Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 14 and Philippians 4

1 Kings 14 – Jeroboam’s son, Abijah, becomes ill and Jeroboam sends the mother to Shiloh to consult with the prophet Ahijah (the one who told him he should be king). Ahijah can’t see but when the woman comes to him, he knows it is she even though she pretends to be someone else. He gives her the following message—the Lord is not pleased with Jeroboam because he has not been like David.  He has made idols and provoked God, so God will bring evil on Jeroboam’s house—when the woman returns her child will die (14:12). But beyond that, “the Lord will strike Israel. . .he will root up Israel out of this good land that he gave to their ancestors, and scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their sacred poles, provoking the Lord to anger” (14:15). It happens as Ahijah predicts. Jeroboam reigns 22 years. His son Nadab succeeds him.

           

In Judah, Rehoboam reigns 17 years in Jerusalem, but Judah too “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (14:22). They set up high places and sacred poles too, instituted temple prostitution for males.  During his reign the Pharaoh of Egypt comes and takes the treasure of the king’s house—the shields Solomon had made.  Also, there is war between Jeroboam and Rehoboam continually.  When Rehoboam dies, his son Abijam succeeds him.

Philippians 4 - Continuing his loving conclusion, Paul urges his readers to help those who have shared in Paul’s work: women co-workers Euodia and Syntyche, Clement and others “whose names are in the book of life” (4:3).

He admonishes his readers once again to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (4:4). “The Lord is near.  Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (4:5-7). And finally, in those now famous words, Paul urges us to cultivate and contemplate everything that is worthy in life: 

“[W]hatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (4:8).

He thanks them for the support they have sent to him and especially tells them that it is the benefit to them their generosity entails in spiritual reward that makes him the happiest. 

Throughout this lovely letter, we not only hear how we are to grow in the depth and breadth of love, and come to know the resignation to God’s will that brings complete peace and equanimity of mind, but we see it in Paul and hear it in the tone and feeling of his words.

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 13 and Philippians 3

1 Kings 13 – As Jeroboam begins to offer sacrifices to the gold bull-calves he set up at the Bethel altar, a “man of God” (“prophet” in other versions) from Judah “denounced the altar and predicted that it would fall apart. He also prophesies that someday a child named Josiah will be born to the family of David and will slaughter those “serving at the pagan altars who offer sacrifices” and he “will burn human bones.” There are a few key prophecies in this confusing declaration. Some are immediately realized and others, like the eventual killing of the false priests and the burning of human bones to make the altar unclean or off-limits in some way will not come to pass until the time of Josiah in 2 Kings. When Jeroboam goes to seize the prophet, his [Jeroboam’s] hand withers. And the altar does collapse as prophesied, so Jeroboam rethinks what he is doing and asks the prophet to pray for him and restore his hand. The prophet does this, and the king asks him to come home with him and be rewarded.

The prophet of Judah declines this offer, saying he must return to Judah by a different path. On the way he encounters another prophet, this one an old man from Bethel. Hearing from his sons what the prophet of Judah had done, he goes out and finds the man and invites to his home. The man of God tells him that he can’t because God has told him not to go back, but the old prophet claims he too has had a word from God telling him to bring the man back—so he convinces him to go back. 

At the dinner table, the word of God comes to the prophet from Judah and reproves him for not obeying his original direction.  It is revealed that he shall not return to his home. And sure enough, on the way back a lion kills him.  The old Bethel prophet learns of it when people traveling the same road tell him they saw him dead between his donkey and a lion (13:25). The old prophet goes and gets the body, brings it back and mourns over it. He realizes somehow that the prophecy the man made against the altar at Bethel and all the “high places” will be fulfilled. He instructs his sons to bury him alongside the man of God when he dies.

Jeroboam continues setting up the high places: “This sin on his part brought about the ruin and total destruction of his dynasty” (13:34).

The competing “openings” or revelations we see here in the “man of God” fro Judah and the “old prophet” of Bethel are interesting. Each man acts out of his sense of what God is opening to him and neither really can “know” which one will prove to be authentically from God. The “man of God” defers to the other prophet, and finds in the end that it was wrong to do so. The other seems sure God meant for the “man of God” to visit with him, but in the end he seems to see that God really had wanted something different – that the instruction the “man of God” told him he had to NOT come to the his house, was the true prophecy. One doesn’t get the feeling that either one was insincere. Time is a necessary dimension to truth just as it is to physicality (a la Einstein). 

Philippians  3 - Paul begins to conclude his letter with a renewed call for his readers to rejoice. But he warns them not to be misled by those whom he call “those dogs” (3:2), those “who insist on cutting the body” (3:2). The people who have “received the true circumcision” are those who “worship God by means of his Spirit and rejoice in our life in union with Christ Jesus” (3:3). He [Paul] has the “fleshly circumcision” and every other “fleshly” connection with the people of Israel, but these are not seen as strengths by him any more—now that he has come to know Christ.  “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.  I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (3:8-11).

These are beautiful words that capture so well the overriding vision Paul has of salvation.  For him salvation seems eminently personal, being gathered up into the very person, life and work of Jesus Christ.  In that is his (and our) glory. 

Paul addresses the matter of whether his sense of salvation amounts to “perfect maturity” and he declines to make this claim.  But he continues to live and act on the faith that he will attain to it (like an athlete who strains for the victory at the end of all his striving). The people whose minds “are set on earthly things” will end in a hell of their own making. 

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 12 and Philippians 2

1 Kings 12 – Rehoboam goes to Shechem and all Israel comes there to make him king.  Hearing this, Jeroboam returns from Egypt. The people complain to Rehoboam about the burdens his father had imposed on them and ask him what he will do to lighten the yoke. He asks advice of the older leaders and they tell him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them. . .they will be your servants forever” (12:7). But he ignores them and takes instead the advice of the “young men.” They tell him he must be even tougher—make their burdens even harsher. 

So the people decide to reject him saying, “What share do we have in David?” (12:16) The place of the people in government.  This is an important story for western civilization—this and the one about Samuel disapproving of monarchy.  They provide lessons about the need for people to have a voice even in monarchical government.  It also speaks to the relative wisdom of elders in a society as opposed to the “young.”

Rehoboam’s first “taskmaster” Adoram is stoned to death, but the larger consequence is that only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin stick with him as king.  Everyone else gives allegiance to Jeroboam. Isaac Asimov says Jeroboam held high office under Solomon and won the favor of the “prophetic party” and disgruntled Israelites so that he led a rebellion. It fails for a while, but he is not forgotten, 335.  “Man of God” Shemaiah advises him not to fight against his kindred and he listens.  They go home.

                 

Jeroboam builds Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and stays there. He worries about not having the unifying factor of having sacrifice centralized in Jerusalem. So he makes two “calves” of gold and sets them up—one in Bethel and one in Dan [a town in the northernmost part of the northern kingdom]—for the people to worship.  He makes other “houses on the high places and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not Levites” (12:31. He appoints a festival too that was not part of the tradition, and generally goes off on his own thing.

Philippians 2 - Paul urges his readers to aspire to unity of heart and mind—“be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (2:2); and the key to unity is humility—“Let each of you look not to [his] own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (2:4-5). 

Who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

[as] something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness.

and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death,

even death on a cross.

Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name

that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

of those in heaven and on earth

and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father (2:6-11, NAB).

Ray Brown and my Jerusalem Bible both say it is uncertain if Paul was the author of this hymn or was just using it here in this letter, but it is amazing stuff. One of Paul’s great moments – probably simply giving us a worship formula used in the earliest church.  It has been pointed out what beautiful literature this is in addition to being profound spiritual insight – the emptying out and coming down to the humiliation of the cross is followed immediately by seeing Christ as lifted up and exalted – capturing the whole paradox of Christ’s incarnation. The Jerusalem Bible also says what I believe, that use of this formula is evidence that the very early church “believed in the divine pre-existence of Jesus” (260) way before John’s time.

Through his great humility and self-giving, Christ unified himself with the human race; it is likewise by humbling ourselves of our self-involved human nature that we can achieve a degree of unity with Him and through Him, with God.  In this modern era, where nothing is so sought after as self-actualization, self-determination, and self-expression, it is not surprising that those institutions, which are built on unity, namely marriage and the church as well as civic communities of all kinds, are suffering.  If we can only come to be sensible of Christ’s great act of love for us and be moved thereby to respond to him with even a degree of surrender and love, he will lead us in a different path.  So that even in a world where self-aggrandizement is the chief love of almost everyone, one can hope to redeem one’s life.

Paul goes on to tell his readers that they must “work out [their] own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in [them], enabling [them] both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (2:12-13). This is a very Quaker-friendly passage.  The salvation we come into is not a once-for-all-time event, and not something that “happens” when we profess faith in Christ.  It is a process, something we work out with God’s help; “it is God who is at work in [us].” He empowers us not only to know His mind and His will but to be obedient to Him in all we do.

Paul speaks of sending Timothy off to them soon, and he sets Timothy apart among many who “are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (2:21) as one who is seriously concerned with their welfare.  And he is also sending Epaphroditus, “my brother and co-worker” who is ill, even close to death (2:26).

Daily Bible Reading: 1 Kings 11 and Philippians 1

1 Kings 11 – Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to the Pharaoh’s daughter—he had “among his wives” 700 princesses and 300 concubines!! And it is through his love of women that Solomon comes to displease the Lord, for it is through them that he is lured into the worship of foreign gods in his old age—“his heart was not true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David” (11:4). He built a “high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem” (11:7). He did it to please his foreign wives.

Molech was associated with the practice of child-sacrifice among Phoenicians and Canaanites. Chemosh was the Moabite deity who also in hard times might demand human sacrifice. Isaac Asimov’s Guide to the Bible suggests that the building of temples to foreign gods by Solomon was a probably seen as a policy of toleration in a country filled with foreign workers and subjects. But the policy “was viewed with dislike and hostility by the prophetic party, 333.

As a result of Solomon’s unfaithfulness, the Lord says, “I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of your father David I will not do it in your lifetime: I will tear it out of the hand of your son.” (11-12)—not the entire kingdom, though, only part.  The unity of Israel was never solid; there were always divisions between North and South; these divisions finally become permanent after Solomon’s death.

                 

The chapter goes on to tell the story of Hadad, an Edomite from the royal house in Edom.  When David was king, Joab was responsible for killing every male child in Edom.  But Hadad escaped to Egypt with some of his father’s servants.  He found favor there in the eyes of the Pharaoh and ultimately married a sister-in-law of the Pharaoh. The son they had, Genubath, grew up in Pharaoh’s household.  When David died, Hadad secured the permission of Pharaoh to return to his own country.

                 

Another enemy of Solomon’s was Rezon, son of Eliada, a man who had fled from King Hadadezer of Zobah and gathered around him a marauding band of men “after the slaughter by David” (11:24). A Jerusalem Bible note clarifies this a little by saying that it was the marauding band that was slaughtered by David.  This refers back to 2 Samuel 8, which tells about David extending his power in the direction of the Euphrates.  The Arameans came to Hadadezer’s aid and in response David killed 22,000 of them. He imposed governors on the Arameans.  Rezon came to be king in Damascus and was a life-long enemy of Israel. Clearly, some of the trouble that Israel was to have after Solomon’s death is rooted in wrongs perpetrated by David in the building and consolidation of his kingdom.

                 

Internally too Solomon had enemies.  Jeroboam, son of Nebat, was a servant that gained Solomon’s favor.  He was very able, so Solomon put him in charge of forced labor “of the house of Joseph” – in the territories of Manasseh and Ephraim (11:28). This would be the largest grant of land north of Jerusalem up nearly to Jezreel and taking in Megiddo if you look at the map.

The prophet Ahijah from Shiloh meets Jeroboam on the road just outside of Jerusalem; he “laid hold of the new garment he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces” (11:30), and says to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces; for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘See, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon, and will give you ten tribes’” (11:31). The division will come “because he [Solomon] has forsaken” God and worshiped foreign gods like Astarte (a Sidonian god), Chemosh (Moabite), and Milcom (Ammonite).

The Lord promises Jeroboam too that “if you will listen to all that I command you, walk in my ways, and do what is right in may sight by keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, I will be with you, and will build you an enduring house, as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you.  For this reason I will punish the descendants of David, but not forever’” (11:38-39). Solomon tries to kill Jeroboam, but he escapes to Egypt where he stays until Solomon’s death.  Solomon reigns for 40 years and then died. He is succeeded by his son Rehoboam.

Introduction to the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians: Around the year 56-57 AD, Paul writes to the church at Philippi, the first congregation established by him in the region of Macedonia. Again, the letter is written while he is in prison somewhere - Ephesus, Caesaria or Rome. And Timothy is with him.  Paul had founded the church at Philippi in 50, during his second journey (Acts 16: 12-40) and revisited it twice during the third (in the autumn of 57 and again at Passover in 58 – so weird not to have to put an apostrophe before the number.

Philippians 1 – Paul greets “the saints in Christ Jesus” in Philippi along with the “bishops and deacons” (NRSV 1:1). The Jerusalem Bible says the word “episcopos,” which they translate as elders, has not yet come to have the meaning later associated with bishop.

He expresses thanks for them and prays “that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the Day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, . . .” (1:10). He uses the phrase “Day of Christ Jesus in verse 6 as well; the expectation of Christ’s imminent return is very key to his thinking at this time. He reassures them that while his imprisonment for Christ is something he must deal with, it has not hindered the spread of the gospel but has actually “helped” to spread it—among the imperial guard and others.

The word about Christ is getting out—in some cases by those who are acting “out of love” and in some cases by those who are actually trying to “increase [his] suffering” (1:16) by seeking to rival or compete with Paul.  It does not matter to Paul. Everyone who speaks about the gospel of Christ helps in the long run.  He does not even care if he must suffer death for Christ.  In fact, he even yearns for an end to his life: “my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.  Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith. . .” (1:24-25).                   

He ends this section by encouraging them to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, . . .” (1:27) or as it is translated in the Jerusalem Bible, “avoid anything in your everyday lives that would be unworthy of the gospel of Christ.” Any suffering they must endure is a privilege.

One of the things I appreciate so much about Paul is his emphasis on the importance of cultivating “knowledge” or “wisdom,” about the faith we have placed in Christ.  This “gnosis” is very important.  I think it is important to differentiate this “gnosis” or deep understanding with the “Gnosticism” that will soon become a challenge to the early church. It is this deep and very personal knowledge of Christ that early Friends were about in my opinion, not just an avoidance of “doctrinal arguments.” It is this very personal understanding of God’s redemptive love of ALL mankind that we must seek. The love Christ had for us was a love that went out to us not because we “deserve it” but despite the fact that we in varying degrees undeserving of God’s love. 

This is one of the biggest challenges for people, to learn to love not as we define love but to come to understand and enter into the love God has for all.  Forgiveness and compassion come from this kind of love instead of the fault-finding that comes from comparing your own worth with the shortcomings of others. 

I see the difficulty of learning this in talking to adolescents.  I have spent most of my life teaching kids from ages 13 to 18. They are generally very idealistic and they understand the virtue of love very well.  They especially understand its capacity to bring out the best in them.  They can appreciate instances where someone else’s patience or compassion for them helped them in some way.  But ask them to extend that same love to those who are unlikable to them in some way, however trifling, and you see that they have not yet grown to the point where they see that all people are in the same boat.  The obnoxious bus driver who drives them crazy needs to feel their love as much as they need to feel it from others.  The nerdy kid who just can’t attain what they consider to be “normality” also has a claim on their love if they would call their love Christian love.  The planting, watering, cultivation and growth of this love, all of it, is the work of the gospel in us.  And it is not a sudden burgeoning growth, but one of slow root development and continued examination in the light, which Christ gives us both inwardly and in the lessons his life and death teach us.  Grant, O Lord, that this love may be formed in us and made ever more profound and secure.  Keep the value of this love fresh in us and help it transform the details of our lives so that others may learn of it through us.  In unity with Jesus and with Paul who lived and died to plant this love in the world we pray.

Daily Scripture and Thoughts About It

Philippians

Paul writes around the year 56-57 AD to the church at Philippi from prison somewhere (Ephesus, Caesaria or Rome). Timothy is with him. Paul had founded the church at Philippi in 50, during his second journey (Acts 16: 12-40) and revisited it twice during the third (in the autumn of 57 and again at Passover in 58). The JB associates this letter with the great Pauline letters (notably Corinthians) rather than grouping it with Eph, Col and Philemon.

Phil. 1 – Paul greets “the saints in Christ Jesus” in Philippi along with the “bishops and deacons.” (NRSV v. 1) (The JB says the word “episcopos,” which they translate as elders, has not yet come to have the meaning later associated with bishop) He expresses thanks for them and prays “that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, . . .” (10). He uses the phrase “day of Christ Jesus in verse 6 as well, so indicating the prominence this expectation still has in his thinking. He reassures them that while his imprisonment for Christ is something he must deal with, it has not hindered the spread of the gospel but has actually “helped” to spread it—among the imperial guard and among others.

The word about Christ is getting out—in some cases by those who are acting “out of love” and in some cases by those who are actually trying to “increase [his] suffering” (16) by seeking to rival or compete with Paul. It does not matter to Paul. Everyone who speaks about the gospel of Christ helps in the long run. He does not even care if he must suffer death for Christ. In fact, he even yearns for an end to his life: “my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith. . .” (24-25).

He ends this section by encouraging them to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, . . .” (27) or as it is translated in the JB, “avoid anything in your everyday lives that would be unworthy of the gospel of Christ.” Any suffering they must endure is a privilege.

One of the things I appreciate very much about Paul is his emphasis on the importance of cultivating “knowledge” or “wisdom,” about the faith we have placed in Christ. This gnosis is very important. It deepens our awareness of the redemptive love of God towards all men and makes our love more like the kind of love Christ had for us, a love that went out to us not because we are deserving but despite the fact that we in varying degrees undeserving of God’s love. This is one of the biggest challenges for people, to learn to love not as we define love but to come to understand and enter into the love God has for all. Forgiveness and compassion come from this kind of love instead of the fault-finding that comes from comparing your own worth with the shortcomings of those you are asked to love. I see the difficulty of learning this in talking to adolescents. They are generally very idealistic and understand the virtue of love very well. They especially understand its capacity to bring out the best in them. They can appreciate instances where someone else’s patience or compassion for them helped them in some way. But ask them to extend that same love to those who are unlikable to them in some way, however trifling, and you see that they have not yet grown to the point where they see that all men are in the same boat. The obnoxious bus driver who drives them crazy needs to feel their love as much as they need to feel it from others. The nerdy kid who just can’t attain what they consider to be normality also has a claim on their love if they would call their love Christian love. The planting, watering, cultivation and growth of this love, all of it, is the work of the gospel in us. And it is not a sudden burgeoning growth, but one of slow root development and continued examination in the light, which Christ gives us both inwardly and in the lessons his life and death teach us. Grant oh Lord, that this love may be formed in us and made ever more profound and secure. Keep the value of this love fresh in us and help it transform the details of our lives so that others may learn of it through us. In unity with Jesus and with Paul who lived and died to plant this love in the world we pray.

Phil. 2 - Paul urges his readers to aspire to unity of heart and mind—“be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (2); and the key to unity is humility—“Let each of you look not to [his] own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (4-5).

Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
[as] something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness.
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth
and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father (6-11, NAB).

Ray Brown and my JB both say it is uncertain if Paul was the author of this hymn or was just using it here in this letter, but it is amazing stuff. One of Paul’s great moments – probably simply giving us a worship formula used in the earliest church. It has been pointed out what beautiful literature this is in addition to be profound spiritual insight – the emptying out and coming down to the humiliation of the cross is followed immediately by seeing Christ as lifted up and exalted – capturing the whole paradox of Christ’s incarnation. JB also says what I believe, that use of this formula is evidence that the very early church “believed in the divine pre-existence of Jesus” (260) way before John’s time.

Through his great humility and self-giving Christ unified himself with the human race and it is likewise by humbling ourselves of our self-involved human nature that we can achieve a degree of unity with Him and through Him, with God. In this modern era, where nothing is so sought after as self-actualization, self-determination, and self-expression, it is not surprising that those institutions, which are built on unity, namely marriage and the church as well as civic communities of all kinds, are suffering. If we can only come to be sensible of Christ’s great act of love for us and be moved thereby to respond to him with even a degree of surrender and love, he will lead us in a different path. So that even in a world where self-aggrandizement is the chief love of almost everyone, one can hope to redeem one’s life.

Paul goes on to tell his readers that they must “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (12-13). This is a very Quaker friendly passage. The salvation we come into is not a once for all time event, and not something that “happens” when we profess faith in Christ. It is a process, something we work out with God’s help; “it is God who is at work in [us].” He empowers us not only to know His mind (4) and His will but to be obedient to Him in all we do.

Paul speaks of sending Timothy off to them soon, and he sets Timothy apart among many who “are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (21) as one who is seriously concerned with their welfare. And he is also sending Epaphroditus, “my brother and co-worker” who is ill, even close to death (26).

Phil. 3 - Paul begins to conclude his letter with a renewed call for his readers to rejoice. But he warns them not to be misled by those whom he call “the dogs” (2), the “judaizers” who “mutilate the flesh.” The people who are “the circumcision” are those “who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh” (3). He has the fleshly circumcision and every other fleshly connection with the people of Israel, but they are not seen as strengths by him any more—now that he has come to know Christ. “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (8-11).

These are beautiful words that capture so well the overriding vision Paul has of salvation. For him salvation seems eminently personal, a being gathered up into the very person, life and work of Jesus Christ. In that is our glory and our boast.

Paul addresses the matter of whether his sense of salvation amounts to “perfect maturity” and he declines to make this claim. But he continues to live and act on the faith that he will attain to it (like an athlete who strains for the victory at the end of all his striving). The people whose minds “are set on earthly things” will end with destruction.

Phil. 4 - Continuing his loving conclusion, Paul urges his readers to help those who have shared in Paul’s work: women co-workers Euodia and Syntyche, and Clement. And others “whose names are in the book of life” (3).

He admonishes his readers once again to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (4). “The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (5-7). And finally, in those now famous words, Paul urges us to cultivate and contemplate everything that is worthy in life:

“[W]hatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (8).

He thanks them for the support they have sent to him and especially tells them that it is the benefit to them their generosity entails in spiritual reward that makes him the happiest.

Throughout this lovely letter, we not only hear how we are to grow in the depth and breadth of love, and come to know the resignation to God’s will that brings complete peace and equanimity of mind, but we see it in Paul and hear it in the tone and feeling of his words.