Year 2, Day 183: Philippians 1

Background on Philippians

We’re going to take a 4 day break from the psalms and head into the book of Philippians.  So let me give you a little background.   Philippians is a book that overflows with joy and thanksgiving because it was written by Paul to one of his most successful church plants.  Paul’s reason for writing to the church in Philippi is to thank them for a gift that he received from them.  Remember that Paul was collecting money to bring to the orphans and widows who were dealing with a famine in Jerusalem.  It was Epaphroditus who had brought their gift to Paul.

Slave

As I reported when we studied Paul’s letter to the Romans – another letter written out of joy to Christians on the right path – Paul begins by calling himself a “slave of Christ.”  Most modern American translations choose the word servant, but the Greek word in the text is slave.  There is a big difference between a servant and a slave.  Paul uses the word slave here because he knows what he is.  God is the Master.  God sets the agenda.  God oversees the work.  Paul is but one of His slaves.  Yes, Paul serves God.  Paul serves Him willingly as a slave underneath Him.

There is a reason that this is important.  You see, ultimately a servant has the ability to come and go as they please.  If I am a person’s servant and I yearn for a new job, I can quit (or resign my position) and move on.  But if I am someone’s slave, I am their property.  I have no right to move on because they own me.  This is the point that Paul is making when he introduces himself time and time again as Christ’s slave.  Paul genuinely considers himself the property of God.  It is that humble submission even to the level of being property that makes Paul one of the greatest evangelists to have ever lived.

You’ll also notice that Paul doesn’t use a statement of his apostleship here as he does in practically everything else he has written.  In all the other letters Paul wrote, he needed to remind people (or introduce himself) that he is a genuine apostle and someone who is following Jesus Christ.  There is absolutely no need to do that here in this letter.  Paul knows the Philippians’ hearts.  He knows their genuineness to serve God.  He knows that there is no need to worry about whether or not they are going to listen to him.  This customary “missing piece” of a letter from Paul actually says much regarding their friendship and unity they have in Christ.

Outpouring of Love

Then Paul moves into words of genuine flowing love.  Paul prays for them without ceasing because of their partnership with him in the Gospel.  Paul is confident that on the day of the Lord (otherwise known as Judgment Day) that God will finish the work of sanctification that He has begun in the Philippians.*  Paul yearns for them.  Paul prays that their love would know no ends.  Paul prays that their spiritual discernment would grow.  Paul looks lovingly upon them and rejoices at their spirituality.

Advancing the Gospel

Then Paul moves to the ultimate conversation: advancement of the Gospel.  I have a few interesting linguistic notes about the word “advance.”  This is originally a military word.  It is the word to describe what happens when a well-trained column of soldiers heads into the battlefield and drives back the ranks of the enemy.  For Paul, proclaiming the Gospel is warfare: spiritual warfare.  Additionally, in religious terms this word was adapted to imply a “change in the state of things for the better.”  Paul is telling the Philippians how God has been at work in him to make spiritual warfare upon this world under the realization that every person who genuinely receives the Gospel puts this world in a better condition.  What an incredible perspective on God’s call for us as Christians in this world!

As we prepare to finish this chapter, we get one of the more famous quotes from Paul’s writing: “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”  The cool thing about this sentence is that in the Greek it has no verbs.  We all know that the verb is the lifeblood of any language.  Thus, to compose a sentence without any verbs shows either brazen ignorance or incredible brilliance.  If nothing else, what it does is draw the reader’s attention to this fact.  You may remember my footnote to the blog entry on Ephesians 5:22, another famous verse of Paul’s in which there is no verb.  If you don’t, go back and refresh yourself.  You should find it in the archive – to the right of this post – for May 2012.  In that discussion we learned that when a sentence has no verb you either use a verb of being or bring the most recently used verb into the sentence.  For the record, the most recent verb is found in verse 20 and it is the verb “to glorify” or “to honor.”  In verse 20 it is future tense and passive voice.  So we would get the following readings for verse 21:

• For to me, life will be to glorify Christ and death will be to glorify gain.  OR
• For me, life is Christ and death is gain.

Honestly, both sentences have similar points.  Life is about Christ.  Death is about gaining God’s eternal life with Christ.  However, in this case you can see why translation editors go with the latter translation – because it reads far more cleanly.  But in either case, Paul’s point is clear.  Death is about gaining the rewards of God.  Life is about Christ.  For the true slave of God, life is about Christ.  It is about doing His will.  It is about accomplishing His purposes.  It is about following His marching orders.

Life is not about us confessing some belief in God and then going out and living the life we want to live.  Life is not about claiming a belief in a God who can heal the sick, raise the dead, and justify the sinful while we then turn around and live a life in which God apparently makes no difference in who we are.  To the slave of Christ, “to live is Christ.”

It is a very difficult teaching to be sure.  How many times a day do we sit back and think, “I would like _______?”  To be a slave to Christ means that we now think, “Christ would like _____, therefore my goal today is to want the same.”  This verse is another great verse in the argument of why self-mongerism is the enemy of God.  To be a slave of Christ, we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and want what Christ wants.  As Paul says later on in the chapter, “only let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel.”

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*This is a point that really made me think a lot today.  I remember as a child, one of the most important things that I needed was reassurance from my spiritual mentor (my dad) that he believed I would genuinely be found in God’s salvation.  Not that I was codependent, mind you.  He was my mentor, and I genuinely sought out his opinion on my life and the things in my life that I might be doing wrong.  It makes me wonder … how many people in this world genuinely care if anyone else thinks that they are saved?

In my experience, people are more apt to say, “I believe I’m saved, that’s what matters,” far more often than they would have a spiritual mentor to whom they could ask with consistency, “Not that you are the ultimate judge, but do you believe I am living a life of having received God’s grace?”  If that’s true, I think it shows a dynamic of arrogance in American Christianity.