blessing your pastor

¹⁷Let priests who lead well be held worthy of twice the honor, especially those who labor in the Word and in doctrine.

¹⁷Obey your leaders and be subject to them. For they watch over you, as if to render an account of your souls. So then, may they do this with joy, and not with grief. Otherwise, it would not be as helpful to you.

⁶And let him who is being taught the Word discuss it with him who is teaching it to him, in every good way.

¹²And we ask you, brothers, to recognize those who labor among you, and who preside over you in the Lord, and who admonish you, ¹³so that you may consider them with an abundance of charity, for the sake of their work. Be at peace with them.

¹¹If we have sown spiritual things in you, is it important if we harvest from your worldly things?

²⁴‘May the Lord bless you and keep you. ²⁵May the Lord reveal his face to you and take pity on you. ²⁶May the Lord turn his countenance toward you and grant peace to you.’

¹⁴So, too, has the Lord ordained that those who announce the Gospel should live by the Gospel.

³I give thanks to my God, with every remembrance of you, ⁴always, in all my prayers, making supplication for all of you with joy, ⁵because of your communion in the Gospel of Christ, from the first day even until now.

¹³So may the God of hope fill you with every joy and with peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope and in the virtue of the Holy Spirit.

¹⁵Be solicitous in the task of presenting yourself before God as a proven and unashamed worker who has handled the Word of Truth correctly.

⁷So then, it is right for me to feel this way about all of you, because I hold you in my heart, and because, in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the Gospel, you all are partakers of my joy. ⁸For God is my witness how, within the heart of Jesus Christ, I long for all of you. ⁹And this I pray: that your charity may abound more and more, with knowledge and with all understanding, ¹⁰so that you may be confirmed in what is better, in order that you may be sincere and without offense on the day of Christ: ¹¹filled with the fruit of justice, through Jesus Christ, in the glory and praise of God.

¹⁵And I will give you pastors according to my own heart. And they will feed you with knowledge and doctrine.