Epios: Like Holding a Baby

Word of the Week

March 28, 2026

Ēpios: Like Holding a Baby

 

But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.

1 Thessalonians 2:7 NASB

 

“She’s so little!  Can I hold her?”

Those are the first words when Mom and Dad come home from the hospital with the brand new little sister.

“Yes, but first sit down so I can hand her to you.  Be very gentle!  That’s right – be sure to support her head.”

We treat newborns with care.  They can’t fend for themselves and we try to foresee their every need.

The apostle Paul was writing to a baby church, and he felt some of the same emotions about them. He chose a Greek word to describe his approach to them in the early days of their new life in Christ.

Paul arrived in the city of Thessalonica in northern Greece and immediately started preaching the good news about Jesus.  He began at the Jewish synagogue, where he spent three consecutive sabbath days using the prophecies of the Old Testament to show that Jesus was the Promised One.  You can read the whole story in Acts 17:1-9.

Many believed in Jesus and a new church was born.  It was a rough delivery, however.  The next event we read is a riot instigated by the Jewish leadership.  Before long, the political authorities issued a ruling that forced Paul to leave town.

Now he was on the road, headed for places like Athens and Corinth – but his heart was back in Thessalonica. How could this infant congregation flourish with no one to care for them?

The church was trying to grow in a hostile environment which pressured them to drop this new belief in Jesus.  It was such a tenuous situation that Paul couldn’t stand the suspense.  He sent others to see how these young believers were doing, and he was exhilarated to find that they were standing strong!

The skeptics evidently taunted the Christians with accusations against Paul:  “He doesn’t care about you!  He fooled you and then he left you to face the pressure as soon as things became difficult!”

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  He cared intensely about their welfare.  So in 1 Thessalonians 2:7, Paul asks them to think back to his behavior when he was with them, when they were taking their first steps of faith.

What were he and his partners like?  “We were gentle among you.”  The Greek word for “gentle” is ēpios [AY-pee-ahss].  Classical Greek writers used it to describe a nurse dealing with naughty children, a teacher who took a mild approach to unruly students, treating them tenderly rather than whacking them with a ruler.  It is a word that describe the way a loving parent treats a child.

That’s how Paul behaved when he was helping the Thessalonians take their first steps in Jesus.  He makes his meaning clear in the rest of the verse:  “As a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7b).  He goes on in verse 11 to explain that he was also acting like a father.  The best of both parents was his goal in his attitude toward them.

To summarize, Paul showed the kind of gentle love and care that any good parents displays toward a brand new baby.  He loved them, cared for them, and did everything he could to protect and provide for them.

The word ēpios occurs only one other time in the New Testament, in Paul’s final letter before his death.  Penned from a maximum security cell, the letter of 2 Timothy contains a telling bit of instruction for his protégé Timothy.  In a time when Christianity was under imperial attack and internal controversies, Timothy might be tempted to spend his time picking fights, battling for the faith.

But Paul says, “The Lord’s bond servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind [ēpios] to all . . .” (2 Timothy 2:24).  Just as you don’t spank a newborn baby, you don’t promote the gospel of Christ by winning arguments.  Instead, you aim to win people.

Paul explains in the next verses how it works:  “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:25-26).

We may be involved in spiritual battles, but it is important to remember that the other person is not the enemy.  Satan is the enemy.

 

Study Hint:

This verse reads differently in some translations.  Instead of “gentle,” the NIV, for instance, says, “We were like young children among you.”  Why the difference?  It goes back to our ancient manuscript copies of the Greek New Testament.  We have hundreds of manuscripts, all hand copied over centuries, and there are occasional places where they differ.

In this case, there are some manuscripts that say nēpios rather than ēpios.  That’s a word that means an infant or small child.  Obviously, the scholars don’t all agree on which spelling was in Paul’s original manuscript.  However, either word expresses Paul’s idea clearly.  His relationship with the believers in Thessalonica was like that between a baby and its mother.  And that’s a model for us.

 

Coming Up

The church in Thessalonica was suffering hostility that it didn’t deserve.  It just wasn’t fair!  Many followers of Jesus today are similarly suffering vicious persecution.  Next week we will look at a Greek word that assures us that God will make everything right in the end.

 

©Ezra Project 2026