NOTES for Php 1:1-11

The main thought and distinctive tone of today's reading is gratitude. The apostle Paul thanks God for those people in whom He "began a good work": for their existence, for their being turned to Christ, and for their sharing in the apostle's own missionary service. He writes to them that he always prays for them with joy.

It is truly a great happiness when one can pray for people with joy and gratitude. Too often we take for granted what should be the theme of joyful thanksgiving prayer. This is understandable in the psychology of a conqueror and colonist: conquering and developing new territories for the Kingdom, a person becomes used to looking ahead, toward lands still foreign and hearts still not belonging to the Kingdom, forgetting to rejoice and give thanks for those who already belong to this Kingdom. But for the apostle Paul, the church in Philippi was important and beloved, even though he had not spent long in that city. And his expansive joy and gratitude, illuminating the whole letter, is an important example for us. The love of Christ in the brothers and sisters needs us to support it and not forget one another.

Paul begins his letter to the Christians of Philippi by thanking God for the witness and proclamation of the good news in which the Philippian church apparently stood out among other churches (vv. 3–5). Of course, this gratitude expresses both joy that the good news is spreading through the world and praise for those who have succeeded in spreading it. Yet the apostle's main attention is directed elsewhere. It is no accident that he mentions the One who, ‘having begun a good work’ in the hearts of the Philippian Christians and in their church, will, Paul hopes, work in them and through them ‘until the day of Jesus Christ’, that is, until the end of time (vv. 6–7). To him it is obvious that Christian witness is not a person's merit or achievement, but God's work, which the witness carries out together with God, allowing Him to act through them. The witness's chief work is to be an instrument of God's action, and the chief task is to become a perfect instrument, so that at the end of time the witness may say that, as a human being, they did everything they could to make their witness perfect. That is why the apostle speaks of ‘growth in love’ in those who bear witness, of love's growth ‘in knowledge and all discernment’ (vv. 8–9).

Of course, even in our world, which has not yet been transformed, it matters that all a person's knowledge and feelings should be guided by love—not love as an emotion or an abstract idea, but as an active desire for the good of one's neighbour. Yet in our world love, at least in the sense in which the biblical authors understand it, is primarily a relationship; in the Kingdom, however, it is not only a relationship but also the medium in which its inhabitants live. In a certain sense, love could be called the spiritual substance of the Kingdom, its foundation, just as the natural elements are the foundation of our world. Anyone who wishes to become fully rooted in the Kingdom must share in this ‘substance of the Kingdom’, take it into themselves as far as human nature permits—and human nature permits this to the extent that it is itself transformed by the action of God's breath. Of course, bearing witness remains every Christian's principal task, but they can fulfil it only by becoming more and more a Christian in the original sense of the word: an inhabitant of the Kingdom. Then, on the ‘day of Christ’, the day of Judgment and the Saviour's return, the results of such a witness's ministry will become clearly visible to everyone (vv. 10–11).