I WANT YOU to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. 13As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. 14Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.
15It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. 18But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Original Meaning
IN PAUL’S TIME when people wrote letters whose primary purpose was to inform a friend or family member of their circumstances, the transition from the initial greeting to the letter’s crucial information was often made with the statement, “I want you to know that….” The young soldier Theonas, writing to his mother from his military encampment, provides a good illustration of this kind of letter:
Theonas to his mother and lady, Tetheus, very many greetings. I want you to know that the reason I have not sent you a letter for such a long time is because I am in camp and not on account of illness; so do not worry yourself (about me). I was very grieved when I learned that you had heard (about me), for I did not fall seriously ill. And I blame the one who told you. Do not trouble yourself to send me anything. I received the presents from Herakleides. My brother, Dionytas, brought the present to me and I received your letter.1
The papyrus sheet on which the letter was written is damaged, and as a result the letter breaks off at this point, but enough has been said to show that Theonas was writing both to alleviate his mother’s concern with news about himself and to thank her for a gift. Paul wrote Philippians, in part, for similar reasons, and he begins to address these matters in 1:12. Like Theonas, he opens this section of his letter with the customary phrase, “I want you to know that….”
The Philippians were concerned about Paul’s condition in prison, as their gift to him through Epaphroditus shows (2:25; 4:10, 14); thus an important reason for Paul’s letter, which he sent back with Epaphroditus (2:24, 28–29), was to let them know his circumstances. He does this in 1:12–26. In the first part of this section (vv. 12–18a) he describes how his present circumstances have “served to advance (eis prokopen) the gospel” (v. 12), and in the second he reflects theologically on the two possibilities, death or release, that await him after his arraignment (vv. 18b–26). This second part of the section concludes with Paul’s statement that he believes he will be released for the Philippians’ “progress (eis ten … prokopen) and joy in the faith” (v. 25). The term prokope (“advancement, progress”) appears in only one other passage in the New Testament (1 Tim. 4:15), and Paul’s use of it at the beginning and end of this section probably has a deeper meaning than is readily apparent, especially in translation. He is showing his readers both the boundaries of the section itself and its primary concern—although at one level the purpose of the section is to inform the Philippians about Paul’s circumstances, at a deeper level it shows how God is advancing “the gospel” and “the faith” through those circumstances.
The NIV appropriately divides the first part of this section, 1:12–18a, into two paragraphs: verses 12–14 and verses 15–18a. In the first of these Paul breaks the surprising news that the circumstances that surround him—his imprisonment and impending trial—have not hindered his mission of preaching the gospel among the Gentiles but actually advanced it (v. 12). He then describes two ways in which this has happened (vv. 13–14). In the second paragraph Paul adds a detail about his circumstances that the Philippians probably did not know—that some believers in the city where he is imprisoned are opposing him. Nevertheless, he contends, even in this circumstance the gospel is progressing.
The Gospel Progresses Through Paul’s Imprisonment (1:12–14)
Paul begins the body of his letter with the statement that “what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.” The word “really” (mallon) can also be translated “rather” and shows that Paul felt that what he was writing would come as a surprise to the Philippians. They had heard he was in prison and were distressed by the news. Were the physical needs of their beloved apostle being met? Would he survive this encounter with the law? The journey of Epaphroditus to visit Paul and the gifts he brought were probably motivated by these concerns. The Philippians wanted to alleviate Paul’s suffering and to learn how he was faring. Paul knows this, and so the first line of the letter’s body breaks the surprising news that “what I have gone through has turned out to the furtherance of the gospel rather than otherwise” (Weymouth).
Such an unusual statement demands an explanation, and Paul provides it in verses 13–14. First, he says, the gospel has progressed through his circumstances because “it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else” that he is “in chains for Christ.” The phrase “for Christ” is literally “in Christ” and probably not only carries the connotation of being in prison for Christ’s sake but also of participating in Christ’s suffering by being in prison. The purpose of Christ’s suffering was the advancement of God’s redemptive work, and so it was an evil through which God effected great good for humanity (Rom. 3:21–26; 5:12–21; 2 Cor. 5:21). Paul believes that his own suffering, since its origin lies in his efforts to fulfill the “ministry of reconciliation” to which God has called him (2 Cor. 5:18), has the same quality (Phil. 3:10; cf. 2 Cor. 1:5; 4:7–15; Col. 1:24–29). Thus his imprisonment is not simply a result of his Christian commitment but is the necessary means through which Paul fulfills his calling. It is not only “for Christ” but “in Christ” as well.2
The unusual character of his suffering, Paul says, “has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else.” The adjective “clear” (phaneros) probably means “known for what it really is” and expresses the notion that although Paul’s imprisonment appeared at first glance to be truly miserable, on closer inspection its deeper significance came to light.3 The gospel has been advanced because both among the palace guard and among others who live in the area, it has become widely known that Paul is no ordinary prisoner. These observers have considered the apostle’s suffering, although on the surface as bitter as anyone else’s, to be for the cause of Christ and therefore in the service of his ministry of reconciliation. Paul, it seems, has had the opportunity to explain to many around him the reasons for his imprisonment, and in explaining, to show them how “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Cor. 5:19). Paul may be in chains, but the gospel has gone forward unfettered.
Second, the gospel has been advanced rather than hindered by Paul’s imprisonment because through it, according to verse 14, most of Paul’s Christian brothers have taken courage to proclaim the word more boldly. The rendering of this verse in the NIV needs two refinements. (1) Paul normally uses the term “brothers” of fellow Christians (see especially Rom. 8:29), and so to speak of “brothers in the Lord” would be redundant. It is better to take “in the Lord” with the phrase “have been encouraged” and to translate the sentence, “most of the brothers have been encouraged in the Lord to speak the word more courageously and fearlessly.”4 (2) The words “of God” are not present in the earliest manuscript of Philippians, and since scribes tended to add words to their copies rather than omit them, Paul probably did not include “of God.” This leaves the term “word” (logos) alone, but its meaning is no less clear. It refers here, as it often does in Paul’s letters, to the gospel, “the word of life,” as Paul will call it later (2:16; cf. 1 Cor. 1:18; 2:1; 14:36; 2 Cor. 4:2; 5:19).
If we put all this together, then Paul is saying that most of the Christians where he is have placed greater confidence in the Lord and have spoken the gospel more daringly and fearlessly than in the past because of his imprisonment. The reason why Paul’s imprisonment has produced greater boldness in others is not that Paul, as one commentator has argued, is about to be released. The proclamation of the word by these brothers could hardly be described as fearless and daring were that the case.5 Although we cannot know with certainty how Paul’s imprisonment inspired his fellow believers to speak the word more boldly, it does not seem unlikely that they were challenged by his example to be as courageous as he was in communicating the gospel to others.
To summarize, Paul says in verses 12–14 that his imprisonment, surprisingly, has caused the gospel’s progress. This progress can be measured by the way the gospel has swept through the ranks of those who live and work in the place of Paul’s imprisonment and by the inspiration that Paul’s circumstances have given to other believers to proclaim the gospel more boldly than ever before. The Philippians should not be concerned about Paul’s circumstances, for they have proven to be a vehicle for his ministry of reconciliation.
| THE STRUCTURE OF 1:15–18a | |
|---|---|
Paul’s Friends | Paul’s Rivals |
preach Christ | preach Christ |
out of goodwill | out of envy and rivalry |
in love | from selfishness, not sincerely |
knowing | supposing |
that I am put here | that they can stir up |
for the defense of | trouble for me while I |
the gospel | am in chains |
in truth | in falsehood |
The Gospel Progresses Through the Preaching of Paul’s Rivals (1:15–18a)
The troubled circumstances through which the gospel progresses, however, are not limited to Paul’s imprisonment. In verses 15–18a Paul divides into two groups the Christians whose boldness to speak the gospel has been strengthened by his imprisonment. Paul’s description of these groups is a carefully constructed piece of prose in which he balances the negative description of one group with a positive description of the other. One group is characterized by envy and rivalry, the other by goodwill. One group is motivated by love, knowing the truth about Paul’s suffering; the other is motivated by selfish ambition, supposing they will make his suffering worse. The motives of one group are false, the other true. The carefully balanced structure of the paragraph prepares the reader for Paul’s remarkable conclusion: Both preach Christ, and in this he rejoices. By balancing his description of the characteristics of the false group with that of the true, Paul rhetorically dismisses the effect of the false group on him. At the end of the day, after all their efforts to oppose Paul, they have only succeeded in doing the thing that matters most to him and the thing his friends also do: They have preached Christ.
Paul’s focus is on this satisfying end result, not on the identity of either group. It is not surprising, then, that he gives only the most general information about the two groups and makes a positive identification of them impossible.6 Those whose preaching is motivated “out of goodwill” and “love” for Paul understand the cruciform shape of Paul’s ministry of reconciliation. They know that God has “put” Paul in prison “for the defense of the gospel” (v. 16), that, despite appearances, these circumstances are part of God’s strategy for advancing the gospel just as, despite appearances, God used the supposedly foolish message of the cross to demonstrate his wisdom and power to save (1 Cor. 1:18–25).
Those whose preaching is motivated “out of envy and rivalry” are not, as some commentators have thought, Judaizing opponents similar to the troublemakers in Galatia.7 Those opponents preached “a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all” (Gal. 1:6–7), a point of intense distress for Paul—but these “preach Christ,” and Paul can therefore rejoice in their preaching (Phil. 1:15–16, 18a). Nor are these opponents, as others have thought, members of the group of “false apostles” who invaded Paul’s Corinthian church (2 Cor. 11:13–14) and denigrated Paul for his powerless demeanor (10:10; 11:21, 30; 13:4).8 It is difficult to see how this group could have been encouraged by Paul’s imprisonment to preach the gospel more daringly and fearlessly (Phil. 1:14). These rivals to Paul instead seem to oppose the apostle for personal reasons and to have used Paul’s imprisonment as an opportunity to advance their personal agendas.9 Their preaching of the gospel, then, is motivated by “selfish ambition,” and they imagine that as they freely seek to persuade people to join their party, Paul himself looks on with envy from his imprisonment (v. 17). Why any group would do this is impossible to determine from the distance of twenty centuries, but we know from early witnesses that Paul had a wide variety of detractors. Usually those groups preached a gospel that he considered heretical, but not always, and the rivals who stand behind this passage must belong to one of the more orthodox groups.10
To pay too much attention to the identity of the two groups whom Paul’s imprisonment had emboldened to preach, however, is to miss the point of the passage. As the balanced rhetoric of the passage shows, Paul’s concern is not with the groups themselves but with the advancement of the gospel. Ultimately the stance of either group toward Paul does not matter, for “the important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached,” and this gives Paul joy (v. 18a). Just as Paul’s joy in verse 4 was connected with the participation of the Philippians in his own ministry so that the gospel might go forward, so here Paul rejoices that despite his imprisonment and the personal animosity of some fellow Christians, the gospel is being preached. Ultimately, for Paul, this is all that matters.
Bridging Contexts
THE PRIMARY POINT. The theological principle lying at the foundation of this passage and supplying the motivation for virtually everything Paul says in it is that human circumstances lie in God’s hands and that God uses them to advance the gospel. This principle emerges from the passage with special clarity in two ways. First, the Philippians would have expected this section of the letter to give them news about how Paul was doing personally. Epaphroditus had carried a gift intended to alleviate some of Paul’s misery in prison (4:10–20), and when the Philippians saw a papyrus package in Epaphroditus’ hand on his return, they would have expected it to contain Paul’s own description of his condition. This expectation would only have been heightened when Paul passed from the greeting and prayer section of the letter to its body with the customary words, “Now I want you to know … that….”
What follows, however, supplies little information about Paul’s personal condition. The Philippians would have to ask Epaphroditus whether Paul was sick or well, cold at night or comfortable, and alone or with other prisoners, and whether he was being treated with kindness by his guards. Instead of reporting how he was doing, Paul talks about how the gospel is doing. As Karl Barth says:
He just would not be an apostle if he could speak objectively about his own situation in abstraction from the course of the Gospel, to which he has sacrificed his subjectivity and therewith also all objective interest in his person. To the question how it is with him the apostle must react with information as to how it is with the Gospel.11
Second, Paul’s response to the fellow believers who have tried to “stir up trouble for [him]” shows vividly that he has placed his own circumstances under the authority of God and is convinced that God is using them to accomplish his purposes. Here he puts into practice the advice he had given to others. “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?” he had said to the Corinthian believers when he heard that some were taking others before pagan judges to try to force them to redress various injustices (1 Cor. 6:7). His point was that it was more important for the church to be the church than for its members to receive the personal satisfaction of winning lawsuits against fellow believers. Now Paul himself faces people who have wronged him, and, consistent with his advice to the Corinthians, his response is to subordinate his personal agenda to God’s. Shrugging off their animosity, he rejoices that they preach Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 4:13a).
This is the primary theological freight that we should move from the original context of this passage into our own context. When difficult, even life-threatening, circumstances face us, we should take Paul as our example and look for how God might be working in such circumstances to advance the gospel either in our lives or in the lives of others. When fellow Christians tighten the shackles on our wrists rather than seek to alleviate our pain, and when they take advantage of our difficult circumstances to promote their own goals, we should remember Paul’s perspective. What matters most is whether or not the gospel is going forward. If it is, then we should rejoice.
Much in the culture of modern technologically based societies makes this primary point more difficult for today’s Christian to swallow than it was for the Philippians. In the ancient Hellenistic world in which Paul worked and wrote, atheism and materialism in the modern senses of those terms were virtually nonexistent. Everyone believed in the existence of the gods, and only an elite few held anything comparable to the modern notion that God, if he existed, was irrelevant to human affairs.12 But that notion is widespread in technologically advanced cultures today. In contemporary cultures, life’s goals are often articulated in strictly materialistic or, at best, humanistic terms. “The one who dies with the most toys wins” announces the bumper of a van parked outside a child-care center in my suburban neighborhood. Even those who would articulate their life’s goals in the more noble terms of alleviating human suffering or creating a more just society often do so in strictly human terms with no reference to God.13
Paul, then, could assume that his Philippian readers were familiar with the notion of God’s transcendence, but our culture pushes us to deny or forget this. What can we do to counteract its influence? A useful antidote is to remind ourselves frequently of evidence from the past that God has been at work in the church. Christians should be familiar with the outlines of church history from its beginnings to the present day and should make the accounts of God’s mighty acts among his people in the Bible, the classic church historians, and well-documented modern testimonies frequent reading.14 Thus when God’s purposes seem far from our own suffering, we can remind ourselves through the example of others that he is nevertheless at work.
Three Implications. Three subsidiary points of this passage reverberate from this primary point. First, the passage demonstrates indirectly the value of finding believers who can serve as examples of how to grapple with suffering in the way a Christian should. Paul’s imprisonment had given the believers around him greater confidence in the Lord, spurring them to proclaim the gospel more boldly than they had in the past. Although this passage contains no direct command to this effect, Paul elsewhere in the letter encourages the Philippians to compare their own hardship with his (1:30; cf. 2 Tim. 2:3) and tells them to imitate his example (Phil. 3:17; 4:9). It seems likely that part of his purpose in recording these words for the Philippians is to provide them with an example for how they should think about their own hardships (1:28–30). That kind of imitation has value: By seeing Paul’s willingness to make the advancement of the gospel the most important aspect of his life, others have been challenged to preach the gospel with daring and fearlessness, and the Philippians hear a challenge to do the same.
To be sure, we too should accept the challenge of Paul’s own courage. This passage shows the value in taking anyone as an example who has followed in Paul’s footsteps (cf. 3:17). In bringing the passage out of Paul’s time and into our own, then, it seems appropriate to find modern analogies to Paul’s courageous devotion to the gospel under adversity and to his perspective on this adversity as a means for the advancement of the gospel.
Second, the passage demonstrates an important principle of Pauline theology, one often missed by modern Christians, particularly in the affluent West. God works not merely in spite of but through adverse circumstances. He chose the foolishness of the cross to accomplish his redemptive purposes (1 Cor. 1:18), he chose the foolish things of this world to redeem (1:27), and he chose an apostle whose physical and emotional condition could be compared with “jars of clay” to bear the message of redemption (2 Cor. 4:7–12; cf. 1 Cor. 4:8–13; 2 Cor. 11:21–33). God chose to work through these means in order to demonstrate that the advancement of the gospel was God’s doing rather than a matter of human ingenuity (1 Cor. 1:29; 2 Cor. 4:7). Thus Paul is not surprised that God has turned his imprisonment and the jealousy of his rivals into means for the advancement of the gospel. This is God’s typical way of working.
As we take Philippians 1:12–18a out of the Philippians’ hands and put it in the modern church, we should be careful to preserve Paul’s perspective on the way God works. We are not likely to find the greatest advances of the gospel within the circles of prestige, power, and wealth so pervasive in the West. We should expect instead that the gospel will make the greatest strides in places where no doubt exists that God is the agent of the work.
Third, this passage shows that when our joy is connected to the advancement of the gospel rather than to our physical condition or to the responses of other people to us, it remains firm, even when these circumstances stand against us. Paul could be joyful not only when those filled with goodwill and love toward him preached Christ, but also when the messengers of the gospel viewed themselves as his enemies and rivals. The fellowship of the modern church lies in tatters because of rivalry over turf, competition for money and influence, and petty theological disagreements. As we move from Paul’s world into ours, then, we need to apply the healing salve of Paul’s perspective to the divisions among Christians that touch our lives.
A Few Red Herrings. This passage is, as we have seen, rich in theological nourishment, but its message can be seriously contaminated by the temptation it presents to stray from the path it marks out. Some popular expositions of the passage, for example, fill in the historical gaps that the passage leaves with elaborate reconstructions of Paul’s prison conditions. It is held to be certain that he is in Rome and often that this is his final imprisonment before death. Thus one expositor places him “at the end of a strenuous career, confined to prison, awaiting his probable execution, with only a faint hope of release.”15 Another builds on the thesis that Paul’s imprisonment is the one recorded in Acts 28, the further thesis that Paul was able to spread the gospel throughout the praetorian guard by means of the soldiers who took turns guarding him.16
All such theories need to be drenched with a cold bucketful of exegetical reality. No one knows where Paul was imprisoned when he wrote Philippians, but even if it were certain that he was in Rome, it is unlikely that this imprisonment was his last.17 Second Timothy also refers to a Roman imprisonment, and, unless we think that that letter is a forgery, it seems unwise to assume that Philippians is Paul’s final letter and the imprisonment to which he refers his final imprisonment. To claim that the soldiers who guarded Paul opened the door for the gospel’s proclamation among the praetorian guard, moreover, simply goes beyond the evidence of anything in Scripture. Acts does say that Paul stayed by himself in Rome with a soldier guarding him (Acts 28:16), and we know that guards were usually manacled to prisoners under house arrest, but the text contains no hint that these guards were eager to hear the gospel.18 Perhaps they were, and perhaps they told their comrades of it; but since this is only a guess, it forms a shaky foundation on which to construct an interpretation of the passage.
There is no need, in any case, to go beyond the text to make the point that Paul’s circumstances were bleak but that God enabled Paul to use his ingenuity to communicate the gospel through these bleak circumstances. We have no reason to think that ancient imprisonment of any sort and in any location was comfortable and pleasant. Whatever the details of Paul’s contact with the praetorian guard, it is simply remarkable that they all understood that Paul was in chains for proclaiming that God had turned the crucifixion of the Jewish Messiah into good news. God had transformed Paul’s dismal circumstances into a means for the powerful advancement of the gospel. That is Paul’s primary point, and in transporting this passage from Paul’s world into our own, we should avoid chasing other fish.
A more serious detour from the theological path marked out by this passage would be to misunderstand Paul’s comments in verses 15–18a to mean that the motives of the preacher of the gospel are unimportant, that as long as the gospel is preached, good is being accomplished, and that we should not worry much about who does the preaching or why they do it. That the motives and style of those who proclaim the gospel are not a matter of indifference to Paul is clear from his other letters. In 1 Thessalonians 2:1–12 Paul explains at length that his own motives in preaching to the Thessalonians were pure, not motivated by flattery or greed. In Thessalonica, Corinth, and probably Ephesus, Paul worked with his hands. Part of the reason for this was probably to provide himself with a forum for evangelism, but another reason was so that he might not be dependent for support upon gifts from those to whom he ministered, thereby opening the door to rumor and scandal about his motives for preaching the gospel (1 Cor. 9:12b; 2 Cor. 11:7–9; 1 Thess. 1:5, 9).19 Paul’s quarrel with the “false apostles” of 2 Corinthians 10–13, moreover, focused not so much on the content of their gospel as on their personal demeanor and the way in which they proclaimed their message. They compared themselves to others (2 Cor. 10:12–18), especially to Paul, in a boastful spirit, claiming that they bested him in their speaking ability (11:6), their Jewish heritage (11:22), and their ability to work astonishing feats (12:12). And they used highhanded tactics to gain a following and keep it loyal (11:20). That motives in proclaiming the gospel were important to Paul, therefore, is clear.
What, then, could Paul mean when in Philippians he dismisses the preaching of his rivals with the comment, “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached” (1:18a)? The answer to this puzzle lies in the difference in the circumstances that Paul confronts in Philippians and in the other letters where he discusses the importance of motives in preaching. In the other letters Paul was speaking directly to the people who might be convinced that his motives were impure or who had fallen under the spell of those whose motives were impure. This letter, on the other hand, is addressed neither to Paul’s rivals nor to people who have fallen under their influence.
Moreover, Paul is in prison and therefore powerless to stop the activity of his rivals or even to communicate with them about it. Laying out the case against his opponents’ tactics would hardly do the Philippians any good and would put their focus back on Paul and his circumstances rather than on the gospel, where he wanted it. Thus Paul’s focus remains on God’s ability to make people with perverse motives serve his ends. The insincere preaching of these rivals stands parallel to Paul’s imprisonment: Both are evil, but God is able to use them for his redemptive purposes. There is no lightheartedness here about the tactics of Paul’s rivals, only joy that, as Paul says in another context, “where sin increased, grace increased all the more” (Rom. 5:20).
Perhaps the most harmful detour of all in interpreting this passage, however, would be to misconstrue Paul’s approach in it to suffering. This passage contains no implicit claim that suffering is good, that God is its author, that the mysterious paradoxes that surround it have suddenly been solved, or that Christians should plaster smiles on their faces when they experience it and pretend that hardship is a joyful experience. When Paul says that his rivals have “raised up affliction for me in my imprisonment” (v. 17), he acknowledges that his imprisonment is an affliction and that his opponents have made it worse. His joy, moreover, is not because of the affliction or even in spite of it but because Christ is being preached. The suffering is real, and nothing Paul says implies that in itself it is good. Instead, in this passage God triumphs over suffering by using it as a tool to accomplish his goals.
There is no easy solution in this passage to the problem of suffering and no denial of its severity. The passage shows God at work in preventing pain from prevailing, however, and it offers hope that God will redeem the suffering that his people experience in order to bring eternal good out of it.20
Contemporary Significance
THOSE OF US who constitute the church in Western democracies need to be reminded that the God of the Bible typically works not through the channels of economic and political power that are so accessible to us, but through the weakness and suffering that the world tells us to avoid at all costs. The oppression of the church under Marxist regimes during the past half century has provided a treasury of examples of how God’s purpose triumphs despite all that human ingenuity can do to frustrate it and of how God even uses the suffering of the church to advance the gospel. Despite the imprisonment, torture, and execution of Christians in Eastern Europe during the era of the Cold War, and despite an all-out effort to teach the young that religion was the retreat of fools, by the 1980s most Marxist and Communist regimes recognized that their policies had failed. Church attendance had certainly declined during their years in power, but it had also declined in the West, and polls taken by these repressive governments consistently revealed that significant numbers of old and young alike continued to believe in God, to attend worship, to be married in the church, and to seek baptism for their children. Toward the end of their power, many of these governments simply gave up most of their repressive measures: The church had triumphed.21
Cuba provides an instructive case study. Five years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, theologian Thomas Oden visited congregations in the Methodist Church of Cuba and discovered that despite thirty-five years of oppression and miserable economic conditions, the Methodists had grown from a low of 6,000 to over 50,000 members. Nothing short of a spiritual revolution reminiscent of Acts 2, said Oden, had taken place.22 Much of this spiritual and numerical growth, moreover, could be attributed to people, both young and old, who had grown weary of the official atheist party line and turned to the church to find a more satisfying answer to the meaning of life. During the previous four decades, the best efforts of Fidel Castro’s tyrannical regime had not succeeded in stamping out the church. Despite the personal cost of everything from a chance at a university education to long prison terms, Christians had remained faithful and the church had grown.
After reading Oden’s report, it is hard not to wonder if the explosion of interest in the gospel after Fidel Castro relented and allowed the church a measure of freedom was in part due to the admiration that people felt for the church’s constancy over many years. However that may be, there can be no doubt that the grim economic times that plagued Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union opened doors of opportunity for the gospel. One long-time Cuban believer made these observations:
The search for meaning is just as crucial as the search for bread. While the economy around us is falling apart, Christians are living in a state of special grace. It is not difficult for Cubans to see the difference between the people of God and those who are desperately trying to live without faith. Ordinary Cubans are becoming aware of the church as a life-saving community of hope.23
God continues to advance the gospel through the weakness and suffering of his people today. This does not make that suffering good, of course, and we should work to alleviate the suffering of our Christian brothers and sisters everywhere, but it illustrates that beautifully appointed buildings, large parking lots, and programs designed to attract demanding church shoppers do not guarantee that God is at work. God typically works through means the world rejects.
The church at the turn of the twentieth century also needs to remember the encouragement that Christians who have shown courage amid difficult circumstances can provide to other believers. We do well to honor the recent heroes of the faith, not merely out of gratitude to God for their faithfulness, but in order to instruct others on how to be faithful during periods of personal and general crisis. The stories of heroic Christians who in the name of the gospel defied the twisted notions of genetic and racial purity of the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s can inspire Christians to remain faithful to the biblical perspective on the value of all human life today. Martin Niemöller was imprisoned, Karl Barth exiled, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer executed because of their resistance in the name of the gospel to Nazi-imposed policies.24
The church today needs to follow the example of these courageous Christians in its efforts to work for public policies that show mercy to the poor, encourage peace, and spare the lives of the unborn. Thankfully, because Christians in North America and most of the West live under democracies rather than under tyrannical governments, we can work effectively for these goals through vigorous public debate without having to go to prison. Nevertheless, the courage of these recent spiritual forebears should inspire the church to remain firm in its theological commitments, no matter how unpopular they become, and to be willing to sacrifice everything for what the gospel proclaims to be right.
The recent history of Christian missions also provides a treasury of examples of courage that inspire Christian commitment to labor sacrificially in the harvest fields of the world. The story of Jim, Elisabeth, and Valerie Elliot and their labor among the Quichua and Auca ethnic groups of Ecuador has become a monumental example of faithfulness among evangelical Christians to the gospel’s missionary mandate.25 And rightfully so. After Jim and four other missionaries lost their lives trying to establish contact with the Aucas, Elisabeth herself established contact with the tribe and went with her young daughter, Valerie, to live among them so that she might learn their language, reduce it to writing, and explain the gospel to them. Despite the emotional and physical hardship of life in the jungle among people whose language and culture neither she nor any other outsider understood, Elisabeth pressed forward in obedience and accomplished the work that God had given her to do. In her commitment to communicate the gospel in the face of loss and hardship, Elisabeth Elliot acted in the spirit of the imprisoned Paul.
Modern believers in the relative comfort of established churches in the West can profit spiritually from a study of such people as they attempt to apply the theological principles of Philippians 1:14 to themselves. Whatever our own “chains” might be, we can look for ways in which the gospel might be advanced through them. Ridicule for our commitment to the gospel from family members or coworkers, a feeling of alienation from the wider society because of its thoroughly secular orientation, or even lack of understanding from a church that has itself become too thoroughly accommodated to its culture are all ways in which forces beyond the believer’s control can shackle the believer. In such situations our response, like Paul’s and so many courageous Christians after him, should not be a gloomy focus on the pain of the circumstances themselves, but a joyful attempt to discover ways of communicating the gospel in the midst of difficulty.
This passage, finally, teaches the modern church something about the nature of joy. It is not the self-satisfied delight that everything is going our way, but the settled peace that arises from making the gospel the focus of life and from understanding that God is able to advance the gospel under the most difficult circumstances. Paul was at peace with his circumstances despite his unjust imprisonment and the presence of fellow believers who took advantage of his suffering to advance their own selfish ambitions. The reason for this remarkable attitude was that the advancement of the gospel was his primary goal in life. As a result, if his own adversity was the occasion through which the gospel could gain a wider hearing, then Paul could face that adversity with equanimity. If, in our own circumstances, we lack this kind of joy, then perhaps we should search our souls to be sure that our happiness is not more firmly connected to our physical and emotional comfort than to the goals of the gospel.
Specifically, this passage urges the modern church to recognize that God can sometimes use people whose Christian commitment is self-serving and insincere to advance the cause of the gospel. This does not mean approving of their motives or their methods, but it does mean not despairing that the insincere proclamation of the gospel will hopelessly confuse those who hear, damage the work of legitimate Christian ministers beyond repair, or somehow taint the faith of people who sincerely believe as the result of an unworthy witness. The clear teaching of Paul’s statement in Philippians 1:18a is that God is able to prosper the preaching even of the insincere and to use it to advance the gospel.
The Donatist controversy in the fourth-and fifth-century church is instructive on this point. In the terrible persecutions under the Roman Emperor Diocletian (A.D. 245–313), the emperor’s soldiers invaded many churches and demanded that the priests hand over any copies of the Scriptures so that they could be burned. Many refused to do so and paid with their lives, but some relented out of fear and stood by while the Scriptures were consigned to the flames. After the persecution subsided, any priest who had spared his life in this way was labeled a traditor and was forced out of the ranks of the clergy. The Donatists believed that any clergyman ordained by a traditor between the time of his unfaithfulness and the canceling of his ordination was somehow affected by that unfaithfulness and could not be considered a duly consecrated priest. The majority believed, however, that God himself made the sacraments valid, not the priest who officiated over them, and that no human unfaithfulness could thwart God’s designs for good.
Philippians 1:18a shows that the majority were right. God can use unscrupulous televangelists, money-grubbing radio preachers, and sophisticated but unbelieving clergy to communicate his truth. The work is God’s, and when we find ourselves surrounded by unfaithful people of the church who do not respond to our pleas that they mend their ways, our joy will remain intact if we remember that God is in control and that wherever Christ is preached, God can advance the gospel.