Philippians, A Video Study, Session 1: Philippians 1:1–2

Philippians chapter 1 verses 1 & 2 Paul and Timothy servants of Christ Jesus to all God's holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi together with the overseers and deacons grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ as we listen to the text in the story as we listen to the the Old Testament echoes specifically think about numbers 12 7 as you think about slavery which we will look at in a moment Jeremiah 25 for Romans 619 and we'll look closely at Philippians 7 as we think about Saints look at Exodus 19 verses 5 & 6 Deuteronomy 7 5 and 6 and at acts 15 verse 14 so we think about Timothy Paul's Co sender take a look at the Epistle 2nd Timothy 1 verse 5 and also acts 16 verses 1 & 3 as we look at these few verses some things to keep in mind Paul will in this brief introduction foreshadow his proclamation about Jesus as God and also as fully human Paul's message of grace and peace sums up his Gospel message as he identifies the Philippians as Saints were alerted to the fact that throughout this letter Paul is going to emphasize holy living we note that Timothy is a co sender so we're going to explore what that might mean for the Philippians and we recall as Paul praises Jesus as Lord Jesus Christ he reminds us that the current emperor Nero is not Lord it's Jesus Paul identifies himself and Timothy as slaves slaves of Christ maybe your translation has servant it's a fine translation but it it is the word for slave a slave in the ancient world and today is a person who is legally owned by another person what we know is that in the ancient world maybe 20% or so in any given congregation of believers maybe 20% would be slaves Paul uses it here metaphorically to symbolically to think about himself to identify himself as a slave of Christ he does so as well in Romans 6 19 when he describes all believers as slaves of righteousness since we are in Christ the owner of a slave can be identified as curry oz or Lord so there's language here slave and owner that well in our United States context can be quite complicated and so we're going to spend a little bit of time unpacking this language in the Old Testament in Israelite culture there were slaves perhaps one of the most well known is Hagar the slave of Sarah the wife of Abraham you can read Hagar story in Genesis 16 Paul also mentions this story when he writes to the Galatians the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt and the Lord God brought Israel out of the house of slavery in Egypt into the land of promise and so the story of the exodus is also a story of going from slavery to freedom freedom to worship the Lord God and that story is is woven tightly into the mindset of the ancient Israelites and certainly as well in first century Jews like Paul we also know that Jew who's owned slaves and that Jews were slaves and you can read about this even in Exodus 21 but along with literal slavery that we find in the Old Testament there's also a strong metaphorical use of the term slavery such as for example in numbers 12 there Moses is identified as a servant or slave of the Lord and even Israel itself is understood and described as God's slave based on the Covenant that God made with Israel and so when Paul identifies himself and Timothy as slaves he's drawing on both the literal history of Israel and also the metaphorical use of slave in in the Old Testament that is now being lived out in his day as we think about literal slavery the actual institution of slavery in Paul's day we find that the slave is on the absolute bottom of the social ladder there is and and and I should add that that really doesn't change you're familiar with the fact that slaves could be freed in the ancient world and we have this category called freed nevertheless the humiliation that was endured as a slave never fully washed away and so the freed man or the freed woman still carried that taint of slavery with them this term slave is going to come up again in the hymn of Christ or the poem that we find in chapter 2 as as we look more closely at Paul's description of who Jesus is for us so remember that when we get then to to chapter 2 it's also possible that Paul's own family history included enslavement when Herod the Great died in 4 BC Judea that region around Jerusalem convulsed in riots and uprisings the later church father Jerome about the time of Augustan jerome tells a story about how paul's father was then taken from this region and it spilled over into galilee so that that whole area was a bit inflamed that Paul's father was taken and as a slave and located up in Tarsus which would be north and he was he lived his life as a slave when his owner died presumably his owner in the will manumitted or freed paul's father and so when Paul was born Paul received automatically his Roman citizenship because his father had been given as a reward perhaps for his service had been given citizenship because we know that from the book of acts that paul was born a Roman citizen so anyway that's the story of Jerome and if it is true then Paul would have known intimately the actual institution of slavery through the history of his own family but he certainly was aware of the metaphorical use of Slade a slave of the Lord within the Old Testament writings what about Saints Paul talks about the Philippians as Saints and sometimes when I hear that word today I think of human perfection well that's not what Paul meant when he used the word Saint it can be translated as Holy One and he doesn't mean here holier than thou right it just means ones who are new in Christ Moses also talks about Saints or holy ones when he talks about the Israelites in Deuteronomy 7 verses 5 and 6 explaining that idolatry has no place among them there are people holy to the Lord so as we think about Saints today we think about how that word is used today we recognize that it's a bit of a jump from the time of the Old Testament back after Paul's time and maybe the 2nd and 3rd son we had the period of the martyrs and and then beyond that the veneration of the martyrs and and their developed system of sainthood in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and so today when we hear the word Saint sometimes think of that term in light of these newer institutions today we can think about a saint as someone who has demonstrated extraordinary piety mother Teresa for example or has had attributed to him or to her miracles based on their intercession before God and there is now a lengthy process of canonization but for Paul when he wrote to the Philippians he meant the term as Holy Ones as those who are holy in Christ and those who desire to have a holy life Paul introduces himself and Timothy to the Philippians these holy ones with this phrase grace and peace now when writing a letter in the ancient world often people would say greetings Paul doesn't do that he he says grace and peace he's transforming the rather mundane greeting to better reflect the gospel truth interestingly he also adds a phrase to this greetings that we don't find in any of his other letters he adds two groups he speaks of the Saints in Philippi and then he also includes the overseers and the Deacons now this these terms Episcopal overseers or bishops and deacons are used infrequently in the in the New Testament Peter will describe Jesus as the Shepherd and the overseer or guardian of our souls you can read about this in first Peter chapter 2 verse 25 and in the book of Acts in chapter 20 verse 28 Paul speaks to the Ephesian elders as those who these elders their bishops our overseers that they would oversee Shepherd both themselves in the church that they serve among not that they serve over but that he serve among that the Holy Spirit has placed them in we also find Phoebe who's identified as a deacon Paul a mention sir in Romans 16:1 so it may be that these terms the bishop and the deacon that paul addresses here in the Philippian church that this group reflects perhaps like administrative gifts maybe they are involved in some way in the the giving of the monetary gift that the funds that Pafford itis took with him as he visited paul in rome we don't we don't know there's no office that we can tell that's being addressed here it probably is more to do with the function most people think the function of the these people would include at least some sort of monetary oversight not only does Paul speak to the Philippians but Timothy does also he's the co center does that mean he's the co-author that's something discussed in New Testament studies today just what is the role of these Co senders because it's very unusual we don't we've very few examples outside of Paul's letters where someone would co-author or Co send a letter but Timothy does this also in the letters that are sent to the Thessalonians 1st and 2nd Thessalonians is Timothy a co-author well the problem is that Paul will use the individual I the singular pronoun in chapter 1 verse 3 and also in several other places in the epistle and so it's it feels like for some people that Timothy is there with Paul and ascending his greetings but it's not really shouldn't be considered a co-author but others say yes he is a co-author or maybe he the secretary it's hard to know exactly what Timothy's role is in this other than how he is identified by Paul which is as also a slave of Christ Robert Greenleaf who died in 1990 made famous a particular phrase servant leadership maybe you've heard that in your churches I know it was very popular years ago and the church that I served in and it this teacher Greenleaf world-renowned argued that someone who is a leader should not be autocratic but rather should serve and so although he was not writing at all for the church many in the church grabbed hold of this idea of servant leadership it kind of became a buzzword and if it's done badly I find that it basically just covers up or papers over reinforces individualistic ideas of leadership someone who is autocratic and just decides when and where they're going to serve so I wonder if a better way of thinking about what Paul demonstrates as a leader not servant leadership but how about service leaders that brings us to what what does Paul think about leadership what is Paul's definition of a leader some people have said Paul demonstrates himself as a leader demonstrates singleness of purpose driven 'us in spirit perhaps I mean those are certainly characteristics of Paul but I also think what Philippians shows us is that for Paul leading is about relationships that's not always what we might call an efficient use of time but it certainly is something that Paul values and his letters indicate that Paul lets others know about what he's experiencing he he talks about himself in in another letter the this to the Corinthians 2nd Corinthians he thinks about himself even as like a clay jar filled with the treasure but weak brittle needing the sustenance of God's Spirit the other thing that Paul does once he describes his leadership here to the Philippians is they identifies himself as a slave not as an apostle why would he do that why why would he not emphasize apostle why does he emphasize slave slave of Jesus Christ well Paul talks about his Apostleship when he uses that language he he talks about his Apostleship and his other letters not as someone who has authority over another but rather has someone who has received responsibilities from God particular responsibility to preach the gospel and lay a solid foundation Paul talks about and this is to the Corinthians in the letter of first Corinthians in chapter 4 he talks about apostles as as almost like prisoners of war that are paraded to be humiliated through the streets of the city as conquered victims before a cheering audience that's an apostle in other words Paul doesn't see his Apostleship as having perks but rather as having tremendous responsibility to establish that the correct foundation upon which then the church and individual believers build their lives apostles aren't better they don't have more autocratic authority they they are expert builders that lay a good foundation now there are some who say well because Paul had such a great relationship with the Philippians he didn't need to say that he was an apostle right because they already got along so well but can you see what's implied in that understanding of Apostleship it's sort of like well I don't have to bring out my my bully stick here because you're already we're already friends so I don't really have to use my Apostleship but that's not how Paul sees Apostleship it really is about serving others he doesn't have a top-down understanding of Authority right he's not authoritarian and so Paul's introduction of himself as slave I think sets the the understanding of what of how he understands apostle in fact he will talk about himself as a slave and as an apostle when he addresses the Romans he'll use them both together or when he writes to Titus so he he sees apostle and slave as kind of informing each other this notion of service being a slave of Christ and serving on behalf of Christ doing his work the responsibilities laid out as an apostle I think the other reason that Paul stresses slave here in the introduction as he introduces himself as a slave of Jesus Christ and also Timothy as a slave is that he will later talk about Christ and Christ perfect demonstration of leadership as he takes on becoming becoming a slave right taking the form of a slave we'll learn about this in chapter 2 verses 6 through 8 Christ as slave this is where Paul's introduction is is moving us so what do we do today then with leadership what does it mean for you as someone in a congregation how how should you support your leaders how should you function as a leader well I think the perseverance and holiness that Paul tries to capture here is they identifies the Philippians as Holy Ones and as Paul himself models humility as Paul models a lack of fear he's serving Christ and so he just can be open with the Philippians even when he's gonna have some pretty pointed things to say a little bit later in the letter but he can do so from an open and loving heart because he understands himself as a slave first of all slave of Jesus Christ and so we as as people in the congregation as as we want to encourage leaders godly leaders even as we want to live holy lives what would what would Philippians tell us I think in this brief introduction what Paul encourages us to think about is that as a congregation we are giving as a congregation there are there's open and and frank and regular communication between leaders and their communities they're all they all own this thing we call church the Philippians liked Paul they were worried about him Paul honored that he's writing them a letter Paul is a slave of Jesus Christ writing to fellow believers all on a journey together waiting for Christ's return when we will all be transformed

Channel: zondervan

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Keywords: philippians, lynn h. cohick, online course, lecture

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Length: 21min 11sec (1271 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2019