So. If you are asking yourself why I did not put a post about Philippians 1:7-11 it is because I have been busy but also tired and lazy a lot. So since I did miss that week of posting our weekly Bible study, I am combining that week with this week and I shall post both of them. :) This won't be too overwhelming though because a lot of it happens to be quite self explanatory, but I will do my best to explain what I can.
Philippians 1: 7-11
7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you with the affection of Jesus Christ. 9 And it is my prayer that your love about more and more, with knowledge and all discernment 10 so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
I reckon I will try to dissect each verse like I did with the first six verses. The first thing that comes to mind is just how overwhelmingly in love with the church at Philippi Paul is. Verses 7 and 8 attest to this. Paul loves this church and he explains why. Paul is in prison, but the church at Philippi is standing behind him throughout the whole situation. Being taken to prison in this day was an extremely humiliating thing. It is bad now when a person goes to prison, but back in that day it was a very, very big deal to be taken to prison. Especially for a guy like Paul whose entire life was based on setting an example for those who follow Christ. So for the church to stand behind Paul through all this shows how much the church loves him as well. But it goes beyond this. Paul has a history as a Christian killer. Paul spent a lot of his life persecuting those who did follow Christ. However, after his conversion, Paul completely changed to preaching the gospel. Paul's persecuting Christians, and his imprisonment, show what sacrifice Christians must make during this time period. So the fact that this church is still standing behind Paul is huge. Verse 8 is one of my favorite verses ever. Think about it. Philippians is a book of scripture, which is Divine inspired and God-breathed. Paul says, "For God is my witness," meaning that God ascribes and affirms what Paul says. That shows how much Paul really loves this church. He loves them so much, that he claims that he cares about this church as much as Jesus does. Verse 9 goes beyond just love and shows what Paul really desires for this church. He has a desire for their love to grow so that they may approve what is right. Now I don't know if I am right, but I have a few thoughts about this. Paul was not extremely far from his death at this point. Several years, but I think that he is trying to help this church more into an era where they will not have Paul as a leader anymore. They need to be able to tell for themselves what is right and wrong. They need to grow in love with knowledge and all discernment so that they know what is right and therefore be ready to meet God having lived a pure life. But in verse 11 Paul affirms that it is not possible to gain this blamelessness by any means except for Jesus Christ. And also that the reason to be pure and blameless is to bring glory to God. Being blameless is not for any upright reason to make ourselves feel better, but only to glorify God.
Philippians 1:12-18
12 I want you to know brothers that everything that has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers becoming confident in the Lord by my imprisonment are much more bold to speak the word without fear. 15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love knowing that I am put here in the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
Me and my roommates were extremely excited about this set of verses. I absolutely love it. It is a great passage of sacrifice and hope. I know those two words don't really go well together. However, in this passage I am going to leave them together. Paul IS IN PRISON!! AND HE IS HAPPY ABOUT IT!!!! We get upset about the dumbest stuff. Yet Paul is in prison and is rejoicing about it. All Paul cares about is sharing the gospel. God wants Jesus to be known throughout the world. He has been to prison numerous times before this particular letter was written. He has been persecuted but still attests that everything that has happened to him up to this point has served to advance the gospel. Now here is another example where I am not manipulating the gospel at all, but thinking of something that may be out of the box. I think Paul might only be talking about his imprisonment and persecution, but I think that it could apply to his entire life. Paul persecuted Christians and killed many of them, which obviously is not good, but God used that and Paul's testimony and conversion to further the gospel. I like to think about that in our lives as well. We are all sinners. And sin does not glorify God ever, in any way. However, God uses leading us out of our sin to further the gospel If we were perfect, God could not use our redemption as a testimony to his glory. Paul is happy that he is in prison. He is happy because he knows that other people know that he is in prison for the gospel. Even the guards know that he is in prison for Christ. What are we willing to give up for the proclamation of the gospel? If people gained faith through my imprisonment, I think I would gladly go to prison and give up my life. I don't know that for sure. At all. So do not think I am holy or anything like that. I just really love people enough (although not most people's stupidity) that I would be willing to give up my life to give someone the opportunity to have a new life. People became more bold just because Paul was in prison. They saw that he was willing to go to prison for Jesus so they were willing to chance that as well. Paul was happy to be in prison.
Now let's talk about false preachings. Paul loves the God so much, and wants his name proclaimed so badly, that he goes as far to say that even when the gospel is proclaimed under false pretenses, he still rejoices that it is being proclaimed at all. At first this perplexed me a little bit, but then we starting thinking about it. If a person is preaching the gospel in order to gain glory or money, but people still come to salvation through that person's teaching of scripture, shouldn't we still rejoice? If a televangelist sees thousands of people saved even through greed, that person has still led those people to Christ and expanded the kingdom of God. There were people that were preaching the gospel at the time of Paul simply because they saw that Paul was in prison and they thought that they could take his place as leader of thousands. But Paul is still rejoicing because those people are still leading people to Christ. Life lessons? Preach the gospel. Rejoice. Love the Church. Give up everything for Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment