¹¹Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

Again, Paul instructs his readers to continue doing something they are already doing. In this case, it is encouraging others. What a contrast with the believers in Corinth, from where Paul writes this letter. Those believers were mired down in a competitive spirit; the last thing on their minds was the welfare of others. Yes, they believed in encouragement, as most people do today. But often it came in the self-fixated form that looks like this: “Everyone else should be encouraging me!” The command is clear that encouragement should be others-focused, not something we demand or to which we are entitled.

Encouragement has the focus on building up others; it is something we do for other people’s benefit. To be sure, if everyone had this mindset, to build others up, then everyone would be built up. The only way the whole body benefits is for every member of the body to be outwardly focused.

When have I done my fair share of encouraging others? After all, I need it as well, at least as much as I give it, right? If everyone gives “their fair share,” whatever they deem that to be, there would be no slip-ups or people who are more in need of encouragement than others. But things will always come up short in the economy of that way of thinking. The only solution is to continue encouraging others, regardless of what I get in return.

Now that sounds a lot like love, which is something for which Paul repeatedly commends the Thessalonian believers. In other words, encouragement should go beyond what we may think is sufficient.

Nowhere does this passage suggest that any of us are entitled to encouragement. The command does not start with our demand for being encouraged. No, the command is love other believers with encouragement because this is what they need, not because it is what I need. I am to build up others, and leave God to build me up. He may use others. But there may be times like David experienced:

Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened [KJV: encouraged] himself in the Lord his God. (1 Sam. 30:6)

Lord, out of the encouragement and strength You give, I commit to building up others by encouraging them.