Philippians 1.1-2 Intro

Today, we are starting a new study on the Book of Philippians. We will spend the next month or so digging into this book, seeing how we are to "Partner as Kingdom Citizens" for the advancement of the Gospel. Let's dig in!!!

 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons: Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Wow!!! Incredible right???

 Actually, you probably thought that was pretty boring. But there is a truth that you need to learn about interpreting the Bible. In the introduction to each of Paul's letters, Paul always hides his main point of the rest of the book in the introduction. This will be fully seen with the first eleven verses, but today, we will just get a background lesson on this book so that it has some context with which he can understand it fully. So here we go.

 History of Philippi

 There was a King by the name of Philip that ruled in Macedon in the middle of the fourth century BC. Two events surrounding this King occurred that changed the face of the world at that time. The first event that occurred was that he found gold in a small village named Krenides. He then took over the village, made it a into a major city, and named it after himself, Philippi. After finding this gold mine, literally, he began to purchase armies and mercenaries all over the known world.

The second key event occurred when his son took over the armies that his father had bought, and began conquering the entire known world. His name was Alexander the Great. Because his father found the gold in this small village and began to buy armies, Alexander had the military strength to conquer the world all the way to India. And it all started because of this city named Philippi. This little village was thrust from obscurity to the heights of importance, and then after aligning itself on the wrong side three consecutive times, it falls from the heights of ruling the world, to being ruled as a Roman colony. After Alexander died in 330 BC, this gave way for Rome to then take over the known world. And Philippi aligned itself three consecutive times with the wrong side of some big political battles.

The first wrong alignment occurred when Hannibal marched all the way across Spain and the northern part of Italy, down through the Appian Mountains to attack Rome from Behind. He was from Carthage in North Africa and attacking Rome from the sea was just suicide, yet marching an entire army through the Appian mountains was crazy as well, yet Hannibal did it with war elephants, and he almost succeeds. Philippi, seeing what is going on, decides that it must align itself with Hannibal, yet they were wrong. Rome defeats Hannibal and his army, sends them packing, and Philippi is reprimanded by Rome taking away their land from the locals and giving it various generals and war heroes.

 The second bad alignment was the battle between Octavian and Mark Antony versus Brutus and Cassius. This final battle was actually fought on the side of the mountain at Philippi. Brutus and Cassius had the military advantage with the upper ground so they were the obvious choice to align with. Yet, Mark Antony and Octavian won the battle, with Philippi having more land taken from them and given to generals and war heroes.

 The last and final wrong alignment was with Mark Antony. He was ruling in the east while Octavian was ruling in the west, and because of a series of unfortunate events, the two went to battle against each other. Antony’s girlfriend was Cleopatra, the Pharaoh of Egypt. So Antony was the safe bet, yet at the sea battle of Actium, Octavian destroyed the forces of Antony, and Philippi again found themselves on the losing side of the battle for the rule of Rome. So more land was taken from them, and more generals, retired veterans and war heroes were given their land. Philippi was a city that rose from obscurity to the utmost importance and then fell back down to being a city that was ruled by war veterans of their oppressor, Rome. Now Philippi is a roman colony, and only those that are citizens of Rome receive tax breaks and perks from the Roman Empire, while the locals of Philippi are feeling the pressure of the burden of being an oppressed people of the Roman Empire. Citizenship was a very big deal to the people of Philippi, and this will come up a couple of times throughout the letter from the Apostle Paul.

 Paul and Philippi

 We first run into Philippi in Acts 16, at the beginning of Paul’s second missionary journey. As the book of Acts records, Paul was trying to preach the Gospel in the province of Asia and even up north into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to (Acts 16.7). So they went to the seaport of Troas, and in a dream, Paul saw a Macedonian man asking him to “come over to Macedonia and help us” (Acts 16.9). Then Paul sailed for Macedonia and entered into the city of Philippi for the base of his evangelical work in Macedonia.

 Philippi was a strategic city located along the Ignatian way, which was a critical artery of commerce linking the city of Rome with its provinces in the east. The road passed directly through the center of the town of Philippi. Luke even says in the book of Acts that it was one of the “leading cities” of that district of Macedonia (Acts 16.10). It was a Roman colony with a very small demographic of Jews. Usually Paul always traveled to the synagogue of every city he came to (Acts 13.5, 14; 14.1; 17.1, 10, 17; 18.4, 19). Yet at Philippi, they did not go to the synagogue, but down to the river, with the hopes of finding a place of prayer (Acts 16.13). They met a woman named Lydia who was described as a “worshiper of God” (Acts 16.14). The reason that Paul did not go to the synagogue as he did in all the other cities he entered is probably because there was not one there. To have a synagogue required that there be ten Jewish men in the city. This is probably why the Jews, the worshipers of God, who did live in Philippi met down at the river. Another reason to believe that there was not a synagogue was because Philippi was at this point a Roman colony with the majority of its inhabitants being descendants of generals and soldiers of the Roman army. After Paul met this woman, Lydia, she become a believer, along with her whole household, and he baptized her, and they stayed at her house. As Paul was living in Philippi, a slave girl, who was demon possessed, kept following him around saying, “These men are servants of the most high God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” (Acts 16.17). After this was occurring for a number of days, Paul got tired of this and say to the spirit possessing her, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her” (Acts 16.18). And the spirit left. The problem with this was that the slave girl’s owner was using her as a fortune teller, making a lot of money by having her tell other people their fortune. Since Paul cast out the demon from her, she could no longer earn her master money by fortune-telling, so he got upset, dragged Paul and Silas to the marketplace where they were stripped, beaten with rods, flogged and thrown into the inner jail, fastening their feet in stocks (Acts 16.19-24).

In the middle of night Paul and Silas were singing hymns to God, and suddenly a violent earthquake shook the foundations of the prison, and all the doors of the prisoners flew open. The guard woke up and saw that all the doors were open, so he thought all his prisoners he was supposed to be guarding had escaped. He drew his sword to kill himself, because he knew that that was the punishment for letting a prisoner escape, then Paul stopped him. The man then became a Christian, and Paul baptized him and his entire family. The magistrate then ordered for the jailer to release the men, then Paul brought up the fact that they had beaten him and flogged him publicly without a trial and he was a Roman citizen. This was a HUGE offense, and the magistrate knew it. Paul asked them to escort him and Silas out of the city, almost as a way to shame them for what they had done (Acts 16.29-40). Paul’s time in Philippi was eventful to say the least. But there developed between him and this church a relationship that probably made Philippi to become his favorite church. This church was the biggest supporter of Paul’s missionary efforts. We see this in Philippians 4.15, Paul says, “Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you.” He goes on in verse 16 to describe how, when he was in Thessalonica, they gave him aid again and again when he was in need. When Paul was in Corinth, this church joined the other Macedonian churches in supporting his mission to Corinth (2 Cor. 11.8-9), and they gave so generously that he used them as an example of generosity to the church in Corinth (2 Cor. 8.1-7).

But what made Paul probably so endeared towards this church in Philippi was the fact that all this generosity came out of poverty, not abundance (2 Cor. 8.1-2). Letter to Philippi Philippi was a leading city in Macedonia that contained a number of retired soldiers and war heroes of the Roman army, and it contained a church that was very close to the heart of Paul. So why is Paul writing this letter to the church in Philippi? What is the occasion and purpose of the writing of this letter? When he wrote this letter, we can see from what he says in the letter that he was in prison, most likely in Rome, awaiting a trial whose outcome could result in his execution (Philippians 1.7, 12-14, 17, 20, 30; 2.17). And he is writing this letter from prison for three reasons. The first reason was to deflect theological error (Phil. 3.1-21). This theological error was not necessarily occurring in Philippi, but in the other churches that Paul had planted.

There were two specific teachings that Paul was fighting against: 1. the circumcision group, who said you had to be circumcised to be a Christians, and 2. a pre-gnostic belief, teaching that Jesus was not really human.

 The second reason he wrote this letter was to thank the Philippians for their partnership in the gospel and to commend their messenger Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus’ mission was twofold, 1. to carry monetary gifts to Paul (Phil. 2.25; 4.14-18) and 2. to help the apostle in his imprisonment (2.30). But because of an illness, Epaphroditus was going to have to go back to Philippi early, and so Paul wanted to thank the church for their partnership, but also to commend to them Epaphroditus, that he did what he was supposed to do. The last and final reason that Paul wrote this letter to the church in Philippi was to unify the church. There was a division in the church between two ladies named Euodia and Syntyche (Phil. 4.2). This division had caused a lot of arguing and complaining that had tarnished the witness of the church to the community (Phil. 2.14-16), and Paul knew that if they were not unified, they would have a very difficult time withstanding the trials of persecution that they continued to experience (Phil. 1.27). With all this in mind, Paul sets out to write a letter to a church that is divided, is impoverished in a city that is ruled by the military victors of the biggest empire in the world, and he is trying to make sure that they make it through these tough times. His message is mixed with instruction, a lot of encouragement, and a lot of examples of how to live a unified life that will withstand the trials of today.

 Philippians 1.1-11

 The purpose of this section of Philippians 1, is to introduce the main themes that are going to occur in the rest of the book. Paul introduces these main themes of humility, joyfulness, partnership and spiritual growth with three paragraphs adapted from the common form of ancient letters of his day. The form of ancient letters was the name of the sender, the name of the recipient, a brief salutation and a thanks to the gods and continual prayers for the well being of the recipient. Paul uses this same structure but makes slight adaptations to get across his main themes for the rest of his letter. The three paragraphs are a greeting (1.1-2), a prayer of thanks (1.3-8), and a prayer of intercession (1.9-11). Philippians 1.1-2-

The Greeting

 This first paragraph, the initial greeting of the letter, contains the name of the sender, the name of the recipient and a brief salutation. But as I have stated above, what is interesting is not how similar this greeting is to the ancient letters of his time, this was expected. What is interesting is the slight changes that Paul makes and how these changes are foreshadowing what the letter is going to address in more detail ahead. He makes three specific changes to the senders, the recipients and the salutation that will reveal to us some of the main themes of the rest of the book.

 Change in the Senders

 In Philippians 1.1, Paul begins his letter by saying, “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus...” Instead of just naming the names of the people who were sending the letter, “Paul and Timothy”, Paul expands this part of the greeting to describe their identity, “servants of Christ Jesus.” Paul is making a slight change in order to emphasize the humility that is needed in the church to end the divisions that were occurring. This is one of the reasons that Paul was writing this letter, to unify the church, and he begins by saying, “Paul and Timothy, slaves...” There are two different words in the Greek for slave and servant. One refers to a servant minister, and other refers to someone who is bought. This word is the latter. It is a slave, someone’s property. In this Greco-Roman context, Paul’s readers would have understood this word to have undertones of humility and submission. Paul is hinting from the very start that this kind of humility is needed to overcome the divisions that were occurring in the church. Not only were they slaves, but they were slaves to “Christ Jesus”. The word “Christ” is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah”, meaning the “anointed one”. Three kinds of people were anointed in the Old Testament, Priests, Prophets and Kings. So they were slaves to some kind of anointed one, some authoritative figure, and then he gives the name Jesus, which literally means in the Hebrew, YHWH saves. This is to whom Paul and Timothy were slaves. So in the very first phrase, Paul makes a slight change to the standard form of the ancient letter, emphasizing the humility and submission to the anointed savior of all, Jesus.

 Change in Recipients

 The second slight variation that Paul makes to the greeting of this book is an expansion of the description of the recipients. Paul’s description of the recipients is as follows: “To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi together with the overseers and deacons.” He does this to make two points that he believes will help this church become more unified. First, he is trying to address everybody on the same level, showing that we are all slaves as Paul and Timothy are. This is why he refers to everyone as “To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi...” This word “saints” means those that have been set apart by God from everyone else with the ethic responsibility of the new covenant. This is true of all Christians, we are all saints and slaves of Christ Jesus. Yet he does not want to start a mutiny to where the people of the church in Philippi overthrow their spiritual leadership of the church in Philippi. So the second point Paul is trying to make is 1. that we are all saints of Jesus, slaves in submission to him and 2. that there are still leaders among you that are guiding you shepherding you through life. This is why he tags on, “together with the overseers and deacons.” These two words are pretty much interchangeable. The Greek word for “overseers”, is used interchangeably with two other words in the New Testament. One of these words is translated as “elders”, and the other is the word for “pastor”, which comes from the same family of the word for shepherd. These three words are used interchangeably, and this overseer guy is an elder, shepherd, overseer kind of person. The second word that Paul uses to describe the leaders of the church in Philippi is “deacons”. Above, I mentioned that there are two greek words for servant, one refers to a servant minister, and the other to someone who is bought. This word here is the former. Paul refers to himself and Timothy as slaves of Christ Jesus, and here he refers to the leadership of the church in Philippi as servants, ministers, table-waiters. The purpose for all of this is to show the unity of the body of Christ. First, Paul was presenting the humility and submission that are required to submit to the authority of Jesus, and now he is emphasizing that the purpose of this humility and submission is to maintain the unity of the church. This one of the reasons that Paul is writing this letter, and this is a theme that will appear throughout the rest of this book. There is one more change that Paul makes to this form of greeting that needs to be examined.

 Change in Salutation

 The third change, expansion, that Paul makes on the ancient form of greetings in letters was the expansion of the salutation. Normally the salutation would read very simply, “Greetings”, but here Paul has expanded it to say, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He expands the greeting so that it just does not serve as a salutation to a very powerful greeting, but that it carries theological ramifications. He uses two terms that are loaded with theological meaning. The first is “grace”. This word means “gift”, and usually is defined by theologians as “unmerited favor”. But sometimes grace is earned. We see this in the story of Noah, which says that “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6.8). But this is not true in our case, for as Paul says elsewhere, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous, not even one...” (Rom. 3.23ff). Grace is unmerited favor, a gift that is given to us, and we did not do anything to deserve. What is interesting is that this word, grace, is very close in the Greek to the word that the Gentiles would use to greet each other. Paul makes a slight change to “grace” instead of “greetings” to have in this salutation the source of our salvation. Summing up this first word there are three theological points that need to be remembered: 1. it means “unmerited favor”; 2. It is the source of our salvation; 3. It is from the same word group that the gentiles would use to greet each other. The second word that Paul uses in this salutation is the word “Peace”. There is a lot of contemporary scholarship today that is referred to as Empire Studies. The whole purpose of this is to see how the Roman Empire and its propaganda and myth interact with the writings of the New Testament. It was common knowledge to all of the Romans and their subjects that they promised “peace”, that they were the bringers of “peace”. Their slogan was literally, “peace and security”. Now whether or not Paul was using this term as an anti-imperialist statement is very difficult to determine. There might be some imperial implications to this term, especially because Philippi was so dominated by Rome and its soldiers and veterans. But what we do know is that this word is used in every letter of Paul’s to refer to the result of our salvation. We are no longer at odds with God, but that relationship has been made whole, we are at peace with him. This word in the LXX is used to translate the Hebrew word, shalom, which was the way the Jews would greet each other as well.

So, summing up the second word, there are four theological points that need to be remembered: 1. This might contain some imperial undertones; 2. The meaning of the word is having a whole relationship with someone; 3. It is the result of our salvation; and 4. it is the word that translated the Hebrew greeting, shalom. And what is interesting is that Paul seems to be the person that is always trying, in all of his writings, to bring Jews and Gentiles both together under the umbrella of Christian.

 Summary

 Philippi was a city with a very rich history. It sprang from obscurity, was thrust to the forefront of the political scene, and three bad alignments later, found itself subjected to the war heroes and veterans of the Roman Empire. Paul entered Philippi because of a Revelation, was beaten thrown in prison and then escorted out with honor. This poor little church supported him for the rest of his life monetarily as well as by sending their own to keep him company and help take care of him while he was in prison. So Paul wrote this letter to deflect theological error (Phil. 3.1-21), to to thank the Philippians for their partnership in the gospel and to commend their messenger Epaphroditus (Phil. 2.25, 30; 4.14-18), and to unify the church (Phil. 4.2). By changing the standard form of ancient greetings, Paul emphasized three main themes of the rest of the book of Philippians, being: 1. the essence of the gospel that they are partnering with him; 2. the unity of the saints to withstand the tough times ahead; and 3. the unselfish model that will preserve the unity of the body of Christ.