Notes

1. See F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 7.

2. See the ancient descriptions of Philippi in Appian (b. ca. A.D. 90), Bella Civilia, 4.105, and Dio Cassius (fl. A.D. 194–229), 47.35; see also the extensive photographs in Paul Collart, Philippes: ville de Macédoine, depuis ses origines jusqu’à la fin de l’époque romaine (Paris: École Française d’Athènes, 1937).

3. The battle is described in Appian, Bella Civilia, 4.105–131, and Dio Cassius, 47.35–49.

4. See the useful article on Philippi by G. L. Borchert in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, rev. ed., ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Everett F. Harrison, Roland K. Harrison, and William Sanford LaSor, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979–88), 3:834–36.

5. This pride is clearly visible in the slave owners’ accusation against Paul and Silas in Acts 16:21. Although the slave owners themselves were more interested in having their seedy means of income restored than in anything else, they played upon the patriotism of the magistrates and the assembled crowd when they said that Paul and Silas were advocating customs unlawful for “us Romans” to practice.

6. See O’Brien, Philippians, 4; Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, 220; Pheme Perkins, “Philippians: Theology for the Heavenly Politeuma,” Pauline Theology. Volume I: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon, ed. Jouette M. Bassler (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1991), 89–104, esp. p. 93; Collart, Philippes: ville de Macédoine, 412.

7. Acts 16:12, in the NIV, says that Philippi was “the leading city of that district of Macedonia.” Macedonia had been divided into four districts after the Romans conquered it in 167 B.C. and Philippi was in the first district. The leading city of that district was Amphipolis rather than Philippi, making it more probable that some Latin texts of the New Testament preserve the correct reading of Acts 16:12: “a city of the first district of Macedonia.” See Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 494. Philippi was, nevertheless, an important city in the district.

8. See Rom. 1:13; 15:20–22; 2 Cor. 1:12–2:4.

9. The “we” in Acts 16:10 shows that Luke had joined Paul, Silas, and Timothy for the trip to Macedonia.

10. The place of prayer may have been by the river, however, to facilitate the ritual washings required by Jewish custom. See E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law From Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies (London/Philadelphia: SCM Press/Trinity Press International, 1990), 259.

11. See, for example, the description of the Jews in Tacitus (b. ca. 56), Historiae, 5.

12. Lydia appears to have been the only person in the Philippian church of any means. On the question of Paul’s monetary relationships with his churches, especially as they touch Paul’s collection for the Christians in Jerusalem, see Verlyn D. Verbrugge, Paul’s Style of Church Leadership Illustrated by His Instructions to the Corinthians on the Collection (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1992), 118–27.

13. Some scholars believe that Philippians belongs to a class of letters known in ancient rhetorical handbooks as the “friendly type” (philikos typos). Such letters frequently mentioned the author’s longing to be with his or her friends (cf. 1:7, 8; 4:1), emphasized the unity and reciprocity necessary for friendship (cf. 1:5, 7; 2:17–18; 4:14–15), stressed that friends are of one mind (cf. 1:27; 2:2), and recognized that friends often have common enemies (cf. 1:29–30). See Stanley K. Stowers, “Friends and Enemies in the Politics of Heaven: Reading Theology in Philippians,” Pauline Theology. Volume I: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon, ed. Jouette M. Bassler (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1991), 105–21, esp. 107–14.

14. This position was current as early as the second century as its preservation in the Marcionite prologue to Philippians indicates: “The Philippians are Macedonians. Having received the word of truth they persevered in the faith, and did not accept false apostles. The apostle commends them, writing to them from prison in Rome.” See F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 142. It is also the position of, for example, Bruce, Philippians, 23–26; Silva (with reservations), Philippians, 8; and O’Brien, Philippians, 25.

15. The “praetorians” were bodyguards to the emperor and his family. For a brief summary of their history, see Henry Michael Denne Parker and George Ronald Watson, “Praetorians,” The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2d ed., ed. N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 873–74.

16. See Bruce, Philippians, xxv; O’Brien, Philippians, 25.

17. See, for example, Michael, Philippians, xii–xxi; Bonnard, Philippiens, 10; Collange, Philippians, 15–19.

18. See Silva, Philippians, 6–7; for the ease and frequency with which travel could be undertaken in Roman times, see Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 115–329. Advocates of a Roman imprisonment have also pointed out that the number of journeys actually required by Paul’s statements in Philippians can be reduced if we assume that Epaphroditus became ill on his way to Paul (cf. 2:30), sent word of his illness back to the Philippians, and simply assumed that when they heard it they would be worried about him.

19. Paul sounds one slightly negative note about the Philippians’ doctrinal leanings in 3:15, but it probably means only that some slight deviation in the direction of an over-spiritualized gospel was present at Philippi.

20. Contrast Paul’s language, for example, in Gal. 1:6–9; 3:1; 4:11, 15–16; 5:7; 6:17; 1 Cor. 3:1–4; 4:8, 18; 6:5a; 11:17; 2 Cor. 11:19–20; 12:1, 20–21; 13:1–10.

21. For a similar attempt to connect the spirituality of the Corinthians with this section of Philippians, see Robert Jewett, “Conflicting Movements in the Early Church As Reflected in Philippians,” Novum Testamentum 12 (1970): 362–90.

22. See Gordon D. Fee, Gospel and Spirit: Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991), 24–36.

23. See Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 45–77.

24. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 21.

25. See Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 1–8.

26. Ibid., 245–46, 256.

27. These notions are endlessly recycled in the mass of pamphlets produced by Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth E. Hagin. See, for example, Copeland’s Laws of Prosperity (Fort Worth, Tex.: KCP Publications, 1974), and Hagin’s Redeemed From Poverty, Sickness, and Spiritual Death, 2d ed. (Tulsa, Okla.: RHEMA Bible Church, 1983).

28. As Robert T. Fortna argues in “Philippians: Paul’s Most Egocentric Letter,” The Conversation Continues: Studies in Paul and John in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, ed. Robert T. Fortna and Beverly R. Gaventa (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1990), 220–34.

29. This outline, and the commentary generally, assume the unity of the letter. As the bibliography reveals, some scholars believe that our canonical Philippians is a composite document made up of two or more fragments of letters that Paul sent to Philippi. For a thorough examination of these theories and a cogent case for the unity of the letter, see David E. Garland, “The Composition and Unity of Philippians: Some Neglected Literary Factors,” Novum Testamentum 27 (1985): 141–73.

1. The text of these letters appears in John L. White, Light From Ancient Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 121–24.

2. See Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), xvi–xviii; Witherington, Friendship and Finances in Philippi, 30–31. A helpful and readable description of slavery in the Roman Empire can be found in Paul Veyne’s essay on “The Roman Empire,” A History of Private Life From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, ed. Paul Veyne (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 51–70.

3. The terms “overseers” (episkopoi) and “deacons” (diakonoi) probably refer to two distinct offices of leadership within the Philippian church (cf. 1 Tim. 3:3–13), although precisely how they were distinguished from one another in Philippi is not clear. Since the “overseer” is elsewhere described as someone “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2; cf. 5:17; Titus 1:9; cf. Acts 20:28–31), a quality not required of the deacon (1 Tim. 3:8–10), and since the word “deacon” in its unofficial sense referred to one who waited on tables, it is possible that overseers were charged with teaching and guarding Christian doctrine whereas deacons were responsible for administrative matters. See Hermann Wolfgang Beyer, “διακονέω, κτλ.” and “ἐπισκόπτομαι, κτλ.,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76), 2:81–93, 599–622.

4. It is probably not insignificant that the Roman and Corinthian communities were, like the Philippian church, having trouble with divisiveness. See, for example, 1 Cor. 1:12–13; 3:4; 6:1; 8:10–12; 11:17–19; 12:12–26; and Rom. 14:1–15:13.

5. In 1 Tim. 1:2 and 2 Tim. 1:2, Paul varies his custom slightly by inserting the term “mercy” between “grace” and “peace.”

6. White, Light From Ancient Letters, 65. On the functions of the opening thanksgiving prayers in Paul’s letters, see Paul Schubert, Form and Function of the Pauline Thanksgivings (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1939); Peter Thomas O’Brien, Introductory Thanksgivings in the Letters of Paul (Leiden: Brill, 1977).

7. Schubert, Form and Function, 161–64, 180, points out that thanksgiving prayers in ancient letters outside the New Testament often introduce the subject of the letters in which they occur. But it is fair to say that Paul’s thanksgiving prayers anticipate the themes of his letters in far greater detail than do the thanksgiving prayers in most private letters from his time.

8. See J. Hainz, “κοινωνός,” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990–93), 2:303–5; Witherington, Friendship and Finances in Philippi, 37–38.

9. The comments of Silva, Philippians, 50–52, on this aspect of v. 6 are especially helpful.

10. See 2 Cor. 9:6–15, which provides an illuminating parallel to this passage. Here Paul urges the churches in Achaia to give to his collection for the needy believers in Jerusalem by reminding them that God in his grace will give them both the resources and the desire to “abound in every good work” (v. 8). The result, Paul says, will not only be the meeting of the needs of God’s people but “many expressions of thanks to God” (v. 12; cf. v. 11). This kind of obedience, which lies in the future for the Achaeans, lies in the past for the Philippians and has already resulted, according to Phil. 1:3–8, in Paul’s frequent prayers of thanksgiving.

11. The KJV takes the phrase “with me” as the possessive pronoun “my” and translates, “ye all are partakers of my grace.” Although this is probably not the best rendering of the Greek (“grace” should go with “partakers,” as the NIV has it), it nevertheless correctly captures Paul’s meaning.

12. See Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt. and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 190.

13. See the valuable discussion on interpreting the New Testament letters in Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 61–77.

14. See the comments of William G. Doty, Letters in Primitive Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973), 21–22, and compare Paul’s letter openings with the predictable letter openings in White, Light From Ancient Letters. For the influence of Paul’s innovation on later Christian letter writers, see, for example, 1 Peter 1:1–2; 2 Peter 1:1–2; and the salutations in the letters of Ignatius.

15. O’Brien, Philippians, 78.

16. See Seneca’s Epistulae XLVII for a revealing description of the inhumanity with which slaves were sometimes treated and a commentary on the resulting mutual fear that often characterized the slave-master relationship.

17. See the comments of C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975–79), 1:325–26.

18. Karl Barth, Philippians, 10.

19. Oden first recounted the incident in “Encountering the Goddess at Church,” Christianity Today (August 16, 1993), 18. A more complete account and a theological explanation of his withdrawal appears in his Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 27–32, 140–51.

20. A similar effort with many of the same goals is the partnership of Rock Church and Circle Urban Ministries in Chicago. For the compelling story of these two institutions, see Raleigh Washington and Glen Kehrein, Breaking Down Walls: A Model for Reconciliation in an Age of Racial Strife (Chicago: Moody Press, 1993).

21. See also 2 Cor. 11:9, where Paul mentions that while he was in Corinth (in the province of Achaia), “brothers who came from Macedonia” supported his ministry. These brothers probably included Philippians.

22. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Deitrich Bonhoeffer Werke, vol. 5, Gemeinsames Leben, Das Gebetbuch der Bible, ed. Gerhard Ludwig Müller and Albrecht Schönherr (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1987), 95. Cf. Life Together, 113.

23. Bonhoeffer, Gemeinsames Leben, 30; cf. Life Together, 35.

24. See, for example, the letter of Publius Servillius Galba to the city of Miletus recorded in Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae 14.244–46 (21), which demands that the city retract its anti-Jewish laws. See also Seneca the Younger’s Epistulae, in which that author argues the case for Stoic philosophy. Cicero wrote some 931 extant letters, many of which he knew would be published and in which he often argued a political position.

25. For a discussion on the growing popularity of the visual and performing arts in North American culture and on the work of several Christians engaged in these endeavors, see Russell Chandler, Racing Toward 2001: The Forces Shaping America’s Religious Future (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 114–25. In using such media to communicate the gospel, however, the church should heed the note of caution sounded in Jacques Ellul, The Humiliation of the Word (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985).

26. On the importance of perspective in the arts and of Christians expressing their perspective through the arts, see Leland Ryken, “The Creative Arts,” The Making of a Christian Mind, ed. Arthur Holmes (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 105–31, esp. 127–28.

1. John L. White, Light From Ancient Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 158.

2. See the comments of Silva, Philippians, 68; O’Brien, Philippians, 92.

3. The adjective “clear” (phaneros) appears in Matt. 12:16 and Mark 3:12 with this meaning. In both passages, Jesus gives instructions not “to make known” who he really is. See Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt., and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 852.

4. See O’Brien, Philippians, 94–95; cf. Silva, Philippians, 68–69. On Paul’s use of the term “brothers” (adelphoi), see J. Beutler, “ἀδελφός,” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990–93), 1:30.

5. The view belongs to Collange, Philippians, 55. Against it, see the sage comments of O’Brien, Philippians, 95.

6. O’Brien, Philippians, 105.

7. See, for example, Lightfoot, Philippians, 90.

8. See Robert Jewett, “Conflicting Movements in the Early Church as Reflected in Philippians,” Novum Testamentum 12 (1970): 362–90.

9. O’Brien, Philippians, 104.

10. In addition to the references in Galatians and 2 Corinthians given above, see Acts 21:20–21 and Romans 3:8, as well as the comprehensive study by Gerd Luedemann, Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989).

11. Barth, Philippians, 26.

12. Followers of the philosopher Epicurus believed that the movements of “atoms,” the elemental building blocks of the universe, determined the course of all events. Although Epicureans believed in the gods, they thought that the gods were unable to influence the material world. On ancient religion generally during the period of Paul, see Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. 1, History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age (Philadelphia/Berlin: Fortress/Walter de Gruyter, 1982), 141–204.

13. See especially Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion (New York: Basic Books, 1993).

14. The most thorough attempts to banish God from society seem to occur in Communist countries. For a carefully documented account of God’s work among believers despite such attempts, see Barbara von der Heydt, Candles Behind the Wall: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution That Shattered Communism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).

15. Robert R. Wicks, “The Epistle to the Philippians,” The Interpreter’s Bible, ed. George A. Buttrick, 12 vols. (New York: Abingdon, 1952–57), 11:28.

16. Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, 22.

17. The NIV’s phrase “palace guard” is better rendered simply “praetorian guard” (to praitorio) and refers to the Emperor’s bodyguards wherever they might be quartered. See Lightfoot, Philippians, 88, 99–104.

18. On the custom of chaining prisoners who were under light custody to their guards, see Brian Rapske, Paul in Roman Custody (Grand Rapids/Carlisle, Eng.: Eerdmans/Paternoster, 1994), 31.

19. On the likelihood that Paul used the workplace to spread the gospel, see Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 17–20.

20. See the clear and biblically based study of this problem in Carson, How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil, esp. 69–91.

21. See Owen Chadwick, The Christian Church in the Cold War (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 1992), 73–108. Moving stories of courageous Christians whose faith led them to play a role in toppling their repressive governments appear in von der Heydt, Candles Behind the Wall.

22. “The Church Castro Couldn’t Kill,” Christianity Today (April 25, 1994), 20.

23. Ibid., 21.

24. Among the many studies of these events, see especially Victoria Barnett, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

25. See Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (Old Tappan, N. J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1956); idem, Shadow of the Almighty (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958); and idem, The Savage My Kinsman (New York/London: Harper & Brothers/Hodder & Stoughton, 1961).

1. See the comments of Bruce, Philippians, 28.

2. See the thorough discussion of the meaning of soteria in this verse by Silva, Philippians, 76–79.

3. Paul’s words “this will turn out for my deliverance” echo exactly the Greek rendering of Job 13:16. There Job claims that despite the accusations of his detractors, he is innocent and therefore certain that when he stands before God’s tribunal, he will be acquitted. Paul’s focus too is not on acquittal before his earthly accusers, but before God on the final day. See the insightful discussion of Paul’s use of this passage in Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 737–38.

4. See Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt., and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 305.

5. For the understanding of the passage presented here, which runs counter to that of most commentators, see Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 740–743, and Henry Barclay Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1909), 227–28. Cf. Witherington, Friendship and Finances in Philippi, 46.

6. Josephus, Bellum Judaicum 3.264 (3.7.26). The translation belongs to the Loeb Classical Library edition of Josephus’ works.

7. Cf. O’Brien, Philippians, 114; Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 738 n. 21.

8. Many ancient copies of Colossians read “Christ, who is your life” at Col. 3:4 (see the NIV) instead of “Christ, who is our life.” In either case, the point of the verse is that Christ is the believer’s life, and Paul would surely include himself in this description.

9. The term Paul uses for “depart” (analuo) is a mild word that could be used of a ship weighing anchor or of a group of soldiers breaking camp. Paul uses it, much as he uses the euphemistic term “those who fall asleep” (hoi koimomenoi) in 1 Thess. 4:13, to indicate that for believers death is not the final and terrible thing that it is for “the rest of men, who have no hope” (cf. 2 Tim. 4:6). On the use of the term analuo outside the Bible see Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., rev. and aug. Henry Stuart Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940), 112; O’Brien, Philippians, 130.

10. On the relationship of 1:21 to its immediate context, see Bonnard, Philippiens, 28–29.

11. See the list of positions in Martin, Philippians, 79.

12. Cf. O’Brien, Philippians, 110.

13. See the sage comments of Silva, Philippians, 78–79.

14. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 741–42, 785–89.

15. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, 228.

16. See the concise definition of “soul sleep” and the lucid summary of the arguments for and against it in the article by E. K. Harrison in The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 1037–38.

17. See the valuable discussion of this issue in Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 201.

18. See, e.g., Article 11 of the Canons of Dort and Article 5 of The Baptist Faith and Message.

19. See the definitive study of this issue in Judith M. Gundry Volf, Paul and Perseverance: Staying In and Falling Away (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), esp. 283–87.

20. For the arguments on either side of the issue see Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 438–41; Gundry Volf, Paul and Perseverance, 233–47.

21. For the rejection of Gentiles in the early church, see Acts 10:14; 11:2; 15:1; for the rejection of Montanism see, e.g., Hippolytus, Philosophoumena, 26.

22. See William E. Phipps, Death: Confronting the Reality (Atlanta: John Knox, 1987), 1–9.

23. See “Christian Found Dead, Iran Says,” The Boston Globe (July 6, 1994), 8; “Prominent Church Leaders Slain,” Christianity Today (August 15, 1994), 54.

1. Beginning with 1:27, verbs in the imperative mood are scattered evenly throughout the letter (2:2, 5, 12, 14, 29; 3:1, 2, 15, 16, 17; 4:1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 21).

2. O’Brien, Philippians, 164, 166.

3. Cf. Witherington, Friendship and Finances in Philippi, 61.

4. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt., and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 686.

5. Cf. U. Hutter, “πολιτεύομαι,” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990–93), 3:130.

6. Others have suggested that the persecution originated in the Philippians’ unwillingness to participate in the worship of the emperor, an expression of civic loyalty known to be popular in the region during the first century. See Pheme Perkins, “Philippians: Theology for the Heavenly Politeuma,” Pauline Theology. Volume I: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon, ed. Jouette M. Bassler (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1991), 93.

7. In his stimulating work Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 81–104, Bruce W. Winter observes that when ancient political theorists such as Dio Chrysostom (ca. A.D. 40–after 112) spoke of how citizens should behave (politeia), they often emphasized the necessity of concord among a city’s citizenry and between different cities. To behave properly as a citizen in ancient times meant to strive for unity and peace.

8. See, for example, Hawthorne, Philippians, 56; Silva, Philippians, 94. If this interpretation is correct, it does not mean that Paul distinguished sharply between the human soul and the human spirit. The term “soul” (psyche) in Paul usually means “purposeful life” (cf. 2:30; Rom. 16:4; 2 Cor. 12:15; 1 Thess. 2:8). The term “spirit” (pneuma) has a number of meanings in Paul, but frequently refers to human feeling (1 Cor. 16:18; 2 Cor. 2:13; 7:13). If “spirit” refers to the human spirit here, then it is probably added primarily for rhetorical effect. See also 1 Thess. 5:23, where the phrase “through and through” shows that Paul’s emphasis lies on the whole person, not on the division of the person into three parts.

9. Cf. Eduard Schweizer, “ψυχή,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76), 9:649; Bonnard, Philippiens, 34; Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 743–46. O’Brien, Philippians, 150, believes that some reference to the Holy Spirit may lie beneath Paul’s use of the word, but denies that it is explicit.

10. See also Beare, Philippians, 68.

11. O’Brien, Philippians, 144, has captured the meaning precisely by translating v. 28, “in no way letting your opponents intimidate you. This [state of affairs] is a sure sign, with reference to them, of perdition, but of your eternal salvation.”

12. Paul adopts a similar perspective in 2 Thess. 1:3–10.

13. In the Greek text the NIV’s “that” is actually “this” (touto). It is also in the neuter gender, revealing that its antecedent is not simply salvation, which would have required the feminine pronoun (haute), but also the double-sided sign of perseverance amid persecution.

14. On the second, see the comments of O’Brien, Philippians, 160.

15. On Paul’s notion that his ministry was a great struggle for the gospel, a struggle in which he expected his churches to join, see 1 Cor. 9:24–27 and Victor C. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif: Traditional Athletic Imagery in the Pauline Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 114–19.

16. Meyer, The Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians and to Philemon, 60. Cf. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 749–50.

17. See Vincent, Philippians, 53.

18. For this understanding of 2:1, see Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 747–50.

19. See Politica, book 5, chapter 3, p. 1302b in the standard Greek text of Aristotle’s works. See the discussion in Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 309.

20. Athenagoras, A Plea Regarding Christians, 11 (from the translation of Cyril C. Richardson in Early Christian Fathers [New York: Macmillan, 1970], 310). Cf. Letter to Diognetus, 5.9–17; Justin Martyr, First Apology, 12, 15–17.

21. See the lucid and helpful discussion of the biblical evidence for God’s sovereignty over evil in Carson, How Long O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil, 199–227; also in Carson’s longer work, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981).

22. See Carson, How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil, 210–11.

23. For a simple and practical guide to this kind of unity, Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, 90–109, is unsurpassed.

24. See, for example, Acts 4:17–18; 12:2–3; 16:23; 1 Cor. 2:8; Heb. 10:34; Rev. 13:1–8.

25. The Martyrdom of Polycarp, for example, speaks of Christians being thrown to the wild beasts and describes how Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was burned at the stake. Lactantius, De Mortibus 12, tells how in the year 303 the emperor Diocletian, among other atrocities, burned the Holy Scriptures. See W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church: A Study of a Conflict From the Maccabees to Donatus (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), 491.

26. See, for example, the comments of Celsus in his work Alethes Logos (written between 178 and 180), as quoted in Origen’s Contra Celsum, 55–56.

27. See, for example, Phil. 3:20; 1 Peter 2:11 (cf. Heb. 11:1; 13:13–14); also the Letter to Diognetus 5. This stance toward the world was preserved in later church history in the Anabaptist tradition.

28. See the useful discussion of the differences among these traditions in Nicholas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 3–22.

29. See George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism 1870–1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 3–4.

30. Perhaps the crowning example of this trend is the massive Fundamentalism Project, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, 4 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991–94), which discusses North American Protestant fundamentalism alongside Roman Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist “fundamentalism.”

31. For other examples of the exclusion of both Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians from public policy debates and from the academic enterprise, except when they are viewed as supporters of a left-leaning political agenda, see William J. Bennett, The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children (New York: Summit, 1992), 205–29; Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 1–43; and the comments of Thomas C. Oden, Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 135.

32. The reasons for this state of affairs are ably recounted and addressed in George M. Marsden, “The Soul of the American University: A Historical Overview,” The Secularization of the Academy, ed. George M. Marsden and Bradley J. Longfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 9–45. On the danger that the exclusion of Christian thinking from public and academic discourse poses to a just society, see Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2d ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984); for a similar argument from a British perspective see Duncan B. Forrester, Beliefs, Values and Policies: Conviction Politics in a Secular Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

33. Barth, Philippians, 47.

34. See J. Christiaan Beker, Suffering and Hope: The Biblical Vision and the Human Predicament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 82–86; Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983).

35. A thoughtful proposal for the Christian position on modern political and social issues can be found in John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today (Basingstoke, Eng.: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1984).

36. The American “Declaration of Independence” (Philadelphia, 1776).

37. See, for example, the Pulitzer Prize-winning volume by Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: Macmillan, 1973), 1–8.

38. Beare, Philippians, 73, comments appropriately, “Paul does not suggest that anyone is claiming for himself honours that are undeserved; the point is precisely that we must not insist on receiving even the honours that we entirely deserve. For the law of the Christian life is renunciation, not self-assertion; concern for others, not concern for ourselves and our precious rights.”

39. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 90–109.

40. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Deitrich Bonhoeffer Werke, vol. 5, Gemeinsames Leben, Das Gebetbuch der Bible, ed. Gerhard Ludwig Müller and Albrecht Schönherr (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1987), 91. Cf. Life Together, 108.

1. Even the printing of the passage in verse form in many modern translations, a step directly indebted to the scholarly discussion of vv. 6–11 over the last seventy years, puts the passage in bold relief and separates it from the surrounding argument.

2. On these and other unusual features of the passage’s style, see O’Brien, Philippians, 199–200. The Greek word morphe appears in Mark 16:12, but the oldest and most reliable manuscripts of the New Testament omit Mark 16:8–20.

3. As, for example, is argued by Bonnard, Philippiens, 48. He comments, “That these verses originated with Paul, as an integral part of his argument, does not strike us as a defensible position.”

4. Ralph P. Martin, Carmen Christi: Philippians 2:5–11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 24–25.

5. Syriac is a slightly later form of Aramaic, the language from which some scholars believe that the hymn was translated. See, for example, Martin, Carmen Christi, 38–41; P. Grelot, “Deux notes critiques sur Philippiens 2,6–11,” Biblica 54 (1973): 169–86; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Aramaic Background of Philippians 2:6–11,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 50 (1988): 470–83. Neither John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407) nor Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350–428), both of whom grew up in Antioch, spoke Syriac and Greek, and wrote commentaries on Philippians, mention the hymnic quality of Phil. 2:6–11 in their comments on the passage.

6. Stephen E. Fowl, The Story of Christ in the Ethics of Paul: An Analysis of the Function of the Hymnic Material in the Pauline Corpus (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 31–45.

7. Gordon D. Fee, “Philippians 2:5–11: Hymn or Exalted Pauline Prose?” Bulletin of Biblical Research 2 (1992): 29–46 (here 31–32).

8. See Morna D. Hooker, “Philippians 2:6–11,” in E. Earle Ellis and Erich Grässer, eds., Jesus und Paulus: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel zum 70. Geburtstag (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 151–64 (here 153).

9. Fee, “Philippians 2:5–11: Hymn or Exalted Prose?” 32 n. 11, cites as examples 1 Cor. 1:22–25, 26–28; 6:12–13; 7:2–4; 9:9–22. See also the list of passages treated in Eduard Norden, Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte Religiöser Rede (Leipzig and Berlin: Verlag B. G. Teubner, 1923), 240–63.

10. Until recently, this was the standard interpretation of the place of the passage in Paul’s argument. See, for example, Vincent, Philippians, 78–79; Michael, Philippians, 83.

11. See Ernst Käsemann, “A Critical Analysis of Philippians 2:5–11,” Journal for Theology and the Church 5 (1968): 45–88 (esp. 45–59, 83–88); Martin, Carmen Christi, 84–88.

12. Cf. 3:15, where “this” (touto) and “think” (phroneo) appear together as they do here. In 3:15, “this” refers to the preceding discussion, not to what follows.

13. Hooker, “Philippians 2:6–11,” 155, 157.

14. In 2:1–4 Paul implies by the use of such terms as “like-minded,” “purpose,” “consider,” and “look … to” that the unselfishness he wants the Philippians to show toward one another must flow from an unselfish way of thinking. In 2:5–11 Paul puts flesh and bones on this mental disposition by describing the “attitude” of Christ Jesus (v. 5) as it was displayed in his humility and obedience (vv. 6–8).

15. See Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt., and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 258–59.

16. The word is also used this way in its only other occurrence in the New Testament manuscript tradition. In Mark 16:12 Jesus appears in a different, unrecognizable form to the two disciples who were walking in the country.

17. See W. Pöhlmann, “μορφή,” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990–93), 2:442–43.

18. Compare C. F. D. Moule, “Further Reflexions on Philippians 2:5–11,” Apostolic History and the Gospel, ed. W. Ward Gasque and Ralph P. Martin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 264–76.

19. Roy W. Hoover, “The Harpagmos Enigma: A Philological Solution, Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971) 95–119, here at 108. On this issue, see also N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991) 62–90.

20. Paul uses the term to refer to what would happen to faith if those who lived by the law were heirs to God’s promise (Rom. 4:14), to refer to what would happen to the gospel if Paul preached by means of human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:17), to what would happen to his boast about the Corinthians’ generosity if they proved unwilling to contribute to Paul’s collection when the apostle’s fellow workers arrived (2 Cor. 9:3), and to what would happen to Paul’s “boast” that he preaches the gospel free of charge if he were to accept payment from the Corinthians (1 Cor. 9:15).

21. Bruce, Philippians, 46; O’Brien, Philippians, 218.

22. Various proposals are summarized and evaluated in Martin, Carmen Christi, 165–96; O’Brien, Philippians, 218–24.

23. Moule, “Further Reflexions on Philippians 2:5–11,” 268–69.

24. The expression “being found in appearance as a man” does not mean that Jesus only appeared to be a man. Rather, it means that in every way recognizable to anyone else, he was a man. This is clear from the parallel statements “taking the very nature of a servant” and “being made in human likeness,” which govern the meaning of this phrase. “As” does not have to indicate a difference between Jesus and humanity but can refer to the typical essence of something, as in 2 Thess. 3:15. See O’Brien, Philippians, 226, esp. n. 139.

25. This account of crucifixion is drawn from Martin Hengel’s comprehensive study, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).

26. Quoted in Hengel, Crucifixion, 52.

27. O’Brien, Philippians, 232.

28. Bonnard, Philippiens, 46.

29. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this term is used in Psalm 97:9: “For you, O LORD, are the Most High over all the earth; you are exalted [hyperypsothes] far above all gods.” See Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 842.

30. See the list in Meyer, The Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians and to Philemon, 81. For an intriguing argument that God gave to his Son the name “Jesus,” see Moule, “Further Reflexions on Philippians 2:5–11,” 270.

31. On this issue, see Paul D. Feinberg, “The Kenosis and Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Analysis of Phil 2:6–11,” Trinity Journal 1 NS (1980): 21–46 (here 42).

32. Perhaps vv. 9–11 also contain a subtle admonition to the Philippians that they will one day bend the knee before Jesus Christ and give an account of their relationships with fellow believers. Cf. Paul’s use of Isa. 45:23 in Rom. 14:11 to remind the divided Roman community that they will one day render account for their actions to God. I am indebted to Professor Klyne Snodgrass for bringing this point to my attention.

33. Hooker, “Philippians 2:6–11,” 155, 157.

34. See William R. Cook, Francis of Assisi (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1989), 19–49, 94–114.

35. See, for example, Adolf von Harnack, What Is Christianity? (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1978), 1–151. Harnack gave the lectures on which this book is based at the University of Berlin during the winter of 1899–1900.

36. See, for example, the quotation from the early twentieth-century German scholar Wilhelm Heitmüller in Werner Georg Kümmel, The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of Its Problems (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1972), 257.

37. See Ernst Käsemann, “A Critical Analysis of Philippians 2:5–11,” 50–51, who argues against the ethical interpretation in part because it excludes the doctrine of the justification of the impious. Cf. Barth, Philippians, 59–68.

38. Fee, “Philippians 2:5–11: Hymn or Exalted Prose?” 38.

39. Barth, Philippians, 66.

40. See Fowl, The Story of Christ in the Ethics of Paul, 90–91.

41. See the useful overview of and response to Kenotic theories of the Incarnation by Eugene R. Fairweather, “The ‘Kenotic’ Christology,” in Beare, Philippians, 159–74; see also Erickson, The Word Became Flesh, 78–86.

42. See, for example, James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 114–21. Not all who find a contrast between Adam and Christ in the passage, however, deny that the passage teaches Christ’s preexistence or equality with God. See, for example, Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, 90–92, who argues that the parallel between Christ and Adam need not be exact, and indeed cannot be, if the task Christ accepted was to undo the damage of Adam’s sin.

43. See Erickson, The Word Became Flesh, 477; Vincent, Philippians, 86; especially O’Brien, Philippians, 263–68.

44. Cf. O’Brien, Philippians, 267.

45. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 161–62.

1. See, for example, J. Hugh Michael, “’Work Out Your Own Salvation,” Expositor 12 (1924), 439–50; idem, Philippians, 98–103; Hawthorne, Philippians, 98–99.

2. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt., and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 801.

3. See especially the discussion of Georg Fohrer, “σῴζω,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76), 7:970–1012 (here 992–95); Silva, Philippians, 137–38.

4. This same understanding of the relationship between human effort and God’s grace lies beneath 1 Cor. 15:10: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all [the other apostles]—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

5. See John 7:12; Acts 6:1; 1 Peter 4:9; cf. Barnabas 3:5; Didache 3:6.

6. For the notion that Paul compares the Philippians’ attitude to him with the attitude of the Israelites to Moses, see Michael, Philippians, 99; for the suggestion that the Philippians’ discontent may have been discontent against their leaders in the same way that Israel’s discontent was directed against Moses, see Bonnard, Philippiens, 51; Silva, Philippians, 144. Cf. O’Brien, Philippians, 291–92. The first suggestion seems incredible in light of the friendly relationship between Paul and the Philippians that pulses throughout the letter, and the second seems unduly speculative.

7. A more detailed discussion of Paul’s use of the biblical narrative of Israel’s desert wanderings in this passage appears in Frank Thielman, Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 156–57.

8. The NIV text translates v. 16a, “as you hold out (epechontes) the word of life.” But the more usual meaning of the term epecho is “hold fast,” and since the Philippians are enduring persecution at the hands of the “crooked and depraved generation” of which Paul speaks in v. 15 (1:28–30), this more usual meaning is probably the correct one. See the marginal note in the NIV and the thorough discussion in O’Brien, Philippians, 297.

9. See the useful discussion of the imagery in 2:16 in Victor C. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif: Traditional Athletic Imagery in the Pauline Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 102–8.

10. This theme is examined at greater length in Thielman, Paul and the Law; on Paul’s use of the law in Philippians, see 145–59.

11. D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 568.

12. As in, for example, Frank Joseph Smith, The History of the Presbyterian Church in America: The Continuing Church (Manassas, Va.: Reformation Educational Foundation, 1985).

13. “Selbstrechtfertigung und Richten gehört zusammen, wie Rechtfertigung aus Gnaden und Dienen zusammengehört,” in Bonhoeffer’s Deitrich Bonhoeffer Werke, vol. 5, Gemeinsames Leben, Das Gebetbuch der Bible, ed. Gerhard Ludwig Müller and Albrecht Schönherr (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1987), 78. Cf. Life Together, 91; also the comments of Barth on v. 12 in Philippians, 71–72.

14. See the gripping analysis of this issue in Gary M. Burge, Who Are God’s People in the Middle East? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), esp. 101–24.

1. Barth, Philippians, 79.

2. See, for example, Collange, Philippians, 115; Beare, Philippians, 4–5, 95.

3. Robert W. Funk, “The Apostolic Parousia: Form and Significance,” Christian History and Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox, ed. W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, and R. R. Niebuhr (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 249–68. Funk compares Phil. 2:19–24 and 2:25–30 to Rom. 1:8–13; 15:14–33; 1 Cor. 4:14–21; 9:1–5; 16:1–12; 2 Cor. 8:16–23; 12:14–13:13; Gal. 4:12–20; 1 Thess. 2:17–3:13; and Philem. 21–22. In all of these passages, he says, Paul attempts to emphasize his authority to his congregations during his absence by speaking of his own or an associate’s possible visit.

4. See, for example, Caird, Paul’s Letters From Prison, 117, 128.

5. Timothy was Paul’s most highly valued coworker. Paul frequently referred to him as his son (1 Cor. 4:17; 1 Tim. 1:2, 18; 2 Tim. 1:2), entrusted him with several important missions to his churches besides the one mentioned here (Acts 17:14–15; 18:5; 19:22 [this one may refer to the Phil. 2:19 visit]; 1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10–11; 1 Thess. 3:2–6; 1 Tim. 1:3), and included him in the sponsorship of six letters (1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon).

6. As does Collange, Philippians, 120; cf. Barth, Philippians, 88.

7. See Hawthorne, Philippians, 117.

8. Among Paul’s 34 uses of the term, the only clear exceptions to this definition are in Phil. 2:25 and 2 Cor. 8:23.

9. C. E. B. Cranfield argues, perhaps correctly, that Paul refers to himself not as a priest but as a Levitical helper to Jesus. Jesus would then be the priest. The argument has some merit since terms closely related to “priest” (leitourgein and leitourgia) were used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to refer both to priestly and to Levitical service. Nevertheless, because Paul does not provide us with enough information to determine precisely how he uses the term, it seems best to invest it with its more usual meaning. See Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975–79), 2:755.

10. Barth, Philippians, 79.

11. Collange, Philippians, 116.

12. Caird, Paul’s Letters From Prison, 128.

13. Bonnard, Philippiens, 57.

14. Michael, Philippians, 118.

15. For the first position see Martin, Philippians, 121; for the second, Bruce, Philippians, 71.

16. Martin, Philippians, 121, suggests that it either caused or was accompanied by a nervous disorder and resulted from the rigors of imprisonment with Paul. Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, 49, suggests that Epaphroditus had caught “the notorious Roman fever which sometimes swept the city like a scourge.”

17. See E. E. Ellis, “Coworkers, Paul and His,” Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 183–88.

18. Ibid., 187.

19. See Witherington, Friendship and Finances in Philippi, 126, 168 n. 19.

20. See 1 Cor. 8:1–11:1 and James 2:14–26.

21. Barth, Philippians, 80.

22. See the thorough discussion of this phrase in O’Brien, Philippians, 317, 327.

23. See the discussion of options in Meyer, The Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians, and to Philemon, 102–3.

24. Ibid., 102.

25. For a commentary on the state of theological education in some “mainline” denominational seminaries, see Thomas Oden, Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 40–41. On the conservative side see the complaint of Scot McKnight, “The Nature of the Bodily Resurrection: A Debatable Issue,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 33 (1990): 379–82.

26. See, for example, Matt. 6:24; Luke 9:24; 14:26, 31–33; 16:13.

27. Bryan Strong and Christine DeVault, The Marriage and Family Experience, 5th ed. (St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1992), 508.

28. Ibid., 509; cf. Russell Chandler, Racing Toward 2001: The Forces Shaping America’s Religious Future (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 98.

29. See Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage, trans. Edwin Robertson (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 559. The details of this critical period in Bonhoeffer’s life are narrated on pp. 554–59.

30. Bonhoeffer’s dilemma was also faced frequently by prominent Christians in the formerly Communist countries of Eastern Europe. When their witness became too winsome, the authorities frequently imprisoned them, only to find that they had an embarrassingly high-profile prisoner of conscience on their hands. One solution to this dilemma was to offer their prisoner the chance to leave the country. Those to whom the offer was made often chose to stay instead. See Barbara von der Heydt, Candles Behind the Wall: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution That Shattered Communism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).

1. See Bruce, Philippians, 76; O’Brien, Philippians, 350.

2. Cf. Robert Jewett, “The Epistolary Thanksgiving and the Integrity of Philippians,” Novum Testamentum 12 (1970): 40–53 (here 44).

3. The Greek text reveals a play on words that is virtually impossible to reproduce in English. The phrase “mutilators of the flesh” translates katatome and the word “circumcision” translates peritome. The only difference between the two words is the prepositional prefix, kata in one and peri in the other.

4. Paul believed, however, that physical circumcision could have value for Jewish Christians if, like Abraham, they viewed the rite as a “seal of the righteousness” that comes “by faith” (Rom. 4:11).

5. John Chrysostom (A.D. 354–407), whose native language was the language in which Paul wrote, took the phrase “Hebrew of the Hebrews” (hebraios ex hebraion) to mean that Paul was raised to speak Aramaic, the language of Palestinian Judaism in the first century. Most modern commentators agree with this understanding of the phrase.

6. See Thomas R. Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment: A Pauline Theology of Law (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 70–71.

7. For a full discussion of the concept of “knowledge” in the Old Testament, see Rudolf Bultmann, “γινώσκω,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76), 1:696–701.

8. The reference to the final resurrection in Philippians 3:11 shows that the phrase “be found in him” also refers to the final day. Most commentators understand the phrase this way. See especially the discussion in O’Brien, Philippians, 392–83.

9. The phrase “faith in Christ” (pisteos Christou) could also be translated “the faithfulness of Christ,” and a growing number of scholars believe that both here and elsewhere this is the best rendering (cf. Rom. 3:22, 26; Gal. 2:16, 20; 3:22; Eph. 3:12). If so, they argue, then the phrase refers to Christ’s obedience to death (cf. 2:8). The traditional understanding of the phrase is probably correct, however, since Paul never speaks unambiguously of Christ’s faithfulness, but frequently speaks in unmistakable terms of believing in Christ (as in Rom. 10:14; Gal. 2:16; Phil. 1:29). Two scholars who pay particular attention to Phil. 3:9 and who take opposing positions in the debate are Morna D. Hooker, “ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ,” New Testament Studies 35 (1989): 321–42, and James D. G. Dunn, “Once More, ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ,” Society of Biblical Literature 1991 Seminar Papers, ed. Eugene H. Lovering (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1991), 730–44.

10. See the discussion of these issues in Rudolf Bultmann, New Testament Theology, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951–55), 1:270–85; David Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings: Studies in the Semantics of Soteriological Terms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967),139–62; Ernst Käsemann, “ ‘The Righteousness of God’ in Paul,” New Testament Questions of Today (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 168–82; Manfred T. Brauch, “Perspectives on ‘God’s Righteousness’ in Recent German Discussion,” in E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 523–42; John Reumann, “Righteousness” in the New Testament: “Justification” in the United States Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue (Philadelphia/New York: Fortress/Paulist, 1982); Mark A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (Leiden: Brill, 1992).

11. Bultmann, Theology, 1:277.

12. Some commentators believe that Paul’s “somehow” (ei pos) contains no element of uncertainty about whether he will experience the resurrection, only about the way in which he will reach the resurrection—whether by martyrdom, by Christ’s coming, or by a natural death (Martin, Philippians, 135–36; Bruce, Philippians, 92; O’Brien, Philippians, 413). Other uses of the phrase in the New Testament, however, show that it voices a fervent hope that only presumption could express as a certainty (Acts 27:12; Rom. 1:10; 11:14). See Silva, Philippians, 192–93.

13. See Silva, Philippians, 193.

14. On the meaning of the term “flesh” (sarx), see W. David Stacey, The Pauline View of Man (London: Macmillan, 1956), 154–80; John M. G. Barclay, Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 178–81.

15. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, ed. J. B. Sykes, 6th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 969.

16. See Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., rev. and aug. Henry Stuart Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940), 429.

17. See Bultmann, Theology, 1:272, 277; Paul Achtemeier, Romans (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 61–66.

18. Cf. Eph. 4:20–23, where knowing Christ is defined in ethical terms.

19. Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, 63.

20. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 271, 274.

21. Lloyd-Jones, The Life of Peace, 60.

22. Enough Pharisees were legalists that one could serve as typical of the self-righteous person in Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9–14).

23. On the whole issue of whether or not Judaism in the first century was legalistic, see E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 ce (London/Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992). For a different perspective, see Seifrid, Justification by Faith, and Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment. For an attempt to steer a middle course between Sanders’ view and more traditional notions about first-century Judaism, see Frank Thielman, Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994).

24. See Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 474–511, and Paul, the Law and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).

25. James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), 108–264, and Romans 1–8 (Dallas: Word, 1988) lxiii–lxxii.

26. Some have argued against Sanders that first-century Judaism generally did attach saving significance to doing the works of the law. See Seifrid, Justification by Faith; Schreiner, The Law and Its Fulfillment.

27. Luther’s Works, vol. 26, Lectures on Galatians, 1535, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1963), 140.

28. See the comments of Thomas C. Oden, Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 46–48, 152–61.

29. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract,” Social Contract: Essays by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 306. See the helpful discussion of this issue in Richard J. Mouw and Sander Griffon, Pluralisms and Horizons: An Essay in Christian Public Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).

30. The worship services of orthodox and Marcionite churches were so similar that Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, had to warn Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem to be careful not to worship in a Marcionite church by mistake.

31. On the history of the Marcionite church see Adolf von Harnack, Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God (Durham, N.C.: Labyrinth, 1990; orig. ed. 1924), 99–121.

32. See Oden, Requiem, 27–32, 140–51.

33. See “The Theological Declaration of Barmen,” The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part 1, Book of Confessions (New York/Atlanta: The Office of the General Assembly, 1983), §§ 8.01–8.28.

34. For a lucid explanation of the Apostles’ Creed in contemporary terms, see C. E. B. Cranfield, The Apostles’ Creed: A Faith to Live By (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).

35. Alexander Campbell, An Alexander Campbell Reader, ed. Lester G. McAllister (St. Louis, Mo.: CBP Press, 1988), 82. The quotation is from the chapter on baptism in Campbell’s The Christian System, in Reference to the Union of Christians and a Restoration of Primitive Christianity, as Pled in the Current Reformation (1839).

36. Lord’s Day 27, A. 73. The translation belongs to the edition of the Heidelberg Catechism adopted by the 1988 Synod of the Christian Reformed Church. See this denomination’s Psalter Hymnal (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1987), 892.

37. Tom Sine, as quoted in Russell Chandler, Racing Toward 2001: The Forces Shaping America’s Religious Future (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 31.

38. Thus the “homogeneous unit principle” has become a standard doctrine of church growth strategists. See Donald A. McGavaran, Understanding Church Growth, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 306–7; Donald A. McGavaran and Winfield C. Arn, Ten Steps for Church Growth (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 74–79. The principle works, of course, but that is beside the point. It is hard to imagine that Paul, who parted company with Barnabas, Peter, and “the other Jews” in the church at Antioch in part over this issue (Gal. 2:11–13), would consider it theologically valid.

39. See George Gallup Jr. and Jim Castelli, The People’s Religion: American Faith in the 90’s (New York/London: Macmillan/Collier, 1989), 58–59, 132.

40. Stanley Hauerwas, “Communitarians and Medical Ethicists, or ‘Why I Am None of the Above,’ ” Christian Scholars Review 23 (1994): 293–94.

41. George Barna, Marketing the Church (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 1988), 41–44.

42. For a measured critique of using secular marketing strategies to prompt church growth, see Douglas D. Webster, Selling Jesus: What’s Wrong With Marketing the Church (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992).

1. Paul believed that the Mosaic law was no longer binding on believers. The Corinthians may have stretched this to mean that no ethical norms were binding on the believer. See Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 251–52. For evidence that such distortions of Paul’s teaching were not uncommon, see Rom. 3:8; 6:1; 6:15; James 2:14–26.

2. If “all this” is the correct complement to the verb, then it would include knowing Christ and his resurrection power (vv. 8a, 10), Christ himself (v. 8b), being found in Christ (v. 9a), fellowship with Christ’s suffering (v. 10b), and attaining the resurrection of the dead (v. 11). Other contenders for the proper direct object are (1) the resurrection (v. 11), (2) the prize (v. 14), (3) the righteousness that comes from God (v. 9), and (4) Paul’s goal of gaining Christ (v. 8). Some believe that Paul left the object unexpressed in order to deny any place to personal achievement in the Christian life. See the thorough discussion of these options in O’Brien, Philippians, 420–22.

3. See Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt., and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 201. The ancient historian Herodotus (ca. 490–425 B.C.) describes a Persian regiment’s pursuit of their Greek opponents this way: “The Persian horse, meaning to continue their old harassing tactics, had found the enemy gone from the position they had occupied during the last few days, and had ridden in pursuit. Now, having overtaken the retreating columns, they renewed their attacks with vigour” (9.58; see Herodotus, The Histories [Hammondsworth, Middlesex, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1972], 600). The italicized words correspond to Paul’s expression “press on to take hold” in v. 12.

4. See Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 287; F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, trans. and ed. Robert W. Funk (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 123 (§235 [2]); O’Brien, Philippians, 425.

5. See Victor C. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif: Traditional Athletic Imagery in the Pauline Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 140–41.

6. The NIV’s rendering of 1 Cor. 14:20 captures this nuance well: “Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults [teleioi].”

7. Both 1 and 2 Corinthians were written around the time of Paul’s Ephesian ministry, 1 Corinthians while Paul was still in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:8) and 2 Corinthians shortly after he left (2 Cor. 2:13; 7:5–7).

8. See also 1 Cor. 6:13 and 1 Cor. 15:32. On the probability that the Corinthian church was torn by strife among the social classes, see Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).

9. Cf. O’Brien, Philippians, 458.

10. The Greek word that stands behind the NIV’s “example” is typos. Philosophical writers of Paul’s time frequently used this word to refer to the “impression” that learning leaves on the mind, as a seal leaves an impression on wax. See Robert A. J. Gagnon, “Heart of Wax and a Teaching That Stamps: ΤΥΠΟΣ ΔΙΔΑΧΗΣ (Rom. 6:17b) Once More,” Journal of Biblical Literature 112 (1993): 667–87.

11. The term is probably best rendered “commonwealth” rather than “citizenship” (see Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 686).

12. See Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 767; Walter Grundmann, “στέφανος, στεφανόω,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76), 7:620, 629–30; Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif, 105–6.

13. Morna D. Hooker, “Philippians 2:6–11,” in E. Earle Ellis and Erich Grässer, eds., Jesus und Paulus: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel zum 70. Geburtstag (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 155–56; idem., “Interchange in Christ,” Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971): 349–61 (here 355–57). For an exhaustive list of verbal similarities between the two passages, see Andrew T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought With Special Reference to His Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 88.

14. For the general religious spirit of the first-century Mediterranean world, see Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. 1, History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age (Philadelphia/Berlin: Fortress/Walter de Gruyter, 1982), 355–89; for the mixture of these notions with the gospel in Corinth, see Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 10–15.

15. As quoted in Russell Chandler’s Understanding the New Age, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 28.

16. See ibid., 189–99. For an example of the encroachment of New Age thinking into the church, see New Age Spirituality: An Assessment, ed. Duncan S. Ferguson (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1993). At the time of the book’s publication, Ferguson directed the Committee on Higher Education of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The book’s “assessment” of the New Age movement is largely positive.

17. Kenneth Copeland, a leading advocate of the notion that victorious Christian living involves freedom from sickness and poverty, proclaims, “The world’s shortages have no effect on someone who has already gone to heaven. Therefore, they should have no effect on us here who have made Jesus the Lord of our lives.” See his book, The Laws of Prosperity (Fort Worth, Tex.: KCP Publications, 1974), 8.

18. The “Sir! Sir!” in the NIV’s rendering of the tardy virgin’s urgent plea in Matt. 25:11 is literally “Lord! Lord!” (kyrie kyrie).

19. Cf. David Hill, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids/London: Eerdmans/Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1972), 230–33, 235–37. Not all are agreed, however, that this parable implies the existence of “weeds” within the visible church. See, for example, Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman, 1992), 222.

20. See J. Eckert, “καλέω,” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990–93), 2:240–44.

21. Wiersbe, Be Joyful, 109.

22. A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 1:359–68.

23. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif, 151–52.

24. Cf. Beare, Philippians, 131. This approach does not, of course, prevent him from speaking in straightforward language about “enemies of the cross of Christ” (vv. 18–19). The difference is that the enemies of Christ’s cross, like the “dogs” of v. 2, claim to be believers but are not, and they are, in addition, leading others astray.

25. The ambiguity of the New Testament evidence is apparent in Jesus’ claim to his disciples after his resurrection on one hand that he had “flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39) and his apparent ability, on the other, to pass through locked doors (Luke 24:36; John 20:19, 26). For the details of the debate, see Murray J. Harris, Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 53–57; idem, From Grave to Glory: Resurrection in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990); N. L. Geisler, The Battle for the Resurrection (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 1989). A useful review of the controversy appears in a series of three articles in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 33 (1990): 369–82.

26. Francis J. Beckwith, “Identity and Resurrection: A Review Article,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 33 (1990), 369–73 (here 372).

27. Paul’s statement that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50) probably uses the phrase “flesh and blood” to signify mortality since the phrase stands in synonymous parallelism with the statement “nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” It would not then refer to literal flesh and blood but only to the kind of body subject to decay. See the helpful discussion of Fee, First Corinthians, 798–99.

28. Athanasius, On the Incarnation (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1989), 34.

29. John Wesley, “Christian Perfection,” John Wesley’s Fifty-Three Sermons, ed. Edward H. Sugden (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1983), 508–9.

30. Ibid., 512, 523, 525.

31. Ibid., 526.

32. Anthony A. Hoekema, “The Reformed Perspective,” Five Views on Sanctification, 59–90 (here, 83–84).

33. John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (London: Epworth Press, 1952), 6.

34. The Westminster Confession of Faith, 13.2.

35. See Melvin E. Dieter, “The Wesleyan Perspective,” Five Views on Sanctification, 41; R. G. Tuttle, “Wesley, John,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 1164.

36. For the first, see the useful article, “Holiness Movement, American” by R. V. Pierard in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 516–18 (here 517); for the second see the description of the closing years of Robert Pearsall Smith’s ministry in Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, Perfectionism, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford, 1931–32), 2:505–8.

37. B. B. Warfield’s attack on the “higher life” movement in Perfectionism, 2:463–58, for example, occasionally lapses into unnecessarily harsh characterizations of the movement’s principal advocates.

38. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1:688–89 (3.6.5).

39. Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, 9.

40. Wesley, “Christian Perfection,” 526.

41. See the summary of the “Keswick” understanding of sanctification by J. Robertson McQuilkin, “The Keswick Perspective,” Five Views on Sanctification, 151–90.

42. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 86.

1. Cf. Beare, Philippians, 144; Bruce, Philippians, 114.

2. Cf. Hawthorne, Philippians, 181. It might at first seem plausible to identify the Clement mentioned here with the Clement of Rome who wrote to the Corinthians in A.D. 96. That Clement, however, is associated with Rome rather than with Philippi, and since he died after A.D. 110, would have lived to an unusually ripe age if the identification were correct. See Lightfoot, Philippians, 168–69.

3. See O’Brien, Philippians, 482–83; Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 113–14. Since ancient Greek and Roman cities normally kept registers of their citizens, it is likely that Philippi had such a register as well (Hawthorne, Philippians, 181). This phrase may have been another reminder to the Philippian community of their heavenly citizenship (3:20; cf. 1:27).

4. Ad Herennium, 4.30; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 9.3.50; Aristotle, Rhetoric, 3.19.6.

5. For this and other modern examples, see Edward P. J. Corbett, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford, 1971), 470.

6. Thus, the phrase “the Lord is near” probably does not have both temporal and spatial connotations (as O’Brien, Philippians, 488–89, argues). Paul is instead reminding the persecuted Philippians that recompense for wrongs belongs not to them but to the Lord, who could return at any time (cf. Rom. 12:19; 1 Peter 2:23; 3:9).

7. Cf. O’Brien, Philippians, 495. For this use of the Greek term kai, see Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt. and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 392 (I.f.).

8. For the various options see Caird, Paul’s Letters From Prison, 151; Bruce, Philippians, 119; O’Brien, Philippians, 496.

9. Silva, Philippians, 226.

10. See Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 480.

11. Lists of virtues are not uncommon in ancient literature. The Stoic philosopher Cleanthes (331–232 B.C.), for example, defines “the good” as that which is “well-ordered, just, holy, pious, self-controlled, useful, honourable, due, austere, candid, always secure, friendly, precious, … consistent, fair-famed, unpretentious, caring, gentle, keen, patient, faultless, permanent.” See A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 1:373.

12. Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 490.

13. Ibid., 619.

14. In his wise book, The Apostles’ Creed: A Faith to Live By (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 7, C. E. B. Cranfield says, “We will certainly not have understood [the creed] if we fail to see its relevance to the life of the modern world and to all the problems which that world presents.”

15. Cf. Caird, Paul’s Letters From Prison, 150–51.

16. Cf. Witherington, Friendship and Finances in Philippi, 52, 117.

17. A classic argument for the validity of this theological principle and a succinct statement of its significance for the education of children appears in C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man or Reflections on Education With Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools (New York: Macmillan, 1947).

18. On the consequences to Christians of allowing the world to set the church’s moral agenda, see Dorothy L. Sayers, “Christian Morality,” in Unpopular Opinions (London: Victor Gollancz, 1946), 9–12.

19. Francis X. Malinowski, “The Brave Women of Philippi,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 15 (1985): 60–64 (here 62).

20. In addition, Paul calls Urbanus (Rom. 16:9), Jesus (Col. 4:11), Aristarchus (Col. 4:10–11; Philem. 24), and the notorious Demas (Philem. 24; cf. 2 Tim. 4:10) his “fellow workers.”

21. See Meyer, The Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians, and to Philemon, 160–61; Lightfoot, Philippians, 158.

22. Hawthorne, Philippians, 179.

23. See, for example, W. Derek Thomas, “The Place of Women in the Church at Philippi,” The Expository Times 83 (1971–72): 117–20, esp. 119.

24. See Malinowski, “The Brave Women of Philippi,” 60–64, esp. p. 62.

25. Statistics demonstrate that the plight of African-Americans is worse now than it was during the years of the civil-rights struggle. In this country alone, the infant mortality rate among African-Americans from 1960 to 1990 grew from slightly less than twice that of whites to slightly more. In 1960 only 19.9% of African-American children lived only with their mothers, but in 1990 that figure had risen to 51.2%. In 1960 only 2.1% of African-American children were born to unwed mothers, but in 1990 that figure stood at 35.3%. See Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1992), 231.

26. Kay Coles James, “Separate Vacations,” Christianity Today (October 4, 1993), 18.

27. Robert Suggs, “The Issue Is Sin,” Christianity Today (October 4, 1993), 19.

28. See, for example, the moving stories of Raleigh Washington, Glenn Kehrein, and Chicago’s “Rock Church” in Breaking Down Walls: A Model for Reconciliation in an Age of Racial Strife (Chicago: Moody Press, 1993), and the story of Mission Mississippi in Joe Maxwell, “Racial Healing in the Land of Lynching,” Christianity Today (January 10, 1994), 24–26. In both of these success stories of racial reconciliation, visionary mediators played a prominent role.

29. See, for example, the opinions of Celsus, the second-century opponent of Christianity as they are preserved in Origen’s Contra Celsum, 68–76.

30. Victoria Barnett, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 104–54.

31. Paul’s admonition not to be anxious about “anything” is, of course, applicable to any situation that might worry believers, but the most immediate application of the text is to those situations in which they are experiencing hardship because of their commitment to the gospel.

32. Elizabeth Cody Newenhuyse, “Our Novels, Our Selves,” Christianity Today (April 25, 1994), 35–36; Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids/Leicester, Eng.: Eerdmans/Inter-Varsity, 1994), 14.

33. For a provocative record of the failure of evangelicals to do this properly and some suggestions about how evangelicals can recover the rich heritage of Christian contribution to the life of the mind, see Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

34. O’Brien, Philippians, 511.

35. See the insightful comments on the insidious way in which evil thoughts can become evil actions in C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1943),106.

36. Quoted in Robert P. Ericksen, Theologians Under Hitler: Gerhard Kittel/Paul Althaus/Emanuel Hirsch (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), 55.

1. Lucian, Fugitivi, 14. The words belong to “Philosophy” and describe the tactics, from Lucian’s perspective, of Cynic philosophers. The translation is from the Loeb Classical Library edition of Lucian’s works.

2. On the similarities between Paul’s evangelistic strategy and the strategies of ancient philosophers for gaining a following, see Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophical Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).

3. In ancient times a financial gift, particularly to a philosopher, sometimes implied that the giver was the philosopher’s patron. In addition to avoiding the misunderstandings mentioned above, Paul’s cautious words of thanks had the advantage of distancing Paul from this type of patron-client relationship with the Philippians. See Witherington, Friendship and Finances in Philippi, 123–24, 127.

4. This statement assumes that the “brothers who came from Macedonia” in 2 Cor 11:9 included Philippians, although the mention of “churches” who supported Paul in 2 Cor 11:8 may mean that other churches in Macedonia, such as the Thessalonian and Berean churches, sent Paul support also. Verlyn D. Verbrugge (Paul’s Style of Church Leadership Illustrated by His Instructions to the Corinthians on the Collection [San Francisco: Mellen Research Univ. Press, 1992], 118–27) suggests that Paul did not allow churches to contribute to his support while he was with them but encouraged them to support his work in other communities. This may explain why Paul received support from Philippi when in Thessalonica (4:16) but refused to burden the Thessalonians with support of his work among them (1 Thess. 2:6b, 9; 2 Thess. 3:8–9).

5. For example, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (born A.D. 121) describes his adoptive father as the ideal Stoic man, and one of his traits is that he is “self-sufficient in all things” (to autarkes en panti)—seehis Meditations, 1.16.11; J. N. Sevenster, Paul and Seneca (Leiden: Brill, 1961), 114. The Roman statesman Seneca (born about 4 B.C.) likewise claimed that whereas the wise man might want friends, he had no need of them because ultimately he was self-sufficient—see his Epistulae, ix; Lightfoot, Philippians, 305.

6. Phil. 4:13, then, does not mean that Christ enables Paul to do anything, but to endure any problem he encounters as he seeks to be faithful to his apostolic calling. Col. 1:28–29 provides a close parallel: “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.”

7. The phrase “giving and receiving” uses common financial terms for “payments” and “receipts,” and the NEB actually translated them this way. But, as Peter Marshall, Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul’s Relations With the Corinthians (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1987), 157–64, points out, the terms were also commonly used to describe the mutual obligations of friendship.

8. This is the translation of epizeto (NIV “am looking for”) in Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., trans., adapt., and rev. William F. Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 292.

9. See Bauer Greek-English Lexicon, 405; O’Brien, Philippians, 539.

10. Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 84.

11. For a more detailed treatment of this theme in Philippians see Frank Thielman, Paul and the Law: A Contextual Approach (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 156–58, 286, n. 49.

12. Paul certainly sends general, nameless greetings elsewhere (2 Cor. 13:11–14; Eph. 6:23; 1 Thess. 5:26; Titus 3:15), but in no other letter does he extend greetings to “every saint” as he does here.

13. O’Brien, Philippians, 551 (cf. his discussion of this verse, p. 553).

14. The phrase “Caesar’s household” refers to slaves and freed slaves who served the emperor either as part of his entourage of personal attendants in Rome or as part of the more widely dispersed group of servants who supervised his financial affairs. Both groups were proud of the status that their work in the emperor’s service accorded them, and they often added to their names an abbreviation showing that they were slaves or freedmen of the emperor. See P. R. C. Weaver, Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 1–8.

15. The word “deliverance” in the NIV’s rendering of 1:19 is literally “salvation” (soteria). See the discussion of Paul’s use of this term in 1:19 in the “Original Meaning” section of the commentary on 1:18b–26.

16. Kenneth Copeland, The Laws of Prosperity (Fort Worth, Tex.: Kenneth Copeland Publications, 1974), 24.

17. Briscoe, Philippians, 165–66; Wiersbe, Be Joyful, 140.

18. See Deut. 8:10–18.

19. Copeland, The Laws of Prosperity, 41–43; idem, Prosperity: The Choice Is Yours (Fort Worth, Tex.: Kenneth Copeland Publications, 1992), 23–25.

20. Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, 26; Kenneth E. Hagin, Obedience in Finances (Tulsa, Okla.: RHEMA Bible Church, 1983), 2, 6.

21. Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, 16.

22. This view appears as early as Clement of Alexandria (born about 150) in his treatise Quis Dives Salvetur? 14–15.

23. Cited by D. K. Adie, “Wealth, Christian View of,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 1161. Adie’s article argues for this commonly accepted view of wealth.

24. In what follows I am particularly indebted to the understanding of wealth in Jacques Ellul, Money and Power (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984).

25. Abraham’s wealth can be inferred from the account of his life in Gen. 12:1–25:11. Luke 8:3 speaks of women who supported Jesus and his disciples financially.

26. The Greek word is adikos (see Bauer, Greek-English Lexicon, 18).

27. Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, 16; idem, Prosperity: The Choice Is Yours, 34.

28. The literature of the “prosperity gospel” movement is bespeckled with comparisons between the laws of prosperity and natural laws such as the law of gravity. See, for example, Copeland, Laws of Prosperity, 15.

29. Ellul, Money and Power, 110.

30. Richard Foster, Money, Sex, and Power: The Challenge of the Disciplined Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 33.