Philippians Part Two

If you were here last week you will know that we are going to move through Paul's letter to the church at Philippi over the next few weeks if not the rest of the summer. Philippi is located in Northern modern day Greece; the church began in about 50 AD when Paul met some Jewish women worshiping Yahweh by the river of this city. The women became persuaded that the gospel story, the meaning of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, was the fulfillment of the promises Yahweh made, beginning with Abraham and continuing through the prophets, to bring the promised restoration of Israel and through her the redemption of the world. Thus, the church at Philippi was born.

I have been eager to move through this book with you as it was written to a church that was relatively young in age, in a city, along a trade route, full of hustle and bustle. There will be many times I hope where the words of encouragement, exhortation and sometimes admonishment will leap off the page and into our hearts helping us to understand how we are to live faithfully as citizens of the kingdom of God and citizens of Chicago.

This Sunday we picked up on the theme from last week - of the partnership that the Philippians had with Paul. We also continued to approach the letter by asking it this question: what do you have to say to us about what it looks like to be a healthy church community? We noted that Paul chose to talk of his relationship to the church by emphasizing four separate times in the first few verses that when he thinks of them he thinks of "all of them - all of you".

* He says he is praying for all of them
* He says that the way he thinks about them (with affection and hope) is regarding all of them
* Because all of them share, or are partnered with him, in his ministry
* And he longs for all of them with compassion


We asked why he might be going out of his way to make specific that he was talking to and about all of them. One clue that sheds some light is the recognition that this letter is the form of a friendship letter, typical of the letters written between friends in the Greco-Roman world. Gordon Fee remarks: "'hortatory letter of friendship' is only part of the story.... for in Paul's hands everything turns into gospel, including both the formal and material aspects of this letter. Most significant, friendship in particular is radically transformed from a two-way to a three-way bond between him, the Philippians, and Christ... Paul's and their friendship is predicated on their mutual participation in the gospel. This involves them in most of the conventions of Greco-Roman friendship, including especially social reciprocity; but it does so in light of Christ and the gospel (Fee)"

In other words, Paul's friendship with the Philippians and the Philippians' friendship with him is one that neither they nor he called into existence; their relationship is because of Christ. So, his love is for all of them because it is Jesus who has brought all of them together.

In our culture, friendships have become more and more about common interests which is not all bad. As human beings we are gifted by our creator with unique interests. It is good that I have some friends who like to watch football; otherwise I would be doomed to watch alone. But if affinity based friendships take up almost the whole of our relationship-space are we not simply reflecting the narcissism of our culture in ourselves and within the basis of our friendships? We must ask God for the grace to expand our relationship-space to include those relationships with "all" in the life of Christ's church so that the mysterious work of the gospel might work more effectively in us and our world.

1. In the different seasons of your life have you noticed any negative impact to you when you have not been able or willing to embrace "all" of the Christian community? If not, does that mean that you don't need to be concerned about heeding Paul's example discussed above? Clearly, we could just answer this by saying we ought to do it because God's word says to and this is a good response to the admonition from the letter to the Hebrews to not forsake the assembling together, etc. But God does not require certain things of us without showing us why. So, let's explore the rationale by asking why, even if you imagine that you will be OK without being involved meaningfully with "all" of the Christian community, is this not OK?
2. Does this teaching mean that you have to be really good friends with everyone in the church? What do you think it means for you to be involved meaningfully with the "all" of the church that Paul has in mind?