), since agents and emissaries (ἀπόστολοι) from Jerusalem went to and fro throughout the synagogues: but ἀ. Χριστοῦ was a new conception. The Christian ἀπόστολοι had their commission from their heavenly messiah. ἤπιοι (2 Timothy 2:24); as Bengel observes, there was nothing ex cathedra about the apostles, nothing selfish or crafty or overbearing. All was tenderness and devotion, fostering and protecting care, in their relations to these Thessalonian Christians who had won their hearts. To eschew flattery (5) did not mean any indifference to consideration and gentleness, in their case; they were honest without being blunt or masterful. τροφός a nursing mother (cf. Hor., Ep. i. 4, 8). “In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness; he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee” (George Eliot). Rutherford happily renders: “On the contrary, we carried ourselves among you with a childish simplicity, as a mother becomes a child again when she fondles her children”.