Catholic Commentary
Honoring Those Who Lead in the Lord
12But we beg you, brothers, to know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you,13and to respect and honor them in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves.
First Thessalonians 5:12–13 calls believers to recognize and honor their pastoral leaders who labor, preside, and admonish them within the Lord's authority. Such honor, offered in love, is due to these leaders for their costly spiritual service and work of formation, not for their personal status or position.
Paul doesn't command the Thessalonians to obey their pastors—he begs them to truly see the worn-out labor of those who shepherd them, and to honor that work, not the status.
1 Thessalonians 5:13 — "And to respect and honor them in love for their work's sake"
Paul asks for two related responses: hēgeisthai (to regard, esteem, consider), often translated "respect," and agapē (love). The phrase "in love" (en agapē) wraps the entire relationship between pastor and people in the logic of charity. This is not deference born of fear, cultural convention, or clericalism, but the recognition that the leader's work is a gift to the Body and deserves the honor owed to gifts.
"For their work's sake" (dia to ergon autōn) is striking: the honor is not for the person as such — their personality, rank, or social standing — but for the work they perform. This is a profoundly anti-sycophantic formula. It guards against both unwarranted obsequiousness and churlish dismissiveness. The community is asked to see through the human figure to the ministry being carried out in Christ's name.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
Typologically, these leaders echo the seventy elders appointed by Moses in Numbers 11:16–17, upon whom the Spirit of Moses rested so they could "bear the burden of the people." The sharing of authority in Israel's community prefigures the collegial structure of New Testament ministry. The deference owed to Israel's elders (Lev 19:32) is now transposed into the key of charity and exercised en Kyriō.
In the spiritual sense, the passage invites each Christian to ask: do I truly know my pastors — their labor, their burden, their admonitions given on behalf of my soul? True "knowing" here is not mere acquaintance but the recognition that comes from attentive, affectionate observation of a person's service.
Catholic tradition reads these verses as an important scriptural foundation for the theology of holy orders and the reciprocal obligations of the faithful toward their pastors.
The Threefold Office and Apostolic Structure. The three participles of verse 12 — laboring, presiding, admonishing — map onto the tria munera (three offices) of teaching, governing, and sanctifying that the Second Vatican Council articulated in Lumen Gentium (§§20–21, 28). The bishops, priests, and deacons of the Church participate in and continue the apostolic ministry Paul here describes. Lumen Gentium §28 explicitly echoes this Pauline language: priests "toil in word and doctrine" and "preside over" the portion of God's flock entrusted to them.
Authority En Kyriō. The phrase "in the Lord" is critical for Catholic ecclesiology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§874–875) teaches that ordained ministry exists not as self-generated authority but as a service conferred by Christ through the Church. Ministers act in persona Christi capitis — in the person of Christ the Head — which means authority is always derivative, always oriented toward the mission of the Head. This prevents both the inflation of clerical authority into lordship and its deflation into mere functional administration.
Saint John Chrysostom (Homilies on 1 Thessalonians, Homily XI) comments on verse 13 that the faithful honor their leaders not as one honors a human patron but as one honors God's instrument: "Honor them not for their own sake but for His whose ministers they are." This patristic reading reinforces that respect for pastors is ultimately an act of theological faith.
Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 102) places the honor owed to spiritual superiors under the virtue of observantia — the reverence rendered to those set in authority for the common good. This is distinct from latria (worship due to God alone) and dulia (veneration of saints), but is a genuine moral obligation rooted in justice and charity.
Pope Francis, in Evangelii Gaudium (§139), calls pastors to accept the "smell of the sheep" — to labor among the people, not above them — which perfectly echoes Paul's kopiontas en hymin (laboring among you). The honor Paul requests flows precisely from this self-giving proximity.
Contemporary Catholic life is marked by a paradox: an era of deep, sometimes justified skepticism toward clerical authority sits alongside a genuine hunger for trustworthy pastoral guidance. Paul's words speak directly into this tension.
"Know those who labor among you" — This is an invitation to move beyond generic attitudes (whether reflexive deference or reflexive suspicion) and to actually see one's pastor: to notice the 6 a.m. hospital visit, the hours in the confessional, the homily prepared at midnight. Such attentive knowing naturally generates respect without demanding it.
Honor the work, not the status. Paul's "for their work's sake" frees the Catholic faithful from blind loyalty to office and calls them instead to honor concrete pastoral service where it is genuinely rendered. This is both a check on clericalism and an antidote to cynicism: judge the work, and honor it where it is real.
Receive admonition as a gift. Perhaps the hardest application: Paul includes nouthetountas (those who admonish you) among those deserving honor. A Catholic who never allows a confessor, spiritual director, or pastor to speak a difficult word is not truly living within a community of faith. Welcoming fraternal correction — in love, for love — is a mark of spiritual maturity that Paul here names a community virtue, not merely a private one.
Commentary
1 Thessalonians 5:12 — "We beg you, brothers, to know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you"
Paul opens with a characteristically pastoral appeal — not a command but a begging (erōtōmen, from the Greek, conveying earnest entreaty among equals). This tone is deliberate: Paul respects the agency of his readers even as he directs them. The address "brothers" (adelphoi) establishes a communion of dignity before he identifies a distinction within it.
Three participial phrases describe the leaders in question, each revealing a different dimension of their role:
"Those who labor among you" (kopiontas en hymin) — The verb kopiaō (to labor, toil, grow weary) is the same word Paul uses for his own apostolic work (1 Cor 15:10; Gal 4:11) and for the labor of women like Euodia, Syntyche, and Mary (Rom 16:6, 12). It connotes physical and spiritual exhaustion on behalf of others — pastoral ministry as costly service, not comfortable administration.
"Are over you in the Lord" (proistamenous hymōn en Kyriō) — Proistēmi (to stand before, preside over, lead) is the same word used in Romans 12:8 for the charism of leadership and in 1 Timothy 3:4–5 for the qualifications of a bishop. The phrase en Kyriō — "in the Lord" — is theologically decisive: this authority is not sociological or self-derived. It is exercised within and on behalf of the Lordship of Christ. The leaders do not hold authority as their own possession; they are stewards of Christ's headship over the Body.
"Admonish you" (nouthetountas) — Nouthesia (admonition, correction) is a specific act of pastoral care involving the speaking of truth for the sake of another's formation. It implies proximity, knowledge of the person, and willingness to risk the relationship for the sake of souls. Paul uses this same word in Colossians 1:28 ("admonishing every person") as characteristic of apostolic ministry, and in 1 Corinthians 4:14 when he himself acts as a spiritual father correcting his children.
Together, the three participles sketch a portrait of Christian leadership as diakonia (service) expressed through toil, governance, and formative correction — the kernel of what the Church will later name the (offices) of priest, prophet, and king.