Week 49 Philippians 1
Paul begins his letter talking about the idea of progress – about advancing in my life as I follow the Lord. He says: he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. The good work that the Lord started in me will eventually come to completion at the day of Christ (by which I think Paul means the end of my life). It began with a good beginning. It’ll end up as a completed project.
When Jesus told Nicodemus he had to be born again Nicodemus was fixated on the starting point – the re-birth. He wasn’t so concerned with the (important & obvious) follow-up question: “What do I do once I’m born-again?”) Paul filled-in that gap here. In ~20 words he sketched-out the life-of-faith as a continuum: Beginning – Middle – Ending.
I start at the Beginning. I’m in the front door but really don’t know much about anything. Just groping my way along. My basically infantile existence needing a lot of help & support & back-up.
Over time I eventually move into stage two – the (important) Middle. A period of (hopefully) development & gradual advance. There’s a lot of watching-listening-observing-imitating-experimenting-questioning. There’ll be a lot of developmental trial-and-error. Progress-and-Regress. Assessment-and-Reassessment. Stops-and-Starts. Ups-and-Downs. Certainties-and-Doubts. Depending on my age when my Beginning began the Middle Phase will likely turn out to be the longest stage of my life.
And finally there’s the Ending. I’m done.
Note: quote from Philippians 1:6 (NIV). Nicodemus’ story is in John 3.