1 Thessalonians 2:9

1 Thessalonians 2:9. Toil and travail. These words, and the expression ‘night and day,' are intended to bring out strongly the very hard and exhausting labour in which Paul was involved by his desire to support himself while ministering in the Gospel to the Thessalonians. That Paul did not mean to impose on the ministers of Christ in general a law of self-maintenance, is sufficiently obvious from his treatment of the whole subject in 1 Corinthians 9. He saw reason to adopt it as his own usual rule (though he sometimes accepted pecuniary assistance, 2 Corinthians 11:8), but spoke of his own practice as exceptional, not normal, and emphatically asserted the right of the labourer to his hire a notable proof of Paul's sagacity and freedom from bias in judgment.