§6 Various Motives for Gospel Witness (Phil. 1:15–17)
This paragraph is described by Dibelius (ad loc.) as an “excursus”; Paul adds, in passing, to what he has just said that not all of those who have seized the opportunity for gospel witness were moved by equally worthy sentiments. But at least the opportunity has been seized and that is cause for satisfaction.
1:15 / Not all the Roman Christians who were preaching the gospel so energetically were animated by a spirit of fellowship with Paul. The house-churches of the city represented a wide variety of Christian outlook. There were Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. There were some (in both categories) who were in entire sympathy with Paul and his policy; there were some who shared the suspicion with which he was viewed by his Judaizing opponents in other places; there were some of a Gnosticizing tendency who reckoned Paul’s understanding of the gospel to be curiously immature and unenlightened. There were others, no doubt, who were not sure where they ought to stand in relation to him. Here, however, Paul seems to have in mind people who preach what he recognizes as the genuine gospel, whatever their motives may be.
Why should some preach the gospel out of envy and rivalry? Perhaps they were envious of Paul’s achievement in carrying the message through so many provinces in such a brief space of time and thought that they could at last gain a march on him now that he was confined. Perhaps they regarded themselves as followers of some other leader, to whom (in their eyes) Paul was a rival; now that Paul was no longer free to move around, their own leader’s cause could make better progress. Was there already a “Cephas” party in Rome as there had been some years earlier in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:12)?
Those, on the other hand, who preached out of goodwill were glad to think, as they did so, that they were sharing in Paul’s ministry; in them Paul welcomed the same spirit of partnership as he praised in the Philippian Christians.
1:16 / Paul amplifies his references to the two kinds of preachers, and does so in the form of a chiasmus.* He enlarges first (in v. 16) on those who preached out of goodwill (who were mentioned last in v. 15) and then (in v. 17) on those who preached out of envy and rivalry (who were mentioned first in v. 15). The former were actuated by love for Paul. They recognized that God had sent him to Rome for this very purpose—the defense of the gospel. As in verse 7, his impending opportunity to defend the gospel before Caesar’s tribunal is probably in his mind: it is for this, he says, that I am posted here in Rome. If Paul, despite his restrictions, was promoting the interests of the gospel, those people of goodwill could do no less: they must play their part along with him.
1:17 / But what of those whose preaching sprang not from sincere motives but from a spirit of selfish ambition? They were evidently jealous of Paul’s record and prestige as a preacher of the gospel. Anything he could do they could do better; they would let it be seen that they came behind him in no respect. The news of what they were doing, they thought (and hoped), would fill Paul with chagrin and frustration. It was galling enough for Paul to be deprived of his liberty: it would be more galling still for him to learn how those who did not wish him well were forging ahead with their presentation of the gospel.
If we find it difficult to credit that followers of Christ could actually find satisfaction in thus rubbing salt into Paul’s wounds, it may be because we fail to realize how controversial a figure Paul was, even within the Christian fellowship, and how deep and bitter was the opposition maintained by some to his gospel interpretation and missionary policy.
But if they thought Paul would be annoyed or resentful, they mistook their man. If they were more successful than he in propagating the gospel, that was all to the good in Paul’s eyes. His pre-eminent concern was that the saving message might “spread rapidly and be honored” (2 Thess. 3:1). He could treat unfriendly attitudes with relaxed indifference: what did it matter, so long as Christ was being preached?
1:15 / W. Schmithals presents the extraordinary argument that only if the references are to groups in Philippi “are the remarks in vv. 15–17 significant and pertinent, for as a reference to the place where Paul is imprisoned they must have been just as puzzling to the Philippians as they are for us” (Paul and the Gnostics, p. 75). Paul is here giving the Philippians information about his own affairs that they did not possess, and he implies throughout the letter that the Philippian church as a whole supported him in his missionary enterprise.
T. W. Manson suggested that the reference here was to the partisanship in the church of Corinth, which Paul, he believed, had recently left and with which he was currently engaged in correspondence (Studies in the Gospels and Epistles, pp. 161f.). T. Hawthorn has argued that the distinction is between those who preach in a spirit of apocalyptic antagonism to the state and those who in their preaching manifest the same attitude of good will as Paul does in Rom. 13:1–7; the former would certainly stir up trouble for Paul (“Philippians i. 12–19 with special reference to vv. 15. 16. 17,” ExpT 62 [1950–51], pp 316f.).
1:16 / The chiasmus is obliterated by the majority of later manuscripts, which (together with D1 and Psi) transpose vv. 16 and 17 (cf. KJV).
1:17 / Not sincerely (Gk. ouch hagnōs) is construed by J.-F. Collange (ad loc.) with supposing (oiomenoi): “their judgment is not pure …, i.e., is not free from ulterior motives.” This paraphrase of ouch hagnōs is good, but it goes better with preach Christ (cf. NIV: “the former preach Christ … from false motives”).
Out of selfish ambition (Gk. ex eritheias, in antithesis to ex agapēs, from love, in v. 16). For eritheia, cf. 2:3. The word originally meant doing something for hire or wages, but came to denote a mercenary attitude, and in the NT is always used in a bad sense, of party spirit and the contention to which it leads. R. Jewett links the people referred to here with those described in 2:21 as concerned only with their own affairs; he thinks they were missionaries who held up the “divine man” (theios anēr) as an ideal and felt that the humiliating spectacle of Paul in prison gave the lie to this ideal and endangered their mission (“Conflicting Movements in the Early Church as Reflected in Philippians,” NovT 12 [1970], pp. 362–90).
Supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains: for stir up (Gk. egeirein, read by the principal Alexandrian and ‘Western’ witnesses) the majority of later manuscripts with D2 and Psi read “add” (epipherein); so KJV: “supposing to add affliction to my bonds.” The former is preferable.