PHILIPPIANS
Paul’s letter to the Philippians is maybe my favourite Pauline letter: it’s short (which I always find a plus!) but packed with nuggets of rich theology. Before looking at the text, let’s look at the social-historical context.
What we can deduce from the letter is this. Paul had been in financial need, so the Philippian church sent him a monetary gift, which they sent with Epaphroditus—who almost died in trying to help Paul out. As for the church at Philippi, there was a growing problem of disunity (hmm, sounds familiar!). There seemed to be a particularly acute division between the leadership and laity. Just to exacerbate the disunity situation, false teachers in Philippi were teaching the believers that they had to obey the Mosaic Law in order to follow Christ. So, Paul cuts a letter to help his dear friends, whom he had led to Christ some time earlier (see Acts 16). That Paul continued to enjoy a close relationship with this church is indicated by the letter’s overall, warm fuzzy tone.
The basic outline of letter is as follows: Introduction (1:1-11), The Preaching of the Gospel and the Glorification of Jesus (1:12-26), An Exhortation to Unity (1:27-2:18), An Update of Epaphroditus (2:19-30), An Exhortation to Press towards the Goal of Salvation (3:1-4:1), Final Exhortations to Unity (4:2-9), The Church’s Gift for Paul’s Need (4:10-19), and Final Closing (4:20-23). So let’s now follow Paul’s flow of thought.
Paul begins his letter by acknowledging the church’s participation in the gospel (1:1-8). It’s noteworthy that Paul uses the word, “all,” 5 times in just the first 8 verses; and in his opening salutation he specifically references the leadership and the laity (Phil 1:1)—something he never does anywhere else. This suggests that there was a rift between the leaders and the lay people; so Paul assumes nothing and explicitly addresses both groups right off the bat. Question: Are there any implications for us today for managing church conflict. As he does elsewhere (cf. Rom 15; 1 Thess 5), he prays for the church (Phil 1:9-11). The thrust of his prayer is that the believers’ love for each other would grow and continue to grow—obviously important if they are to become more unified! His prayer, then, addresses (albeit implicitly) their disunity problem.
Paul also implicitly addresses this issue by subtly offering in himself the model attitude for believers to have: an attitude where the gospel and the glorification of Christ remain central (1:12-26). Paul writes how while he was imprisoned some Christians were preaching the gospel to provoke him to jealousy: by doing what he could not do (being in prison), and by gaining a following at his expense. But rather than stew about the situation, Paul only cares that the gospel is being preached—regardless of the motives. Paul’s attitude was that the gospel should always be at the forefront of everything we do or do not do.
Similarly, Paul’s life concern is the glorification of Jesus (Phil 1:20-21); that is to say, living the Christian life isn’t about living for self, it’ about living for the Saviour—bringing honour to his name. It’s not about gaining success—it’s about glorifying the Saviour. And somewhat ironically, living a life focused on honouring Jesus leads to living a life seeking to serve others (1:22-26). By putting himself out there like this, Paul is hoping that his readers will follow suit; and if they do, the church will become more unified—because everybody will be running around serving each other!
If you remember in the NT Origins blog entry, I talked about how the chapter and verse divisions, introduced in the 16th century (with the advance of the printing press) sometimes obscure how best to understand a passage. This can be seen here: nearly every NT commentator sees Paul’s flow of thought extending from 1:27 to 2:18 (these verses together would have formed a much better “chap. 2” than the one we have). In this section, he moves from the subtle to the salient, as we’ll see next . . .