03.02. LESSON 2

LESSON 2 The salutation in part reads: “To all the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.” Members of the church at Philippi were all saints and Christians (the words are synonymous), for all were called out of the world and set apart, or sanctified, unto Christ. When some of these saints met certain qualifications and manifested special aptitude for spiritual leadership, the church selected and appointed them bishops, or overseers. Others, upon becoming qualified to “serve tables,” were ap­pointed deacons.

Here is the simple organization and government of the local New Testament church. A church may be either too highly or too loosely organized for efficiency. In the former case, power finally centers in one man, which inevitably corrupts, while in the latter case, the potential gifts and powers of members remain undeveloped. Scriptural church polity, properly balancing these two extremes, demonstrates its divine wisdom by encouraging every member of the congregation, up to his measure, to worship, work, and grow.

Retrospective-Prospective Introduction

(Php 1:3-11) This opening passage brims with thanks, gratitude, pray­er, and joy. Though its author is fast in prison some 700 miles away, uncertain of his earthly future, its recipients must have felt his eager, buoyant, dynamic spirit among them again. As a saint among saints (Paul does not call himself “apostle” as he usually does in his letters), he tells them that he holds them fondly in his heart as joint-heirs of grace and as fellow-workers in his “bonds and in the confirmation of the gospel from the first day until now.” The Philippians, having been taught that, when truth is learned, duty begins, became missionaries immediately and “sent once and again” to Paul’s need in Thessalonica, where he established the second Macedonian church. Later, Paul used the exceptionally liberal giving of these churches as an inducement to move the Corinthians to give. The sub­stantial Macedonians, descendants of the Macedon of Philip and Alexander the Great, and of the Romans, by their be­ing so ready to help him preach the gospel in the spirit of the gospel, appealed especially to Paul’s great evange­listic soul. In “He that began a good work in you will perfect it (God deserts no task till it is finished) until the day of Jesus Christ,” Paul uses the past as a springboard of pray­er for the future. After generously giving thanks for the strong things in the church, he prays for their mutual love, the lack of which is probably their greatest weakness. “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment; so that you may ap­prove the things that are excellent; that ye may be sin­cere and void of offense unto the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness.”

Thus Paul waters his epistle with a prayer of six items. He prays that they may be a loving, knowing, discerning, sincere, inoffensive, fruitful people. Love is the bud that opens out into the others. As one without sight cannot dis­cern color, so one without love cannot be sensitive to the wishes and the rights of his brethren, and “approve the things that are excellent.” Love, illuminating reason to see truly and quickly what hurts or offends the one loved, can heal the disunion in Philippi. With loveless hearts, Christians cannot think lovely thoughts and do lovely deeds. Only by sincere love abounding “yet more and more in all knowledge and discernment,” not by sheer effort of in­tellect and strength of will, are the deep urges of the nat­ural man to be controlled. From this heavenly prayer, may we not all learn how to pray for and live with our friends? Spiritual dwarfs do not pray that others may become spir­itual giants. The Supernatural in the Natural As Paul in his Roman prison reviews his strange, dra­matic life since his arrest in Jerusalem—the murderous Jews, the “law’s delays” before the Romans, his appeal to Caesar, the perilous shipwreck and deadly viper on Malta; remembers his disappointments, sufferings, and the nu­merous times it looked as if his career had received a fatal blow—to encourage them he writes: “Now I would have you know, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the progress of the gos­pel; so that my bonds became manifest in Christ through­out the whole praetorian guard, and to all the rest; and that most of the brethren, being confident through my bonds, are more abundantly bold to speak the word with­out fear.”

Paul thinks how the soldiers whom he met in prison at Caesarea have helped prepare for his fruitful work in Nero’s bodyguard and “Caesar’s household”; thinks how his bonds have emboldened others, even some with wrong motives, to be more active in the preaching denied him, thus building up the church in general; thinks how divine purpose threads through the tangled affairs of earth, and how God’s providences, like some languages, can be read only backward, and then not in fragments for they all “work together for good.” Thus thinking, he realizes that only God knows when a man in chains will reach farther than if left at liberty, and rejoices that God has trusted him with persecution and sorrow, for what happens to him, if Christ be proclaimed, matters not. He remembers that when the ark of God was captured by the Philistines, Da­gon, their god, fell (1 Samuel 5:1-5). The many cases in the Bible of God’s working in and through men, good and bad—the supernatural in the nat­ural—have nothing to show more illuminating and edify­ing than the lives of Joseph and Paul. Recall what Joseph suffered through his unnatural brothers, and hear him tell them many years later in Egypt: “As for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day” (Genesis 50:20). Unto this day, God’s government has not changed. But only men today who have the faith of Joseph and Paul can have their God. They did not understand it all, even as we do not. But faith fulfilled in experience was sufficient for them, and it must be for us. No man who believes in God, or even observes nature, can ever doubt anything just because its roots reach down into mystery. This “study” closes with invincible Paul of the evange­listic mind, in spite of everything, triumphantly shout­ing: “This shall turn out to my salvation, through your supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ . . . in nothing shall I be put to shame.”

QUESTIONS 1.As used by Paul, what does the word, “saint,” mean?

2.    Describe Scriptural church government.

3.    How old should a church be before it undertakes evangelistic work?

4.    Give the substance of Paul’s prayer for the Philippians.

5.    Why is brotherly love of such vital importance in Christian living?

6.    As used in this article, what is the meaning of the phrase, “the supernatural in the natural”?

7.    Show that Paul’s view of life enabled him to rejoice in all of his extreme persecutions and sufferings.

8.    Show that Joseph (Genesis 37:1-36, Genesis 38:1-30, Genesis 39:1-23, Genesis 40:1-23, Genesis 41:1-57, Genesis 42:1-38, Genesis 43:1-34, Genesis 44:1-34, Genesis 45:1-28, Genesis 46:1-34, Genesis 47:1-31, Genesis 48:1-22, Genesis 49:1-33, Genesis 50:1-26) possessed this same view of God’s sovereign government of the world.

9.    In this field of thought, what does the sentence, “God writes straight with crooked lines,” mean to you?