Welcome to the second post
in our new study of Philippians. Today
we are going to take a closer look at the words of greeting which the Apostle
Paul used to begin this letter. As often
happens, there is a lot more than first meets the eye in these 2 short verses,
so let’s dive right in.
“1Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to
all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers
and deacons: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ.” [Philippians 1:1, 2]
One analysis of this passage looks
at these two verses as demonstrating “Five Characteristics of a Healthy
Church”. The very first thing we notice is that Paul gives equal billing to Timothy
at the very beginning of the letter.
This is significant because it showed the faithful in Philippi that it
was important to train up the younger members of the faith and include them in
ministry and faithful service. This was
an intentional statement of the young and the old working together. Paul brought a deep wealth of knowledge and
experience while Timothy brought his youthful energy and hope filled
enthusiasm. Paul and Timothy were very
close and Paul was clearly the “teacher” and Timothy his devoted “student”. Once again Paul was demonstrating how younger
leaders are raised up within the church.
Second, Paul
refers to both himself and Timothy as “servants
of Christ Jesus”. The Greek word
used here for servant is duolos which
actually means bond-slave. A servant
would be one who had the freedom of choice whereas a slave was one who was
“bought and paid for”. That means that
their owner or master had complete ownership and the slave’s sole purpose was
to do the will of his master. That is
exactly how Paul viewed his life in relationship to God. This was not a negative but a positive
outlook for Paul. He joined a long list
of people who also described themselves as “slaves to God”. Here’s a list of several: Moses, Joshua,
David, James and Jude. As the old song
says, they were totally “devoted to you [God]”.
The third characteristic of a healthy church described in Paul’s
greeting is that a healthy church is full of “holy people” or “saints”. A saint is one who has been made holy or is
sanctified. Every person who has
accepted Jesus Christ for who he is, God’s son who came to pay the ransom for
our sins through his atoning death on the cross, is washed clean by the blood
of the Lamb and is a “saint” or “holy one”.
(see Hebrews 10:10) After this
initial cleansing or sanctification we continue on that journey throughout our
time here on earth. Now Paul was writing
this letter, as we said in the previous post, to the church at Philippi as he
states in verse 1. The “holy people” or “saints”
were the true members of this body of believers in the city of Philippi.
I think we’ll take a few minutes to
better acquaint you with Philippi. This
city was a gateway to the rest of Europe. It was located on the Egnatian Way which was
one of the great Roman roads. This was a
location which sat high up on the mountain range which separated Asia and
Europe and was in control of this major trade route. People coming to faith in Jesus Christ here
would spread the gospel in all directions as they traveled throughout their
part of the world. Philippi was a Roman
colony and was known as a “Little Rome” in that it maintained all the trappings
of Rome such as language, customs and culture.
They fought off any influence from other cultures and were fanatical in
their loyalty to all of the Roman ways.
You may wonder how Paul and Timothy ended up in such a place. You can read more about it in the book of
Acts, chapter 16, verses 1-40. At the
time Paul was trying to go elsewhere but the Lord moved him in the exact
direction God wanted and before he knew it, Paul was on a boat heading for the
port of Neapolis in Europe! This is one
of those times when God was closing doors on where Paul wanted to go so He
could move Paul in the direction God wanted.
Sound familiar to any of you? I
think we’ve all been there. I know I
have. And you thought it had never
happened to anyone else, right? Even
though we can’t often see it, God knows exactly what He’s doing. Now there’s a surprise! We’ll speak in more detail about Paul’s
experiences in Philippi later on in this study.
That brings us to the fourth characteristic of a healthy
church described in this scripture passage.
Paul speaks of “overseers and
deacons”. A healthy church is one which is organized/orderly
and has elders/deacons who lead by example.
In other words, they are ready, willing and able to get their hands
dirty. So many times I have seen
churches where elders, deacons or other leaders sit in seats of power much like
politicians. They almost “lord it over”
those under their care and demand respect and blind obedience simply because
they hold these positions. Nothing could
be further from Jesus’ description of good leaders. We will deal with this in much more detail
when we are working on Chapter 2 but for now I can say that Jesus demonstrated
that these people are to be servants as much or more than leaders. You might like reading these passages which
deal with qualifications/job descriptions for church leaders: 1 Timothy 3:1-13;
Ephesians 4:11-13; 1 Peter 5:1-3; and Titus 1:6-9.
The fifth characteristic of a healthy church is one which experiences “grace and peace”. It’s been said that grace means God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Another way I’ve
heard it said is that “Grace is when we get what we don’t deserve.” Here are a couple more definitions for grace:
(1) undeserved blessings/forgiveness from God’s unconditional love, (2) a state
of holiness or sanctification made possible by God’s forgiveness of our sinful
acts. Webster's New World College Dictionary gives a pretty
good definition of grace: "The unmerited love and favor of God toward
human beings; divine influence acting in a person to make the person pure,
morally strong; the condition of a person brought to God's favor through this
influence; a special virtue, gift, or help given to a person by God." I think you get the picture. Grace is when God forgives us and gives us
blessings that we could never be worthy of.
Think about that wonderful hymn Amazing Grace. Just singing through those verses gives a
pretty great picture of what the grace of God is all about.
As we become more like Jesus we find
that there is more “grace and peace” in our lives. That goes for us as individuals as well as
churches.
“And God is able to
make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all
sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:” (2 Corinthians 9:8)
You see, the grace we receive isn’t
just for our own benefit but we are to show that same grace to others. There’s a great parable which Jesus told in Matthew
18:21-35 which demonstrates how this works.
Why not take a few minutes and read that great story.
Well, the greeting is now behind us
and we are poised to step into the meat of Paul’s letter (epistle) to the
church at Philippi. You may have noticed
that these posts are a bit shorter that the previous studies and that is
intentional. Some folks are still trying
to digest and complete the Psalm study and a few are doing the same with our
study of James. I am trying to take the
book of Philippians in smaller “bites” to make it easier for all to feel that
they aren’t falling behind. The beauty
of these blogs is that you can go at your own pace. There’s no race going on here and so you can
read, re-read or whatever you want to work through these studies. I’m just so glad you decided to come
along. I hope that this study will help you
understand Philippians even better and bring new applications in your own life for
what God reveals to you. The next post
will deal with verses 3 through 8 and if things go well I may even work on
through verse 11. We’ll just have to see
how it goes. Remember, this is not a
contest. You can work through these
posts at your leisure and on your own time table. Don’t forget that we now have a Facebook
Group Page where you can post thoughts, comments, and even pictures or memes
that others might enjoys. If you aren’t
a member of the group yet you can join it at any time by following the
instructions on the page. So God bless
each of you until next time. Oh yes, you
will find the group page at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/459484807586302/
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