Paul doesn’t write his letters just because it’s a nice hobby. His letters always come in response to questions, updates, and crises. And he waits until the close of his letter to the Philippian church to finally address the concrete reason for writing the letter. The church in Philippi has commissioned one of their own, a man named Epaphroditus, to find Paul and deliver to him a monetary gift (churches have been sending money to missionaries since the beginning). In…

The peace of God will guard your hearts (Philippians 4:7), and the God of peace will be with you. (4:9). Paul repeatedly calls the Philippian church to experience joy because it is a church in need of joy. And we see here in chapter 4 that it is also a church in need of peace. This gospel of the peace of God and God of peace is exactly what would have drawn the Philippians away from their pagan roots and…

The Paul we meet in Philippians 3 is happy to experience loss, happy to relinquish all the things, all the titles and accomplishments that he once thought made him so important. Paul is happy even to die, because he knows that on the other side of death is resurrection. He knows that in death God is still moving him forward. The whole, long journey of life, for Paul, is the forgetting of what came before and the straining forward to…

How should Paul begin his letter to a confused and stressed-out church in Philippi? He immediately jumps into the deep end of his feelings for them, speaking of gratitude, joy, compassion and fellowship (Philippians 1:3-11). This fellowship comes from the Greek word koinonia, which on one level means, “we’re here together and I’ve got your back.” And on an even deeper level it means true oneness within the church, or as he’ll go on to say in chapter 2: “be…