Week 47 Philippians
There was conflict in the church in Philippi and so Paul offered some conflict-reduction advice. Three verses – seven quick-hitters – on unity-in-the-community. The one that slowed me down a bit was: be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself.
Humble is easier to read and say than be.
Anyway Paul went on to use an example of someone being humble. The Lord!
I thought back to the four gospels and remembered stories about the Lord teaching, advising, helping, healing. But now Paul is telling me a kind of preface, a back story:
Though he was God, he did not…cling to his rights as God
He made himself nothing
He took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form
And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying.
The humbling of the Lord. The Great Reduction.
So this is a bit of a Supplement to the Gospels, something to add to the gospel-story mix. In all his teaching, advising, helping, healing, in all his fame and notoriety the Lord was operating as a slave. A giant step-down from majesty.
And getting back to his original point Paul wonders why I should be surprised at having to be humble-as-a-slave.
By comparison to the Lord it’s only a Little Reduction for me. Still, it’s a very hard thing to do.
Note: quotes from Philippians 2:3, 6-8 (NLT)