Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 185 · July 4
Our Own Souls
“So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.”
Ask any of us how many people we are genuinely available to, and the number we would say is larger than the one we live by.
I want you to see what Paul says he handed over, because he itemises it. We were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. He had a message to deliver, which was the job. He gave them himself as well, which was not.
Now the timescale, because it is shorter than the affection suggests. Acts gives him three sabbath days in the synagogue at Thessalonica before a mob went looking for him at Jason's house and the brothers moved him out by night. It may have run a few weeks longer; that church sent money to him twice while he was there. Either way it is weeks, and out of weeks he writes we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children, and as a father doth his children, and describes leaving as being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart. He also mentions what it cost: labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you.
Which leaves the question, and I would not ask it if the answer were obvious. Who could write that sentence about you after a month, and what would they have had to receive from you for it to be true?
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 185 is But If Not (Daniel 3:17-18).