But I had no peace of mind because my dear brother Titus hadn’t yet arrived with a report from you. So I said good-bye and went on to Macedonia to find him. NLT

‘Paul’s personal connectedness was remarkable, especially in view of how seldom he saw some of his friends, and how exalted his thoughts and his position in the church were.’ John Piper

Paul was a ‘team player‘. In the New Testament he mentions the names of numerous individuals he clearly valued. He knew he needed the ministry, the comradeship, the prayers of others. He built partnerships, nurtured teams, working together with others, as well as on his own.

I remember an article written by a well-known evangelist, in which he told, with loving appreciation, how he had been ‘informally mentored’ by an older Christian in his younger years. His mentor was also a well-known Christian leader, and the evangelist described how this much respected man would take him along, in his car, to events where he was speaking. He said much of this ‘informal mentoring’ went on in long conversations, sat in the man’s car at the end of an evening. I imagine how tired the senior Christian in this story must have felt. He carried enormous responsibilities in his work life, and then his ‘free’ time was voluntarily filled with gospel work. But he poured himself out into others. I myself had the privilege of meeting this man and getting to know him just a little. But from my relatively few encounters with him, I could see that he was an encourager and enabler of others.

Who are you building into?