Paul Worked to Set an Example

“Not because we did not have the right, but to give ourselves to you as a pattern, so that you would imitate us.” He lays bare the reason why he imposed such labor on himself: “to give you,” he says, “a pattern, so that you would imitate us, and so that if you happen to forget the teaching of our words, which you have heard so often, you may at least keep in mind the example of my way of life, which you have seen with your own eyes.” Here, too, there is no slight rebuke of them, when he says that he went through this labor and weariness night and day for no other reason than to set an example, and yet they would not learn, though it was for their sake that he took such toil on himself when he was not obliged to. “And indeed,” he says, “though we had the right, and the chance was open to us to use all your goods and property, and I knew that I had the Lord’s permission to use them, I did not use this right, so that what I did rightly and lawfully might not set others an example of dangerous idleness. That is why, when I preached the gospel, I preferred to be supported by my own hands and work, so that I might open the way of perfection to you who want to walk in the path of virtue, and set an example of good living by my work.” [a]