Philippians 1
McGeeCHAPTER 1THEME: Philosophy of Christian livingIntroduction; Paul’s tender feeling for the Philippians; bonds and afflictions further the gospel; in life or deathChristPaul’s letter to the Philippians is practical. It gets right down where we live. As we study this epistle, we won’t be seated in the heavenlies as we were in his letter to the Ephesians, but we will be right down where the rubber meets the road. It is a wonderful little epistle, and we will be enriched by the sweetness of it.
Philippians 1:1
INTRODUCTION"Paul and Timotheus"Paul associates Timothy with himself. Paul brings this young preacher and puts him right beside himself, encouraging him. Paul loved this young man Timothy. He was Paul’s son in the Lord, that is, he had won him to Christ; and Paul was very interested in him. Paul is constantly identifying certain young preachers with himself. Now that I am getting old, I receive letters from former students and from many folk who in my ministry over the years have come to a knowledge of Christ. I feel that all of these are my children. I have a lot of children scattered around over this world, and I love them in the Lord. I understand how Paul felt about Timothy. Paul’s name has come down through the centuries, and everywhere you hear about Paul, you will hear about TimothyPaul was responsible for that. How wonderful! “The servants of Jesus Christ.” Paul identifies himself and Timothy as the servants of Jesus Christ. The word servants actually means “bondslaves.” This is in contrast to his epistle to the Galatians where he was defending his apostleship. He began with, “Paul, an apostle.” He did the same thing to the Corinthians. He had to declare and defend his apostleship and wanted them to know he was an apostle not of men, neither by man. He didn’t need to defend himself with these Philippians. They loved him, and they accepted his apostleship. They had all been led to the Lord by him. So Paul takes a humble place, his rightful position: “Paul and Timotheus, we both are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.” “To all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi.” Paul is not writing to one little clique in the Philippian church; he is writing to all the saints, and every believer is a saint. The human family is divided into two groups: the saints and the ain’ts. Saints are believers in Christ. They are saints, not because of their conduct, but because of their position in Christ. Saint means “holy,” set apart for God. Anything that is holy is separated for the use of God.
Even the old pots and pans in the tabernacle were called “holy vessels,” and they were probably beaten and battered after forty years in the wilderness. They may not have looked holy, but they were. Why? Because they had been set aside for the use of God. Now that should be the position of every child of God. We are set aside for the use of God.
Now, friend, if you ain’t a saint, then you are an ain’t. The saints are “in Christ Jesus.” What does it mean to be saved? It means to be in Christ Jesus. When you put your trust in the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of God comes to dwell in you. The Holy Spirit baptizes you into the body of Christ. You are put in Christ by the Spirit of God. Now these saints were in Christ, but they were at Philippi. You see, it doesn’t make any difference where you are atthat may not be grammatically correct, but it is a true statement. You may be at Los Angeles or Duluth or Moscow or Philippi. It won’t make any difference where you are at; the important matter is being in Christ Jesus. I beieve the little phrase in Christ comprises the most important words that we have in the New Testament. What does it mean to be saved? I asked a theology professor that question, and he gave me quite a lecture on the subject. I was a little dizzy when he finished. He explained words like propitiation and reconciliation and redemption. These are all marvelous words, and they are all Bible words, but not one of them covers the entire spectrum of salvation. The Spirit of God chose just one little word, the preposition in, to explain what salvation is. It is to be in Christ. How do you get in Christ? You get in Christ when you accept Him as your Savior. “With the bishops and deacons.” Notice he is addressing a local church with officers. “Bishop” means overseer or shepherd. The word bishop actually refers to the office, while the word elder refers to the individual who is in that office, and they should be men who are mature spiritually. “Deacons” refers to spiritual men who are performing a secular service (see Acts 6).
Philippians 1:2
“Grace be unto you, and peace.” You will find this form of address in all of Paul’s epistles, and grace and peace will always be in that sequence. Grace and peace were both commonplace words of Paul’s day. Grace was the word of greeting in the Greek world. In the Greek language it is charis. If you had walked down the street in that day, you would have heard folk greeting each other with, “Charis.” In fact, this greeting is still used in modern Greece. It means grace. They say it as we say, “Have a good day.” And God is saying to you, “Have a good eternity.” When folk say to me, “Have a good day,” they don’t contribute anything to make it a good day other than just saying that. But God has made the arrangement whereby you can have a good eternity, and it is by the grace of God. “Peace” always follows grace; it never precedes it. While charis comes out of the Greek world, “peace” (shalom) comes out of the religious world; it is the Hebrew form of greeting. Actually, the name Jerusalem means “the city of peace.” Jeru-shalomcity of peace. It has never been that; it has been a city of war. Right now it is a thorn in the flesh of the world. No one knows what to do with it. There will never be peace in Jerusalem or in the world until the Prince of Peace comes to rule. There is, however, a peace that comes to the believer through the grace of God. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom_5:1). This is the peace that a sinner can have with a holy God because Christ died for us, paid our penalty, and now God in His grace can save us. It is not that we bring God something for our salvation. Very frankly, we have nothing to bring to Him. I have never brought anything to Himexcept sin. Christ paid the penalty for that sin so that a holy God can receive me.
And He can receive you. In a world of turmoil, a world of tension, a world of trial, a world that is filled with things that are wrong, we can know the peace of God in our hearts. This is the peace of God that He gives to those who trust Jesus Christ as their own personal Savior. We must know the grace of God before we can experience the peace of God. This grace and peace is “from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Let me ask this theological question: Isn’t Paul a trinitarian? Doesn’t he believe in the Trinity? Then why doesn’t he include the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son? The reason is that the Holy Spirit is already over there in Philippi, indwelling the believers. Certainly Paul believed in the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and he is being very accurate here.
Philippians 1:3
PAUL’S TENDER FEELING FOR THE PHILIPPIANSHe begins the body of his letter in this very lovely manner, which reveals the sweet relationship between Paul and the Philippian believers. That is the way it ought to be today among believers, especially between pastor and congregation. The literal translation would be, “All my remembrance of you causes me to thank God.” Every time anybody would mention Philippi, Paul would just thank God for the believers there. That is something really quite wonderful. Every now and then I get a letter from some organization that wants me to do something for them. That is perfectly legitimate for them to make such a request, but they begin the letter with, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.” Sometimes I’m not so sure they really feel that way about me, but they are preparing me for the request that is coming. But how wonderful it would be to have a church like the Philippian church. And how wonderful to be the kind of person about which it can be said, “All my remembrance of you causes me to thank God.” If Paul hadn’t said anything else about his relationship to this church, this would have been enough to reveal how special it was. You can check the other epistleshe didn’t say this to the other churches, certainly not about the Galatians or the Corinthians.
Philippians 1:4
“Always"not just sometimes. Always in every prayer Paul remembered the Philippian believers. The phrase “for you all” makes it very clear that Paul was speaking to all the saints that were in that church, the corporate body in the local church. When we reach the final chapter of this epistle, we will find that there was a little ripple of discord between two women in the Philippian church: Snytyche and Euodias. So Paul at the very beginning was careful to include all the saints in order that one group couldn’t say to the other, “He is writing to us and not to you.” “Making request with joy.” Bengel said that the sum of this epistle is: “I rejoice; rejoice ye.” We realize what a remarkable expression this is when we consider where Paul was when he wrote. He was over in Rome in prison! He probably was not in the Mamertine prison at this time, but he was in a place equally as disagreeable. Although the word joy appears nineteen times in this epistle, I have never felt that it should be called the “joy epistle.” If we are going to pick out the word that occurs more than any other word, we must take the name of Jesus Christ. His name appears over forty times in this epistle. He is the center of the epistle. He is the One who is the very source of joy. Therefore, the emphasis should be put upon Him rather than upon the joy. As we shall see, the philosophy of Christian living has to do with Him; the pattern has to do with Him. The price of Christian living has to do with Him, and the power has to do with Him. Actually, it is a personal relationship with Christ that brings joy to a believer’s life. We try to produce joy in the church by external means. We have a program and tell folks, “Come and you will enjoy it.” We have a banquetpeople enjoy a banquetso we have joy, we say. Actually, joy does not depend upon outward circumstances. Real joy depends upon the inward condition of the individual. It depends on the proper attitude toward life. If you are complaining and whining about your lot in life, certainly you will not be experiencing joy. You may be able to go to a church banquet and have a little fun, but that will not be joy. When you and I get to the place where we find ourselves in the center of the will of God and know we are in His will regardless of our circumstances, then there will be joy in our lives. Paul said, “Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy.” The time of prayer was not an ordeal for Paul. He didn’t say Oh, I’ve got to go through the ordeal of praying for those folk again! No. He said, “As I am here in jail, it is a lot of fun to pray for you Philippians; it brings joy to my heart.” Now, having told them he thanked God for them, he gives a reason.
Philippians 1:5
“For your fellowship in the gospel.” Now we have come to a very important word in this epistle. We do not want to pass over this word fellowship. This word is used widely in the church and outside the church. I don’t think that most people really know what the word means, and therefore they don’t use it properly. Years ago I was invited down to Huntington Beach about once a year to give a message at a Rotary Club luncheon. A Christian doctor was chairman of the program committee down there, and he would invite me to come at Christmastime or Eastertime and give them the gospelboth barrels, which is what I always tried to do. Over the speaker’s table they had a slogan: “Food, Fun, Fellowship.” Those three things belonged to the early church, and I didn’t feel that the Rotary Club should have bragged about having any one of the three. For food there would be embalmed chicken with peas as hard as bullets. For fun they had corny jokes. The fellowship consisted of patting someone on the back and saying, “Hello, Bill. How’s business?” Now that is not fellowship in the biblical sense of the word. The Greek word is koinonia, and it means that which believers can share of the things of Christ. There are three elements that must enter into it: spiritual communication, sympathetic cooperation, and sweet communion. (1) Spiritual communication is sharing the things of Christ. This would be sharing the great truths concerning Christ. (2) Sympathetic cooperation means working together for Christ. That is why, when Paul used the word fellowship, he could be talking about Bible reading or Bible study together or prayer or celebrating the Lord’s Supper or taking up an offering. Paul called all of these koinoniafellowship. The result would be (3) sweet communion. It makes us partners with Christ. This is true koinonia. Paul wrote that this church was having fellowship with him. He had communicated to them the gospel. They had shared with Paul in a sympathetic cooperation. They had sent a gift to him and had ministered to his physical needs again and again. Then when they were together, they had sweet communion. “From the first day until now"Paul had enjoyed wonderful fellowship with them from the first day, that day he had met Lydia and her group praying by the riverside.
Philippians 1:6
Because this is my life verse and therefore very meaningful to me, I hope you won’t mind if I tell you about it. I was a very poor boy when I went away to college. My dad had been killed in an accident in a cotton gin when I was fourteen years old. My mother took my sister and me to Nashville, Tennessee. I had to get a permit that allowed a boy of fourteen to go to work, and I worked for a wholesale hardware concern. I had to be up by five o’clock in the morning to pick up the mail and have it sorted and on the desks of all the officials in each department.
I should have been in school, and I wanted to go to school. Later I had the privilege of going back to school because a wonderful friend acted as a father to me. He had a son who was a drunkard. He had wanted his son to get a college education, but he didn’t; so the man helped me get a job, and I was able to go to college. Every year I thought it would be my last year. I never thought God would see me throughI had very little faith.
The last year I was in college was during the depression; 1928 and 1929 were bad years. I couldn’t get a job and had no money. On graduation day, after receiving my degree, I returned to my room in the dormitory, still in my cap and gown, and sat dejectedly on the edge of my bed. My roommate came and asked, “What in the worlddid somebody die?” I said, “Just as well to. I thought God had called me to the ministry. I’m through college, the depression has hit, and I don’t even have a job for this summer. I haven’t a dime to go to seminary next year.” While we were still talking, the phone rang. It was for me.
On the other end of the line was a dear little lady who asked me to stop by her home where she lived with her sister. They were both widows, and they looked as if they had come out of the antebellum days. They attended the church where I taught a class of intermediate boys, and I herded the boys into the church service every Sunday morning. The sisters sat in the pew behind us, and I always thought they disapproved. But in their home that day each handed me an envelope in memory of her husband. I left as soon as it was polite to go, hurried around the corner, and opened the envelopes.
The first contained a check for $250; I hurriedly opened the other envelope and found another check for $250. Do you know what $500 was like during the depression? I felt like a millionaire! That night the Sunday school had a banquet for me, a farewell banquet, and they gave me a check for $100. So now I had $600! That is the money with which I went to seminary the next year. That night at the banquet someone gave me this verse: “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” That has been my life verse ever since that night. Now let’s consider this verse for a moment. “Being confident” is causative and could be translated, “Since I am confident of this very thing"Paul knew what he was talking about. “He which hath begun …will perform.” The word for “perform” means to carry through. He will consummate what He began. “Until the day of Jesus Christ.” You and I today are not living in the Day of the Lord; we are not living in the day of the Old Testament; we are not living in the day of the Millennium; we are not living in the day of eternity; we are living in the day of Jesus Christ. That day will be consummated when He comes to take His own out of this world. And the Holy Spirit has sealed you and me until the day of redemption. Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers, “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph_4:30). And until then, you can count upon God to consummate whatever He intends for you. He is going to see it through. How wonderful! Now, my friend, let me ask you this: Is this practical for you and me? I don’t know what your circumstances are, but if you are a child of God, I am sure you can testify that God has brought you up to the present moment, hasn’t He? Can’t you look back over your life and see how He has led you and provided for you? Then why should you be concerned about tomorrow? Do you think He is going to let you down now? I confess that this was my thinking when I finished college. You see, I went through college, but I didn’t enjoy it as I should have. I never had joy because I always was afraid I couldn’t go on. I just didn’t believe God would see me through. So many times we Christians act like unbelievers. In fact, we live and act like practical atheists. The graduation was a happy experience for my classmates. I could see those rich kids being hugged by their parents. No one was there to throw their arms around me, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if there had been a whole delegation of well-wishers, because I thought I was through. I felt called to the ministry, but there was no possible way for me to go on to seminary. However, I had a wonderful heavenly Father who, through Php_1:6, put His arms around me and said, “I’ll see you through.” And I want to testify today that He is still keeping His promise. It has been a comfort to me since I have had several bouts with cancer to know that my heavenly Father said, “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” He is a good Doctor also; in fact, He is the Great Physician, and He has said, “Whatever I have in store for you, I’m going to see you through until the day of Jesus Christ.” So I am in His hands. This is a great verse of Scripture. Oh, I have held onto this during many a dark night when the storm outside was beating against my little bark. My, how wonderful to have a heavenly Father like this!
Philippians 1:7
“Even as it is meet"meet is an old Elizabethan word that means “right.” Even as it is right for me to think this of you all. “Because I have you in my heart.” Isn’t that a wonderful place to carry your Christian friends? “Partakers of my grace” brings us back to the word fellowship. It is koinonia with a preposition that intensifies it: suqkoinonous, meaning “being all wrapped up together.” You may remember that lovely Abigail used these words when she talked to David: “…but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God …” (1Sa_25:29). Paul is saying that he and the Philippians are all wrapped up together as partners in the gospel. This is what I mean when I say that there were tender feelings of the apostle Paul for this church at Philippi. He was closer to them than to any other church. It is so wonderful to have Christian friends like this who are sharing in the great enterprise of getting out the Word of God. There is that sympathetic cooperation, besides the spiritual communication, and it always produces sweet communion.
Philippians 1:8
That word bowels is offensive to some folk. One sweet little lady, who I’m sure had never used a bad word in her life, came to me and said, “Dr. McGee, don’t read it like that. That’s crude.” I answered, “That’s the way it is in the Bible, and that’s the way I think it should be readjust as it is.” Bowels really means tender feelings. This is really a marvelous statement. Paul says that he longs for all of them in the tender feelings of Jesus Christ. Actually, it is quite accurate to use the word bowels for tender feelings. I was teaching this one night at Bible study, and at that time a psychologist from the University of Southern California attended the classes. I was teaching that bowels meant tender feelings. He said, “The ancients were right. They were accurate when they talked about our feelings being in the region of the bowels.” He said, “The average person thinks that everything he does is because he has thought it over and that he is very smart.” Then he touched me on the head and said, “Very little really takes place up here.” I really felt that he knew me when he said that. He went on to explain that the brain is really a very marvelous telephone exchange. A message comes up through the sensory nervous system, up through the synaptical connections from the hand to the brain. Immediately there is a transfer made over to a motor neuron, and the message goes down over a different set of synaptical connections. For example, when you touch a hot stove, immediately the message goes up to the brain, and the brain returns the message, “Take your finger off thatyou’ll get burned.” You react instantly. You do it without thinking, but there was a connection made up in the brain. By the way, many people drive an automobile like thatwithout thinking, which is quite obvious.
Then he asked me, “How did you feel the first time you saw your wife? Where did that take place? Was it in the brain?” The psychologist points to my tummy and said, “There is where you live and move and have your being.” So Paul is expressing his most tender feelings, “I long after you.” It is not because they have given him something. His reaction is not mental but emotional. This is a wonderful expression.
Philippians 1:9
There is a lot of silly thinking about this word love. I often get letters such as this one: “You gave me the surprise of my life when you said that there are certain preachers who spread damnable heresies. Doesn’t Jesus say in His Holy Word that we are to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us?” Of course He said that, but we need to notice to whom he said it. The Lord Jesus had some very harsh things to say about the religious rulers of His day. He said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do …” (Joh_8:44). Also He said, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Mat_23:33). He called the Devil their father and a snake their mother! I don’t think any person could be more extreme. Paul prays that your “love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment [or discernment].” We are to love all believers in Christ. Some of the believers are a little difficult to love. Some of our friends are even difficult to love. We are to love the unlovely, but we are to love with knowledge and with discernment. That does not mean we just let our love slop over on every side. It is to abound with discernment. Let me give you an illustration out of my own experience. When I first went to downtown Los Angeles as a pastor, I soon found that there are certain groups that move through that downtown area and prey on church people and new preachers especially. One Sunday morning one of the personal workers came to me and said, “There’s a man here who has come forward and wants to talk to you about his salvation.” Well, I felt complimented. This man wants to talk to me; he wont’ talk to anybody else. So I went over to talk to him, and by that time practically everybody had left the church. I began to explain the plan of salvation. I never saw a fellow so interested.
He took my Bible and read the verses I indicated. Oh, he had it down to a system! Finally I asked him if he wanted to accept Christ. Tears came to his eyes and ran down his face. He said yes, he did. We got down on our knees, and he prayed.
When we stood up, I made a mistake. I asked him how he was getting along. And he told me, “I hate to tell you this, but my suitcase is down here in a certain hotel. They won’t let me have it because I owe them seven dollars.” Well, what would you do? You had just led a man to the Lord, supposedly; you’re a Christian; you’re a preacher; you ought to love the brother. Well, I gave him the seven dollars, and I felt expansive.
I told my wife about it and felt very good inside that I had been so generous. About six weeks after that I was going through the daily paper, and there was a picture of this man. I thought, How in the world did he get into the paper? And I read that he’d been arrested. He had spent the previous six months in Los Angeles living off the preachers, and his comment was, “They are the biggest saps in the world.” And I was one of them! I called up the late Dr.
Bob Schuler, who was pastoring in downtown Los Angeles at Trinity Methodist Church, and asked, “Did this fellow come down to you?” “Yes,” he said. “Did you let him have seven dollars?” He said, “No. That’s what he wanted, but I’ve been down here a long time, Vernon. After you’ve been down here awhile, you’ll find there are some you can’t love.” Paul says to let your love abound more and more, but let it abound in judgment, let it abound in being able to discern. Over the years when I would drive to my study in Los Angeles, I used to say to the Lord, “I’m going to meet new people today, and I don’t know them. Some of them I’ll be able to help. Others of them will put a knife in my back. Lord, help me to be able to distinguish between the two. Show me which I should help.” Actually this verse rescues a Christian from being naive and gullible. His love is to abound in knowledge and discernment.
Philippians 1:10
Here is another important verse that needs some explanation. When Paul says, “That ye may approve things that are excellent,” he means that you need to try the things that differ. This has to do, I believe, with the Lord’s will for your life. There are times when we must come to a decision when there are two or more routes that we could go. What one shall we take? Frankly, there are times when we don’t know. The Lord will not send an angel to tell us, nor will He turn on red or green lights to give us signals. He expects us to use a little consecrated and concentrated gumption. Therefore we need to try the things that differ. A man was telling me about his business. He had two routes open to him, and he prayed about his decision. He tried one of them, and it didn’t work. He told me that when he saw it wouldn’t work, he came back to the crossroads and tried the other route. He said, “Then I was sure of the Lord’s will. The one route didn’t work, so there was only one other way open for me. I followed that one, and it was the right one.” God says we are to try the things that differ. Actually, that is the way He leads us. “That ye may be sincere"“sincere” is an interesting word which comes from the Latin sincerus, which means without wax. When the Romans became a world power, they were a very strong and rather brutal people. They destroyed a great many of the art treasures of Greece in many places. In the cities of Asia Minor, we can still see evidence of that. I was interested in looking at several of the temples over there; the temple of Diana must have been a beautiful thing from the architectural standpoint. But many of the art troves of Greece were broken up.
When the Romans reached the point of development in their culture that they appreciated these things, they began to gather them up. Many of them were broken. When there was a crack in a statute or a vase, a dishonest dealer would fill it in with wax so that one couldn’t tell that it had been broken. Then he would sell it as a genuine, perfect piece. An unsuspecting man would buy it, take it to his villa, and display it in his garden. The next hot day he would walk out and, lo and behold, the wax would be running out of a crack in that lovely art treasure!
Finally the reputable art dealers began to put on their material the word sincerus, meaning without wax. In other words, they guaranteed it was a perfect piece. Paul is saying, “Don’t be a phony. Be real, be genuine, be sincere.” Applying this to the previous verse, don’t go around patting everyone on the back with a “Praise the Lord, Hallelujah” and telling them how much you love them if you are going to stick a knife in their backs the minute they leave your presence. That is what he is saying here. Be sincere. “Without offence” means blameless, which would be a better translation, because we cannot live the Christian life or preach the Word of God without offense to somebody. Remember that people were offended at Paul and his preaching. That is the reason believers should pray for their pastor if he is preaching the Bible. If he is really giving out the Word of God, there will be offense. He needs your support, your defense of him, your prayers for him. I officiated at a funeral service for a movie star several years ago. I preached the Word of God, and the crowd attending the service didn’t appreciate what I said. They were antagonistic. I even got some telephone calls from some of the people. One of the television newscasters gave the report of the funeral and said, “Hollywood heard something today that they have never heard before"I understand he was a Christian. But my message was an offense to most of that crowd. So you see, the Christian life and the preaching of the Word of God will not be without offense to someone, but Paul is saying that believers should be blameless. When I first became pastor in downtown Los Angeles, I met Dr. Jim McGinnis who was in Chicago at that time. He asked me how I liked being a pastor in downtown Los Angeles. I said, “Well, I certainly am enjoying it. It is a marvelous opportunity, and the crowds are coming to church, but I find I can’t defend myself. I hear reports about me that are terrible.” He answered, “That’s all right. Just be sure that none of them are true.” We can be blameless, but we cannot be without offense. “Till the day of Christ” has reference to His coming for His own. This is the second time the Rapture is mentioned in this epistle. A child of God should walk in the light of the imminent return of Christ all the time.
Philippians 1:11
The “fruits of righteousness” are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is producing fruit in the lives of the believers. “…The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance …” (Gal_5:22-23).
Philippians 1:12
BONDS AND AFFLICTIONS FURTHER THE GOSPELPaul is speaking very emphatically to them. When the believers in Philippi heard that Paul was in prison, they sent a message to him by their pastor, Epaphroditus, and it probably went something like this: “Oh, poor brother Paul, we feel so sorry for you. Now your great missionary journeys are curtailed; you are in prison, and the gospel is not going out!” Paul said, “Look, I want you to know that the gospel is going out, and the things that have happened to me have not curtailed but have actually furthered the gospel.” Now he will make clear what he means by this.
Philippians 1:13
The palace was actually Caesar’s court. Act_28:16 tells us, “And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him.” Paul was chained to a member of the Praetorian Guard, and these men were the Roman patricians, members of Caesar’s household. When Paul was converted, the Lord Jesus said that Paul would “…bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Act_9:15). Well, up to this time Paul had taken the gospel largely to the common, vegetable variety of citizens in the Roman Empire. But now he has members of the royalty chained to him! Every four hours, at the change of the guard, one guard would leave and be replaced by a new guard who would be chained to Paul. What do you think Paul talked about during those four hours? Can you imagine having your congregation chained to you?
My guess is that some of them were happy to see their relief guard come. They would say, “Boy, am I glad to see you! This man Paul is trying to make a Christian out of me.” Many of them did come to know Christ. The gospel penetrated Caesar’s household. Later Tertullian wrote that the Roman government became disturbed when it was discovered that Christians were in positions of authority. Many of these men later died for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the first evidence Paul gave that his imprisonment had not hindered the furtherance of the gospel but that it had enabled him to bring the gospel right into Caesar’s household. Not only did Paul’s imprisonment enable him to reach into Caesar’s household with the gospel, but it also accomplished something else:
Philippians 1:14
In the early church there were many men who were willing to go out as witnesses for Christ, but after hearing Paul speak, they would say something like this, “Man, I’d like to witness for the Lord, but I can’t tell it like Paul tells it.” So long as Paul was out preaching the gospel, others would feel unworthy, not competent or sufficiently trained. They considered Paul so much more effective than they could be. But then one day the word went down the Roman roads to all those centers where churches had been established that Paul was in prison in Rome. In many of those churches men would say, “Look, Paul’s in prison. He can’t go out anymore. I’ll go.” As a result many men started to preach the gospel.
I am confident that hundreds and maybe even thousands of men hit the Roman roads and moved out from door to door to tell people about Christ. So Paul says, “Many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” Now I believe there is a third effect of Paul’s imprisonment which he does not mention. We can only get this from the perspective of history. Paul may not have realized the importance of his writing, but if he had not been put into prison, we would not have the Prison Epistles: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. They are all marvelous epistles, and we would not have them today if Paul had not been in prison. I’m sure the Lord could have gotten this teaching to us some other way, but this was the way He chose. So Paul could say about his imprisonment that it had “fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” There was, however, a tragic difficulty in Paul’s day. We have the same thing happening in this day, and it is still tragic.
Philippians 1:15
When I first began to study the Bible, it was unbelievable to me that the preaching of the gospel of Christ could be done in envy and strife. But now that I’ve been in the ministry for a long timeI was ordained in 1933I know that one of the things that hurts the preaching of the gospel probably more than any other single thing is the envy and the strife. Paul will mention envy and strife several times in this epistle. There must have been quite a few who were preaching the gospel in that way, envious of the apostle Paul, jealous because they didn’t have the results that Paul had. One of the solutions to this problem of envy is for every Christian to recognize that he has a gift. We do not all have the same gift. The body could not function if we did. The problem is that some men who have one gift are envious of a man who has a different gift. You will remember that Paul told the Corinthians that the gifts are to be exercised in love. Every gift is to be exercised in love.
My friend, if you will exercise your gift in love, you will not envy someone else. “…Love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up” (1Co_13:4). Envy says, “I don’t think much of you,” and pride says, “What do you think of me?” That is the difference between envy and pride, and the believer is warned against both of them. Paul put it very bluntly when he wrote, “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1Co_4:7). Strife is an interesting word. It is the Greek word eris, which means “to stir up"referring to demons, the spirits, that stir up strife. Envy and strife! Those two still hurt the church. Alcohol and drugs on the outside of the church cannot hurt it nearly as much as the envy and strife on the inside of the church. Notice, however, that there were some who preached Christ of good will.
Philippians 1:16
Those motivated by envy and strife preached Christ, but not sincerely. They actually did it to try to belittle Paul. They were envious of the apostle Paul, but they had not been able to say anything against him. Now that he was in prison and unable to defend himself, these men would go out and preach the gospel, but they also would have a few little things to say against Paul.
Philippians 1:17
These are the two groups. What is Paul’s attitude toward them?
Philippians 1:18
The important thing to Paul was that Christ be preached, no matter whether it was done in pretense or by true motives. It is tragic that at times Christ is preached in envy and strife. He is still preached in that way today, but we can always rejoice whenever Christ is preached. I am a little rough on female preachers because I believe they are unscriptural, but, as I have said on several occasions, some women are preaching Christ better than the average male preacher. What is my position? I rejoice and thank God that Christ is being preached. Dr. Ironside told the story of walking through a park in Oakland, California. A woman was preaching there, and his friend said to him, “Isn’t it a shame that this woman is here preaching?” Dr. Ironside said, “It’s a shame that there is not some man to take her place.” That is the problem. Thank God, Christ is being preached. That is the important thing. We can rejoice today whenever the Word of God is given out. At the time I am writing, a great many folk are getting concerned about home Bible classes. I am rejoicing over them. I know sometimes they go off on a tangent, but not any more than some churches go off on tangents. We can rejoice that the Word of God is being taught. It is interesting and also comforting to know that Christ can be preached insincerely, and yet people can still be saved. God honors His Word, not the man or the organization. We need to recognize that today. The Spirit of God is the only One who can bring blessings, and He can bless only when the Word of God is given out.
Philippians 1:19
By the word salvation Paul means his deliverance from prison. “Through your prayer.” People have asked me why I asked everyone to pray for me when I had cancer. They said, “Didn’t you know that God would heal you if you go to Him in prayer?” May I say that the Bible makes it clear that God hears and answers the prayers of His people. We need to ask God’s people to pray for us. Paul says that through their prayers he hopes to be set free. “Through …the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” The only way you and I can get that supply that we need is through prayer.
Philippians 1:20
Paul said he did not want to be ashamed of his witness while in this life, and he did not want to be ashamed when he came into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle John mentions the fact that when Christ comes to take His church with Him, it is possible for believers to be ashamed at His appearing (see 1Jn_2:28). We need to bear that in mind. All Christians ought to be concerned about that. Years ago I began a prophetic congress in downtown Los Angeles which has spread over this entire area and has given a tremendous emphasis to prophecy. This has been carried out across our country today. I probably have spoken in more prophetic congresses than any one individual. So I want to say this: there are too many people who are talking about the coming of the Lord but are not ready for the coming of the Lord. You may ask, “Aren’t they saved?” Yes, they are saved. But I’m afraid they will be ashamed at His appearing. Their lives do not commend the gospel. Paul says that he doesn’t want to be ashamed before Christ at His coming. You will recall that this chapter gives the philosophy of Christian living. You will find that Paul will sum up the theme of each of these four chapters in one verse, and sometimes in one sentence. The next verse puts this chapter in a nutshell.
Philippians 1:21
IN LIFE OR DEATHCHRISTNotice in your Bible that the verb is is in italics. That means it is not in the original but has been added to make the meaning clearer. The verse is actually, “For to me to live Christ, and to die gain.” This is the philosophy of Christian living: To live Christ; to die gain. Dr. William L. Pettingill used to say that gain is always more of the same thing. If to live is Christ, then to die would be more of Christ. It means to go and be with Him. Although it has taken me a long time to arrive at this conclusion, I am convinced that the most important thing in my life as a Christian is to have the reality of Jesus Christ in my life. This is not too popular today. People would rather talk about being dedicated, wanting to serve Him, or doing this and that. But the most important thing is to have fellowship with Him so that your joy might be full. Then we will have a powerful witness. The problem is that most people want the end but forget all about the means. The means, in this case, is fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything else is the fruitage of this fellowship. For to me to live Christ; to die is to be with Him. Now we know why Paul was undisturbed by the criticism being leveled at him. You can’t hurt a man who is in fellowship with Jesus Christ. What could anyone do to such a man? “For to me to live Christ, and to die gain” is a high plane on which to live. I wish I could say I have reached that plane. I’m on my way, and I haven’t arrived, but that is my goal. What a glorious one it is!
Philippians 1:22
Paul didn’t know about his future, just as you and I don’t know about our future. We don’t know what any single day will bring forth.
Philippians 1:23
Paul says he was torn between wanting to go to be with the Lord, which is the better of the two, or staying with the Philippian believers because they needed him. The first time I had cancer surgery, a letter came from a lady that said, “I know that everybody is praying that you will get well, but I am praying that the Lord will take you home because to be with Christ is far better.” I wrote back and said, “Would you mind letting the Lord decide about this? I want to stay.” I want to stay a while longer to give out the Word of God. I’ve just now gotten to the best part of my ministry, and I don’t want to leave it. I’m asking God to let me stay with it. I think that is a normal feeling for a child of God. It reminds me of a story of an incident that took place in my southland in a black church. The preacher asked one night, “How many of you want to go to heaven?” Everyone put up his hand except one little boy. The preacher asked him, “Don’t you want to go to heaven?” He answered, “I sure do, but I thought you were getting up a load for tonight.” We all want to go to heaven, but not right now!
Philippians 1:25
Paul is practical. He still has work to do. These folk need his ministry. He wanted to get out of prison and go to be with them again. People who are always saying, “Oh, if the Lord would only come,” should get busy. This is the only place where we can do any work that is going to count for a reward for Him. This is the stage on which you and I play our part. I want to stay as long as possible, and I have promised the Lord I will teach the Word as long as He lets me stay.
Philippians 1:27
The word conversation means your way of life. Not only our speech but our entire way of life should be a credit to the gospel of Christ. “Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel"oh, how God’s people need to stand together for the furtherance of the gospel! If the church were what it should be in the world today, the world would listen to the message it proclaims. Here Paul uses the word strive which is so different from the word strife about which he wrote earlier in the chapter. In the word strive is the thought of agonizing. We are to agonize together for the faith of the gospel.
Philippians 1:28
When you get to the place where He lets you suffer for Him, you have arrivedthat is the high calling of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:30
Paul certainly knew what it was to suffer for Christ. Suffering for Christ is a token of blessing, not a sign that God has turned His face away. This concludes chapter 1 in which we have seen the philosophy of Christian living. The chapter is summed up in one verse: “For to me to live Christ, and to die gain.”