Matthew Poole and continuators on 1 Thessalonians 2:11

11 As you know how we exhorted and comforted, and charged every one of you as a father doth his children .

Besides his publick Ministry he dealt more privately with them, as Acts 20.20. And that in a way of exhortation and comfort. By exhortation to quicken them, and by comfort to support them under troubles both outward and inward. And he did this as a Father to his Children, with much earnestness, Compassion, and Love, yea, and Authority also: He was before represented as a Mother, ver. 7. And here as a Father whose work and duty is to Exhort, Counsel and Comfort his Children privately at home, so did he as well as publickly, for he was their spiritual Father, as he begat them to Christ by the Gospel, as he tells the Corinthians also, 1 Cor. 4.15. As before he represented his gentleness, so here his Fatherly care. Or, at their first Conversion he carryed it with gentleness as a Mother, but afterwards used his Fatherly Authority. And in this he appeals to their own knowledge also, calling their own Consciences to bear witness to what he speaks, that it might leave the greater impression upon them.