Last week’s lesson was probably some of the toughest material in all of Philippians. Paul’s harsh words for the false teachers forces us to answer some harsh questions. What are we worshiping? Where do we put our confidence? What makes us think we are better than other people? Is it our looks? Our ability to make money? Our fame? How healthy we eat? The success of our children? Is it our political views? Or maybe …
Paul in Philippians 2 calls the church of Jesus to unify around the message and mission of the incarnate and crucified God. But what about Christians and churches who preach a different message or who are on a different mission? How should we relate to them? Paul in Philippians 3 tells us how we are to think about those people and their message, and he is not polite.
The Apostle Paul had a nasty history …
The people of Philippi understood strife. They knew what it meant to live in a troubled world. The city was birthed four hundred years before Paul’s letter arrived there as a military garrison of Philip II, the renown conqueror and father of Alexander the Great. Three hundred years later the city was the site of the Battle of Philippi, the military campaign that ended Rome’s bloody civil war fought over the assassination of Julius Caesar.…
What we call the “book of Philippians” is a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the churches in Philippi, a city in ancient Macedonia (modern-day northern Greece) while he was in prison for preaching the gospel. These churches had partnered with Paul and supported him throughout his ministry. They sent Epaphroditus to take care of Paul while he was in jail (Phil 2:25). They sent money to keep Paul’s ministry going while he was …