Month: December 2024

Week 49  Philippians 1

Paul caught my attention near the end of the chapter: live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of Christ… Don’t be intimidated by your enemies. This will be a sign to them that…you are going to be saved… For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.
I noticed two things: a) don’t be intimidated by your enemies and b) (a pretty sobering note) you get to suffer for the Lord.
I think about the connection of intimidation & suffering. I know that Paul’s style is to sometimes just throw ideas together as they come into his mind (although I don’t know for sure if his ideas are genuinely random or if I just can’t dope out the connections).
Anyway my feeling here is that the paragraph is cohesive – that intimidation & suffering are connected. Suffering-for-the-Lord is part of the mix. And oppositional intimidation is also what happens (and is one source of my suffering).
That said my preference would be to reorganize the passage so the suffering gets top billing. I prefer: you have been given the privilege of trusting in Christ and also the privilege of suffering for him. So don’t be intimidated in any way by your enemies. Instead live as a citizen of heaven. Conduct yourself in a manner worthy of Christ.
It’s a minor adjustment & a small difference. But it’s important to me.

Note: quote from Philippians 1:27-29 (NLT)

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.