Rachel Workman: 2 You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters,[a] that our visit to you was not a failure. 2 You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. 3 So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery.
4 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. 5 Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! 6 As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else.
God alone examines the motives of our hearts. I can say that we don't need to worry about the motives of another person's heart. God sees all and knows all. But I think we still need to be on guard against a person's motives that are not as noble as they would have you believe. If our goal is to please God then then our motives should always match what our minds speak.
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John Burnett: 2 For you yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our reception among you was not in vain, 2 but after we had already suffered and been treated abusively in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition. Paul, Timothy, and Silas preached the gospel no matter what. This is not common then and it is not common now. There are few preachers that have the boldness to preach the gospel like Apostle Paul and his friends did. 3 For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit; 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not intending to please people, but to please God, who examines our hearts. God chooses who he approves and entrusts the gospel. 5 For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is our witness— 6 nor did we seek honor from people, either from you or from others, though we could have asserted our authority as apostles of Christ. Paul should be the example of what a preacher should be. Preachers today flatter people, tickle their ears, and tell them what they want to hear so that they will continue to come and give to feed the greedy ear ticklers. "Good morning all you wretched sinners, let's praise God for the grace he has granted us so that we can be saved from our sins," should be the opening line for every church service.
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Tomorrow’s reading for 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12.
7 As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children[b] among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. 8 We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.
9 Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. 10 You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11 And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. 12 We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory.
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