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Letter to the Philippians: Part 2
00:30:05
Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. James Prothro, Scripture scholars at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology, dive into a powerful New Testament text: the Letter to the Philippians.
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to form. Now, I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute. And Joining me is Dr. Jim Prothero, who's a professor of Scripture here at the Augustine Institute. And we're going to talk about Philippians chapter 4, probably verses 1 through 11. And the reason we're covering Philippians is that we've been hearing this passage recently in the liturgy, and so we wanted to kind of break open that word a little bit further. And also because, you know, usually most homilies cover the Gospel, maybe they connect it with the Old Testament, but almost never do they want to touch upon St. Paul, because Paul is, you know, his Epistles. You know, we're reading somebody else's mail, and that could be difficult to explain sometimes. So we thought it'd be worth our time to dive a little bit more into Philippians. And before I forget, I want to remind you that on the Forum platform, we have a whole Lectio Bible study on Philippines. And so you can find that on Formed, it's our Lectio Philippians. So that's an opportunity for you to get a deeper context of the letter of St. Paul to the Philippians, which is a really, a great treasure, and it's worth really diving into. So, Jim, let's just start off with the context of chapter four. And of course, last time we spoke about a little bit about chapter one, and primarily chapter two with the hymn to Christ. That was so beautiful, the model, the mindset that they, the Philippians had to have in order to have and to realize the Greek ideal of friendship. So we spoke about that last time. Now we're moving into chapter four. And you want to just, this is where he's going to kind of set up some exhortation and application for the life of the community. You want to just set us up for first couple verses?
- [01:39]
B
Absolutely. I think you can think about Philippians with. With a pair of keys. One of them you've already mentioned is mindset. Chapter two says, I want you to have the mind of Christ. And that means being ready to look to the interests of others, having a mind that is set on the good of the church, that's set on God and the higher things. And along with that mindset comes imitation. So Paul exhorts them to imitate Christ who doesn't look to his own interests. And then he gives a couple little things that seem like kind of weird travel plans in chapter two, like, oh, well, I was going to send Timothy because he looks to the interests of the church and not to his own interests. But instead, I'm going to send back Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus has brought a gift to Paul while he's in prison from Philippi. And then Paul details what's happened to him. He says, well, yeah, he was bringing it to me. Then he got sick. He was almost dead, and you guys were concerned about him, but he's recovered, and I want to send him back to you because that will restore your joy and it will give joy to me. And then in chapter three, he says, now there's these other people who teach these false things out of false ambition, selfishness, the wrong kind of status. I didn't do that myself. Imitate me and imitate people like me, because we imitate Jesus. And when you get into chapter four, you see the same ideas about the mindset, what they should set their minds on and how they should think. The exhortation gets more concrete with some specific things that he wants them to do and things that are going on. But then also in verse nine, at the end of the lectionary pericope, the unit of verses in the Sunday readings, at the end of verse nine, he says, imitate me once again. And so it just comes back around these same drums getting hit over and over again. It's really helpful, like you said, getting some context, because it's so easy when we get to Paul. Sometimes it's why people don't like to do it is to kind of follow the headings and go, okay, now we're talking about Jesus humility. Now we're talking about false teachers. Now we're talking about an exhortation to prayer. Okay. And it seems really disjointed, but Paul loves to just beat the same drum and hit it in a new key. That's a mixed metaphor, but to play the same tune again in a new key so that you're always being brought back to these same themes. I think this text is great for that.
- [04:14]
A
Yeah. Or to use a different. You know, it's like a tapestry that's interwoven. And, you know, there's some different colors that you're seeing at different points, but some of the old colors come back and they reemerge. And if you follow some of these themes as they re emerge, you begin to see the tapestry and the beauty of what Paul is patterning out for us, of how we are to pattern the life of Christ. So let's dive into that. I love the first couple verses here. You get a therefore. Therefore, my brothers, in chapter four, verse one, whom I love and long for my joy and crown Stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. And what's so striking to me, Jim, is that Paul is this intense, choleric person. And, you know, he, with zeal, went to Damascus to arrest anybody who was a, you know, who is this Christian movement and not following the law. And he talks about how even in chapter three, that he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, you know, very strict and focused on the law, focused on the Torah and his ambition and zeal. And he has been so transformed in Christ. Paul becomes deeply affectionate of his flock. You know, it doesn't. Not your typical choleric. Your typical choleric loves. And I know this because I'm choleric. And so I get goal driven. I get take that hill at whatever cost. And I love reading Paul's letters because I see a man who has been tempered. And he realizes that the ultimate goal is loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. And that's the ultimate goal that we have to submit and all other goals towards. And he sees that building up the community as what's most important. And so he speaks with sincerity here when he says, therefore my brothers, he really sees them as brothers and sisters in Christ. And then he goes on, whom I love long for. So he has this great love for those that he's serving and writing for. And that's the secret to being a successful pastor. It's the secret to being a successful Christian is loving those in your care, whether you're parents, whether you're a leader, whether you're a priest or an apostle like Paul. Loving those in our charge has got to be the highest call. And Paul's living that out, which is really dramatic, really exciting, no?
- [06:39]
B
I think so. He uses the same phrase in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2. And he calls the Thessalonians his joy and his crown. And he talks about his parishes this way, his congregations. And for me, you know, to go along, you were talking about he's an odd choleric, and in some ways he's an odd cleric if you're dealing with the wrong kind. Right, Because. Because Paul really sees himself united to the people he's serving. And he sees himself as set apart and separate from them, as an apostle, but as one serving them. And he sees his kind of fate and his destiny and his everything kind of bound up with them. When it's going well for his churches, he praises them. And he doesn't just say, good job, tootsie, you know, well done. Here's a Treat. Okay, now I'm going to go play with the grownups now. He's there with them, right? They're his joy, they're his crown. When things are going well for them, then that's God's work through him. It's a real encouragement. And even to think, I mean, talking about clerics in particular. But I have to think about that as a father, too, if we're going to talk about the domestic church. Right. Even for my own kids.
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A
And I love how just that image that he uses, like you said with the Thessalonians and here with the Philippians, he talks about the community as his crown. And, you know, for the Greco Roman culture, for the Romans, you know, one of the highest things of honor, and of course, it's a culture built on honor, was to receive a crown of glory, of victory, whether it's the athlete who wins the crown, which is usually a crown of celery, but it represented great honor and victory, right? Or a crown that you would get from maybe from the emperor for his, you know, great service. And Paul sees. So a crown is, in a sense, a reward. And Paul sees that his reward is the love he receives back, the love he pours out into the community of the Thessalonians or the Philippians, and the love that is returned to him from them is his reward. And I think about this for parents, you know, just to use the analogy that you just did, Jim, which I love, of the domestic church, for a parent, you pour your love out. That's your duty. That's your calling. Pour your love out and yourself out in that kenosis that we talked about in Philippians chapter 2 that Jesus does, you pour yourself out in a kenosis for your kids, and then what's your crowning reward is if you are faithful and love them, then they come back and love you. You know, I remember the successor to St. Jose Maria Escriva, who was the number two bishop and leader of Opus Dei, came to Chicago when I was young and I heard him give a talk, and he talked about how he warned. He says, look, if you model selfishness and materialism to your kids, and you only have one or two kids because you're selfish and you want to have a lot of possessions and you devote yourself to a career and to the pursuit of material things, and you neglect your kids, well, they will learn from you how to love. And when you're older and lonely, they won't visit you, they won't call you, and you'll be alone because you left them Oftentimes alone as latchkey kids or whatever else. And I thought that was chilling. But here you see the opposite of that threat, right? That Paul pours himself out to the Philippians and their love back to him is his crown. It's his reward. It's a beautiful image.
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B
That's fabulous.
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A
You want to continue on in the next couple verses?
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B
Yeah. So let's look on now at verses two and three here in chapter four. So Paul continues. He's just told them, therefore, stand strong, stand in the Lord. And now he's going to go from that kind of very general command to something really specific. And he's going to name people. I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes. I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the Gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. So we zero in here on something that is going on in Philippi, and it's not exactly clear what role these women have. They're probably patrons in Macedonia, where this is. Acts tells us that a lot of leading women, business owning women, join the church. And so. And one of them he names is Lydia in the book of Acts, who actually starts to support them. She hosts Paul and the other missionaries in her house. But it's not exactly clear who these ladies are or exactly what they don't agree about. But you can see when you look at it, the need for agreement. Just like he said back in chapter two, that he urged them all to have the same mind, think the same thing, the same mindset. It's impressive to me also, you notice it repeats it in the English translation, just as it does in Paul's Greek that he wrote, I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche. He gives them each a separate call to be united, even though it's the same call. He could have just said, I entreat you two ladies and then named one. And the other one of them would go, oh, he named you first. No, he named me first. Ha, ha ha. Or whatever. He doesn't do that. Right. So he calls them to unity. And you can also see the rest of the church's job in unity as well. In verse three, there's been a lot of opinions about whether the true companion that he wants to help these women is like the whole church, or if it's one of their husbands, or if it's maybe the bishop or a deacon. That he knows he doesn't name this person. But if you were in the audience, you probably know who it is, right? But somebody else that's in the church is meant to be a servant to them and help them and aid them. So you can see the unity of the church as each part, each, each member of the body of Christ has to kind of grow so that the ligaments strengthen and the unity get stronger and everybody grows together. The way he talks about it in.
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A
Philippians, I love the image of the body of Christ. And what's so important, I think, Jim here is that everybody in the community is part of the body of Christ there, right? He talks about these two great women and he mentions the whole community and he mentions Clement and he says, and the rest of my fellow workers. And so again, this idea of. We talked about it before about koinonia and partnership. Paul sees that everybody in the church is a co worker with him. Right. In other words, Paul's not saying, look, I'm the apostle and the rest of you are a laity and you just need to pay, pray and obey and let a few of us run things. He really sees the gospel kingdom project of the church to be a joint venture that we all have to work and labor at. And I think sometimes people think, I hear people talk about, well, the church isn't doing this, the church isn't doing that, but you're part of the church, we're part of the church, you know. And so I think this returning back to the New Testament and to the word of God helps us ground our vision of the church. And it gets out of this kind of dualism of the clerics and laity. Active and passive division. We're all called to be active in the life of the church.
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B
Absolutely, absolutely. And it strikes me too, that he names them. Paul doesn't normally name people, like when they sin or something like that. He's not sort of standing up in front of the people writing a letter going, all right, you in the back, I saw you last week at the horse races, gambling. I saw you. Cut it out. He doesn't do that. And so here it looks almost like he's kind of like. Almost as if he's really wagging the finger and being mean. But I think the reason that he names them here instead of somewhere else is he's esteeming them. He says that they're honored together with everybody else who works with him and has partnered with them for the gospel. But in another sense, it's also the whole church's business when disagreement between two people in the church is breaking the church, if it's that they had a spat over, like, you know, if they were sisters in law and they had a spat over, like, what, new curtains to put in the grandpa's room, you know, at the old folks home. My guess is Paul wouldn't have brought it up. He probably wouldn't know about it.
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A
But this is affecting the life of the church in some way.
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B
Yeah, that's right. And because of that, anything that affects the life of the church is worth. It's a wound that needs some sort of poultice.
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A
And I like how after he addresses the healing of this friendship, which is what we have to do by having the mind of Christ, he then summons them to rejoice, because you could think that kind of quarreling would lead to bitterness or unhappiness. And here he calls them to the opposite of that, and that is to rejoice. So I don't know if you want to. Should we move on to verse four?
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B
Yeah, let's do it.
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A
All right, so I love verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. What a beautiful line of Paul calling us in, reminding us as Christians that joy has to be one of the earmarks, one of the characteristics of every devout Christian. And he says, you know, now this next line, the ESV has it, let your reasonableness be known to everyone. But that word for reasonableness in the Greek is an interesting word and it can be translated in several ways. You want to just talk about Jim, that word for reasonableness in the Greek?
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B
Absolutely. So in verse five, it says, let your reasonableness be known to all. If you have the esvce, you'll see a little note at the bottom that says, or gentleness. They're giving you sort of a different way to translate it because it can be kind of a hard word to translate in just one word. A lot of the other places the ESV translates it as decency, which is pretty good, but also still a little vague. So I brought with me my old friend, he's very old Aristotle, who actually, when he's discussing ethics, has a long section on this word and what it kind of means. And he's talking about this word in the Greek, and the way he talks about it is more that it's like equity, right? Fairness, but not fairness in a sort of strict fairness way. Like, sorry, I know you broke your leg, kid, but you didn't make it to dinner on time. So no dessert for you, right? No, Soup for you. Aristotle says this. He says that this equity or reasonableness or decency or gentleness. I'll call it equity here. He says, this is what it means. The equitable man is one who, by choice and habit, does what is right, and yet does not stand on his rights unduly, but is content to receive a smaller share, even if he has the law on his side. So being good, doing what's right, and yet at the same time being ready to kind of lose even your own privileges or even your own honors and glory for the sake of other people. Oh, man. Who does that sound like?
- [18:35]
A
Right, right. Yeah. They greet him to Christ that we just heard. And it's almost like. And the Greeks didn't use this word, it becomes much more of a word in Christian tradition is being gracious. Yeah, right. I like the idea of not standing firmly on one's own rights, but giving away a bit for the sake of the other. To me, it describes someone who's gracious and generous in that sense. And I don't wonder. Do you think that this is. He's making this exhortation in verse five, right after he talks about these two women who have had a little bit of a quarreling, and maybe they're both standing on their rights, but a little bit of graciousness or a little bit of gentleness, whatever. Equity would solve the wound, I think.
- [19:33]
B
So what it reminds me of, even though he doesn't use the same word, it reminds me a lot of First Corinthians, chapter six. There's people in Corinth who are in the church who have spats with each other. And so what do you do when you have a spat? Right. So they go and assert their rights against each other and bring their fights to the pagan courts. And Paul says, why not rather be wronged than bring the church into disgrace and disunity? And man, that's. I mean, you don't talk about the mind of Christ. Right. Why not rather be wronged than get yours at the expense of the unity of Jesus body?
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A
That's a hard standard.
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B
It is, but it's what Philippians is about in so many ways.
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A
Yeah. So let your. You would translate this? Equity.
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B
I think equity is good. Yeah.
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A
Let your equitableness or graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. I love that. Just before we go any further, I mean, do not be anxious about anything. It's so easy to be anxious. It's so easy to be anxious because there's so much we don't know, so much that's uncertain about the future, and so it's easy to be anxious. But he says, do not be anxious about anything. So he's really clear here. You know, he's not saying, don't be anxious about the end of the world, don't be anxious about now he's saying, don't be anxious about anything, but in everything. So how am I going to be free from anxiety? By prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. So prayer with supplication, making our requests known to God, our needs known to God with Thanksgiving. That's a really important addition for Paul. We have to give thanks. And if we're grateful, I think gratitude helps dispel anxiety because we see the good gifts that God's giving us over and over again, and it starts to dispel our anxiety, because our anxiety is fear that we won't be taken care of. And by being grateful, we realize how much we are. And it's such a great counterbalance to that. I always like to begin my prayer time with grateful, what I'm grateful for the day before and list out that. And it just gives me a sense of how much God's blessing and loving me, and it's such an encouragement.
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B
That's good. It's something that I think is easy to remember when you're a parent looking at your ungrateful little snotty kids. And it's really hard for me to forget about my own life as a child of God. Just a week ago, my wife did that with our children because they woke up irritable and on the wrong side of the bed and arguing about everything from the oatmeal to who sat where to which Bible story we were going to read to, like, who gets to sit closer to mom to everything, right? And my wife said, all right, girls, break. You're going to go down. You're going to draw a picture of five things that you're grateful for. And it was really good. And the kids went to bed that night, like, talking about it and starting their prayers with Thanksgiving. It was a great set for the day. And then what was I doing later that night? Oh, moaning about this email or this thing that came in and was irritating to me. And I went to bed and I went, oh, yeah. And you kind of have to have to beat your own breath sometimes and go, okay, I need this, too, every single day. Not just sometimes I need it. Every day.
- [23:22]
A
Yeah. Gratitude can transform our attitude. You know, that's what we have to remember. Gratitude is so powerful, and it shapes our attitude and our mindset. Do you want to go on to the next verse?
- [23:37]
B
Yeah, let's do the next verses here. So verses eight and nine. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
- [23:55]
A
There's that idea of thinking again. But I didn't finish verse seven, so I. Oh, I'm sorry. That's right. So then let me close that loop, please. After you make in prayer, with supplication, with thanksgiving, make your request known to God, and then he goes on. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. And so I love how that idea that peace guards our heart and our mind in Christ Jesus. And we want that peace to guard and that fends off what is peace guarding against anxiety. And so we have to question ourselves. Am I living out of anxiety, or am I living out of a deep peace that comes from God? And if you need the peace of God to come and guard your heart and your mind, then you need to take up prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. So, just wanted to complete that thought, but now go ahead and give us this final exhortation that he has.
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B
Oh, thanks. Sorry for jumping the gun.
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A
No worries.
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B
So finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise. Think about these things, what you've learned and received and heard and seen me practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. And you see here an exhortation. It sounds kind of way out there until you think about it and try to put flesh on each of these things that he's talking about. Whatever's true, whatever's just, whatever's good, all these sort of good things. Think about them in mindset, right? Think about Christ at the center of everything. But then for the rest of what you're thinking about, what are you going to. What are you going to fill your head with? What are you going to fill your ears with? Everything else, like that good stuff, stuff that points you that direction. Something that points you with love toward your neighbor. Something that will lead you in ways of living in a kind of honorable, loving, virtuous way, in fact, where he says if there's any excellence. The Greek word that he uses there is the same word for virtue. It's usually translated virtue. Yeah, arete. Exactly. So he wants you to think about all these things, but then he draws you back to examples again. It's about what do you fill in your eyes with? Things that remind you and make you think of Christ. Things that show you the pattern of Christ's humility and an exaltation. Look at Paul and he's saying that because as he says in 1 Corinthians 11, Be imitators of me because I'm an imitator of Christ, not just because he's like, well, I do a really good job, so you should look at me. But he said, I'm trying to follow him and if you can't, if you're not looking straight at him, try to look through me.
- [26:55]
A
I think I agree. And I think this all goes back to the idea of rejoice in verse four and in verse five, the call to, to root out anxiety. If we're focused on the beautiful, the good, the true, the noble and the virtuous, that's encouragement. It puts us onto the positive versus thinking of the bad news and thinking of what's reflecting on evil and brokenness. That's discouraging. That's why I think it's so important for how people consume media. If we're consuming media that's just giving us bad news and bad news and bad news. Because look, the secular media and all the media know that you get more clicks if you have bad news. You sensationalize the fear and the problem, you're going to get more eyeballs. But those aren't so good for our eyes. And that's what Paul is saying. Direct your eyes towards the good news, towards Jesus Christ and what's beautiful, true and noble. And that's so important.
- [27:52]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I think too that both in verse seven, with the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds, and then here the God of peace will be with you. It's easy to read passages like this and just think that this is sort of a self help exercise with a Jesus name in the middle of it, right? Stop thinking about things that stress you out. Think about happy things, stuff like that. And there's an element of wisdom to that and you don't have to read this particular set of writings to get it. But you notice it's not just that, right? It's all based on the fact that God is taking care of you. It reminds me of 1st Peter 5:7. It's one of my favorite verses. Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. And it's because of his grace and his love and providence that we don't have to be sanctions.
- [28:46]
A
And you're exactly right. And this comes back to where Paul wants to take us, and that is to be with God. And the God of peace will be with you. Right. What a great promise. You know, if we can fight anxiety, become equitable and gracious in our conduct with others. Right. And make prayer with supplication and with thanksgiving and focus and think upon all that's noble and true and beautiful and commendable, then the God of peace will abide with us. And there's no greater blessing than that. Well, I want to thank everybody for joining us in our Bible study. Thank you for all who support the Augustine Institute through the Mission Circle and in your prayers, know that we always pray for you. And we're just super grateful for everybody joining us. I hope that this enriches your reflections that we've heard from the Word of God in the liturgy recently from Paul's letter to the Philippians, because what's going on with the Philippians is what we're called to live as the church today, right now, and in the life of the church. So hopefully this Word has encouraged you, and I ask that the Lord bless and keep you. Thank you for being with us.