Reflections. Philippians 4.

Grandfather duty came first today, so after a morning of job hunting and work, the blog had to wait for our grandson's swim and dinner and chores. But in the pool, you can bet I was thinking about today's reading in Philippians, and reflecting on what I read, even as the sunlight reflected off the surface of the pool. Mainly because I wanted to write about verses 4:8,9, where Paul asks the Philippians to think about, dwell on, reason through, ponder, or reflect upon good, noble, true things. So there I was in the pool, watching the reflections, reflecting on Paul's admonition to reflect upon good stuff, trapped in a referential spiral of reflection.

In the verses immediately preceding 8 and 9, Paul has given some great advice about anxiety, rooted in an understanding of the God he served. (The same one we do.) In the NLT, it says, "Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything." This is so fundamental to our living in joy and peace. It reflects an essential understanding of creation that should be ours. You've probably clung to that advice at some time or another in your life -- or maybe that's yet to come.

In some sense, I see what Paul writes next as one way to fill up those moments when we might be anxious. Or angry. Or depressed. Or afraid. Or frustrated. Or uncertain. Or tempted. Here it is:

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of respect, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if something is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things. And what you learned and received and heard and saw in me, do these things. And the God of peace will be with you." (Philippians 4:8-9 NET)

What we place our thoughts upon has real impact in our lives. (Whoa, how cliched was that?) For a moment, take some of the specific items Paul said to think about, and reverse them. The reverse of what he said was don't dwell on the unlovely, the impure, the unjust. Now stop again. Did any part of your week include dwelling on the unjust? Did someone get away with something they shouldn't have? Someone cut you off in traffic? Someone cheat on the ball field? Were you unfairly treated in a conversation? How long did you dwell on it? This is so easy to do. We live in a wonderful and yet rotten world. A fallen world. Unjust stuff happens. Unlovely stuff is everywhere.

And because of that, Paul says, dwell on the really wholesome parts of life. Reflect on commendable actions, look for excellence and praiseworthy ideas and occurrences. And as I watched my grandson jump into the water, float, play, laugh, swallow water and cough it up, and gradually get more comfortable in the pool, it was easy to find the lovely, and the excellent in those moments. The chill of the water on my skin, the warmth of the sun, the words of Paul to encourage me to reflect about that very moment. That was an easy moment to follow Paul's advice, even though I might sometimes forget about to think about it without his reminder to do so.

But what about the hard moments? Sitting in the midst of scummy circumstances, and thinking crummy thoughts? I know, for example, that some of you reading this blog are dealing with health issues, or finance issues, or family relationship issues -- hard stuff. One of my wife's close Bible study partner's husband has just died. Can Paul's advice help?

And the answer is, not surprisingly enough, absolutely yes. The trick is to remember to do it. And so Paul told the Philippians, try and remember what he had said, how he had acted, what they had learned when he was with them to help them do that. Now, what can you do to remember to think on the commendable things? One answer is to remember Jesus, Who was all of Paul's list -- worthy of respect, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent and praiseworthy. This is one of those cases where, like the youth in our Sunday School learn quickly, if you're not sure of the answer, then answer with "Jesus".

I hope you had a terrific day today, with the 4th chapter of Philippians shepherding your thoughts.

(hook's note: I hesitated to talk about being in a pool today. I know there are those of you who are in worse situations than we are. Let me just say that it's an incredible blessing that the complex where we live has a pool that we can use, and we're thankful to have it as a result of tightening financial circumstances.)

Dogs and dung. Philippians 3.

There's a certain continuity of thought in all of Paul's writings to the churches. No doubt this came both from his experience in the places he was writing to, and from his present circumstance. Reflect back for a minute on the likely reason Paul is imprisoned as he's writing this letter. He took an offering to Jerusalem and when he followed the advice of the Jerusalem church council to pacify those Jewish Christians who were unhappy with Paul's preaching to the Gentiles, he was grabbed by some Jews who made the same accusation -- Paul was preaching against Jewish practices.

So it's natural that Paul spend some time in his letter warning once again that those called Judaizers, who would have the new Gentile Christians adhere to Jewish laws including circumcision, were to be resisted. As Paul does so in verses 3:1-6, he uses powerful words, and a potent argument. Dogs is a real term of derision in the first century. Add to that term "workers of evil" and "flesh mutilators" and we see that Paul has heaped incredible scorn on the Judaizers. He goes on to say, in a powerful argument that he, Paul, knows exactly where they are coming from, knows their zeal for the law, but states that they can't even come close to Paul's own former zealousness for the Law -- following it rigorously in his behavior, and persecuting the followers of Jesus. So if anyone comes to the Philippians arguing that they know what the law demands, the rejoinder is that "we have been taught the gospel from one with more credentials than you could ever have."

As Paul uses that argument, I can almost feel the passion, the zealousness swelling up in his heart, as he shares how empty his former passion was (verses 3:7-11). Yes I had that passion. Yes I was zealous. God, how wrong I was. It's meaningless in the light of God's grace reflected in Jesus' saving actions. It's all rubbish, it's refuse, it's dung. (This is the only use of the Greek word in the New Testament, and we rely on the classical Greek meaning -- rubbish and muck of many kinds: excrement, rotten food, bits left at a meal, a rotting corpse, dung.)

Can we catch a glimpse of Paul's passion for Christ in those strong words? Do we too, measure everything against what we gain in Christ? Listen to this paraphrase from The Message:

"The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness.

I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it. " (Philippians 3:7-11 MSG)

And Paul goes on to say that he will strive alongside God to the end: "Not that I have already attained this – that is, I have not already been perfected – but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me." (v.3:12 NET). Remember Paul's earlier confident prayer in chapter 1 was that God would finish the work he began in the Philippians. Here we see that Paul too, considers the work not fully done in himself, but that he will run the race to the finish as hard as he can (pressing on).

Today, I don't want this blog to get in the way of your own contemplation of the message in Philippians 3. But I do want to challenge you to consider, to think through what Jesus is calling you to know, to be, and to do, as a partner in the working of His grace in your life. And that challenge applies equally to me.

Lazy Friday and thoughts on heresy. Philippians 2.

While it might look like it was a lazy Friday, since this post didn't hit the blog until today, it was actually a very busy Friday. Early in the day, though, as I read through Philippians 2, I was thinking about what to write about for the day. The demands of the day got in the way, but that didn't prevent me from thinking about the importance of this passage in the history of the church -- just from writing about it. I was specifically thinking about the usefulness of writing about heresy, the nature of Christ, etc. This isn't the usual sort of post on the blog, but I hope it will be of some use. The biggest problem with tackling this issue, is that short form writing doesn't lend itself to dense topic, so this will be a summary, at best.

Let's start by putting some Scripture here to look at:

"You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,
who though he existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself
by taking on the form of a slave,
by looking like other men,
and by sharing in human nature.

He humbled himself,
by becoming obedient to the point of death
– even death on a cross!
As a result God exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow
– 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." (Philippians 2:5-11 NET)

The translators have formatted this part of Paul's letter as verse, reflecting its poetic nature, and perhaps the fact that he's quoting a song or confessional statement of the early church. (For contrasting views as to whether this is an early church hymn or not, you can read treatments by Ralph P. Martin and Gordon D. Fee.) It' s not essential to our understanding to have this problem resolved, although if it is a confessional it would indicate that not only did Paul, and other NT writers, address the heretical threat of gnostic thinking, but that a formal recitation in church of orthodox doctrine was an important part of countering these heresies.

Let's get some definitions down, before we go any further.

orthodox - (of a person or their views, esp. religious or political ones, or other beliefs or practices) conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted as right or true; established and approved.

heresy - belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (esp. Christian) doctrine.

Gnosticism - a prominent heretical movement of the 2nd century Christian church, partly of pre-Christian origin. Gnostic doctrine taught that the world was created and ruled by a lesser divinity, the demiurge, and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being, esoteric knowledge (gnosis) of whom enabled the redemption of the human spirit.

Beyond this dictionary description of gnostic thinking, I would add that gnositicism definitely was around in the first century A.D., and consisted of a network of ideas and practices built around a dualism of material and spirit that separated God from creation. Because God was thought of as pure spirit, untouched by and un-touching matter, creation of the universe was delegated to that lesser being, the demi-urge.

When we read the letter to the Colossians, we'll see Paul writing even more specifically to deal with this heresy.

At this point, I want to mention why reading this passage triggered some thoughts in this direction, especially because I don't want us to lose the primary focus of Paul's writing in this chapter, which is that we are to have the same attitude as Christ, Who gave up everything for us. This is essential. And in a sense, it's that essential message that got me to thinking about the role of these verses in the early church. While Paul was using Christ's very nature to teach the Philippians a profound truth for their lives (and ours), these verses, especially v.2:6-8, became both the basis for a heresy, and a truth to combat heresy. It is that dual application of the text that intrigued me.

Most heresies, and for our purposes, all heresies, are predicated on an incorrect understanding of Jesus, the Christ. Typically, they fall into one of these categories: Jesus wasn't God, Jesus wasn't human, Jesus wasn't divine or human, or Jesus gave up everything divine to be human. My own opinion is that in some cases, those who hold unorthodox views do so, not out of malevolence, but out of the difficulty in understanding what is referred to as the "hypostatic union" that describes the incarnation of the Son in this world -- fully God, fully human. But from Paul's time, the church has had to face these inevitable wrong understandings of Jesus, and the trinity -- God as Father, Son, Holy Spirit. As movements, these heretical groups were much more than just groups of people who couldn't figure out who Jesus is -- they were a threat to the entire church and to the correct understanding of the gospel. And they often came from groups hostile to the church. Which is why Paul wrote his words to the Philippians, and as we'll see, the Colossians too.

Here's a basic classification of the early heresies, minus some of the nuances of difference between them:

Jesus was simply God
Docetism; Monophysitism

Jesus was not God but simply a creature
Arianism; Ebionitism

The Christ was part man and part God
Apollinarianism; Nestorianism; Monothelitism

Paul's clear delineation of Christ's divine origin, and humbling act to take on human form and sharing human nature was the answer to all three of these heretical positions. Not the only answer, and an answer that requires some unpacking for us, but nevertheless one that puts the Son in glory before incarnation, and in glory after resurrection. Some of the unpacking that we need has to do with two Greek words: morphe and kenoo, translated respectively as "form" and "emptied". See the words of the day for more details on these two words.

There is a recent movement in theology, although I have some recollection that this may have been part the Arianism heresy, that in the "emptying" or kenosis, the Son as Jesus was no longer divine in some sense. This is what I was referring to when I said that the Philippians passage has also led to a certain unorthodox viewpoint of Christ. And there are proponents of this point of view who point out that what they're referring to is not a missing divine nature in Jesus, but a choice of divine limitation, based on their understanding of the kenosis or emptying undergone by the Son.

This starts to get really fuzzy here. As humans, we can never fully comprehend how it is God entered history as Jesus. And I accept that some of the attempts at understanding what Paul meant by "emptied himself" are legitimate attempts to better understand it. But this hasn't been the orthodox view for more than 1500 years. I consider the treatment of the passage in this paper an excellent approach to understanding better what Paul meant. But before getting completely bogged down in this, I want to give you something that I hope will help in understanding the "hypostatic union" a little better.

We should be able to understand this union by thinking about ourselves. The relationship of our physical body and our souls is of some form of union where there is both no separation between them, and a recognizable separation. In the creed of Athanasius, the principles of Trinity are laid out, and this analogy is drawn: "As a rational soul and flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ." How does that work? As a rational soul, you can say "I will never die." But that statement is not true of your flesh, unless Jesus were to return before your physical death. The flip side of that statement is that as a physical being, as flesh, you can say "I won't live forever." And that statement is not true of your soul.

Taking that analogy and applying it to Jesus we can understand how He could say, "You are of this world, I am not of this world," which is true of His divine nature, and at the same time state that He doesn't know the hour of His return -- which is true of His human nature.

So what? Well, there is a so what that I think is important for us to keep in mind. First, remember Paul's primary thought - live and serve as Christ did. Second, the work of Christ on the cross is only one point in the story of God's redemption of humanity. Those of us who have said yes to follow Jesus are a part of that continuing work. In the case of the early church there were opposing influences from the culture that threatened the foundational thought of the gospel -- Jesus' incarnation, birth, death, and resurrection on our behalf. There was an entire world that had yet to hear that message. There were forces that physically opposed the church. And in various forms, or in different parts of the world, those opposing forces and remaining mission exist today. Let's keep at the tasks laid before us, with God's Words to guide us, and our sisters and brothers beside us. Amen.

The gift of suffering for Christ. Philippians 1.

Getting to suffer is a gift? Wait a minute, Paul, run that one by me again.

Well, who would know better than Paul? He's sitting in chains, not sure whether he'll live or die, and outside people are preaching the gospel with the motivation of causing him trouble. And yet Paul is able to say in this first chapter of Philippians, "I thank God when I remember you;" "I pray with joy for you;" "I pray that your love would flourish." Paul recognizes that even in the situation he's in, it's good to see the gospel advancing. He even rejoices in the fact that no matter what the motivation, it's good that the gospel is being preached.

We can conclude that Paul knows what he's talking about when he calls it a gift to suffer for Christ's sake, even if it's a stark truth to stare at. Before looking into this truth further, I want to back up just a bit, to the beginning of the paragraph (v.1:27) where Paul begins one long run-on sentence that ends with this truth, and that he faces with them. Here's the verse:

"Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ so that – whether I come and see you or whether I remain absent – I should hear that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, by contending side by side for the faith of the gospel, ..." (Philippians 1:27 NET)

The Greek in this verse, translated as "conduct yourselves" is literally, "live as citizens". As noted in the translators' notes in the NET Bible, the idea is to live as Roman freemen, something that carried privileges much of the populace of the Mediterranean didn't have. It would be somewhat the same as the privileges we have as American citizens compared to much of the world. Not slaves. Not kings. Basically equal to one another. Be citizens, then, with rights and responsibilities, who act in accordance with and in response to, the good news of Christ.

I think it's important to catch this idea of citizenship, because we might take this admonition as applying to us strictly as individuals. Of course, there is that aspect -- our individual behavior contributes to our collective behavior, and vice versa. But it's easy to miss the collective behavior aspect. In essence, Paul's admonition is to the community. Makes sense, since he's writing to the church at Philippi.

I went searching through my various translations, looking for something that captured the spirit of citizenship and community within the admonition for right living. The Amplified Bible uses citizen directly, and the New Living Translation and Today's New International Version both go ahead and say "as citizens of heaven". Finally, I turned to a translation that I look at from time to time by Andy Gaus, and I liked the fact that not only did he catch the idea of community, but he managed to do the translation of the paragraph as one long sentence. Here it is:

"Just act like a community worthy of the good news of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or whether I'm far away, what I hear about you is that you are standing firm, united in spirit, not at all abashed by your enemies, striving as one, joined by your belief in the good news, the belief that is the sign of their destruction and your salvation -- in both cases coming from God; since you were given the gift of being for Christ, not just believing in him but also suffering for him and facing the same battle that you saw me face and now hear that I am faced with again." (Philippians 1:27-30 The Unvarnished New Testament)

I think this understanding of community when it comes to worthy living is also helpful when we get to what Paul says about the gift we receive. In broad terms, the gift we receive is "being for Christ", both in belief and in action -- facing suffering. But we do it in community. And that helps.

For the Philippians, who did suffer, and as hard as it was to hear, Paul let them know this was something special. The history of the church demonstrates that it in times of persecution, the church flourishes. For us today, we may or may not suffer. But around the world, others are suffering for Christ's sake. And they are a part of our community. We need to recognize that. In line with our reading yesterday from Ephesians 6, we need to always keep on praying for all the saints. If you would like more specifics about the persecuted church, and how you can pray, go here or here. This is our community.