I will quote the inestimable F F Bruce somewhere in the service tomorrow:
"The Christian community is to be a little welfare state,
a society practicing mutual aid among its members
in spiritual and material respects alike.
Within its fellowship those who need help should be given the help they need....
it is a ministry in which all can have a share.
The timid must be encouraged,
the weak must be strengthened,
those who stray must be led back to the right path,
and all must be treated with patience -
especially those who make the greatest demands on the patience of their fellow Christians."
(Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary, pp. 126-7.)
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