Philippians 1:7-8 I Have You in My Heart

I am still a week behind the suggested readings.  What’s my excuse?  Besides trying to spend some time getting ready for a workshop on biblical storytelling this weekend?  And the fact that I already have Philippians1:9-11 pretty well memorized? 

Well, I got sidetracked writing a hymn setting of Philippians 1:3-6.  I won’t post it here yet, because I’m hoping the words in verse 2 will still get a bit of fine tuning… but I now have a short, easily-singable, rhythmic/rhyming version of Phil. 1:3-6. 

But on to Philippians 1:7-8!  These, by the way, are verses I often skip or skim over.  I wonder why.  I love verse 6…really, that whole paragraph from 3-6.  And I love verses 9-11.  Am I missing something of substance in between those two beloved paragraphs?  Why did an upcoming conference for women in ministry (which I won’t be attending) choose these two verses as their theme?

⁷ It is right for me to feel this way about all of you,

since I have you in my heart;
for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel,
all of you share in God’s grace with me.
⁸ God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
                                                - New International Version (NIV)

If I look at verse 7, at least in NIV, the first half of it flows naturally from what precedes it.  Paul has just spent a whole paragraph giving thanks for the believers in Philippi.  Now he says, “It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart.”  But what’s up with that next phrase?  I could fluently say,

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you,

since I have you in my heart;

for all of you share in God’s grace with me.

The phrase about sharing in God’s grace has ties to the bit about sharing in the Gospel from the first day until now (v.5), and to the mention of grace in the salutation (v.2).  And, knowing Paul, I suspect “grace” might show up again before this letter is over.  Of course, we know (if we’ve looked ahead) that the theme of imprisonment is going to come up.  Paul wrote this letter from prison.  But the insertion of that “whether I’m in chains or out of them” contrast here seems quite abrupt…and disrupts the flow of what I want to memorize.

I had thought that for convenience’ sake, I might just go with NIV on verses 7-8.  After all, the tiny New Testament that fits in the purse I carry most frequently is NIV.  That’s what I’m likely to pull out and consult while I’m waiting for school to let out.  But maybe I better consult some other versions, after all!

⁷ It is right for me to think this way about all of you,

because you hold me in your heart,
for all of you share in God’s grace with me,
both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
⁸ For God is my witness,
how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.

- New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

In the NRSV, by the way, the entire chunk from verse 3 to the end of verse 11 is one paragraph.  In NIV, those verses are three paragraphs.  In some of the other versions I have sometimes quoted, I’m consulting an electronic text that doesn’t show me paragraph divisions.  (Which, in any case, wouldn’t have been in the original Greek texts.)

I think these two versions will suffice, this week, to represent the breadth of the versions I’ve looked at.  Except I have to quote the King James of verse 8, just as an example of a place where the 400-year-old English probably obscures the meaning, at least to today’s listeners/readers:

⁸ For God is my record,
how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.

- King James Version (KJV)

I think I won’t memorize that version.

So, what will I memorize?

As a whole, I like the flow – the progression of ideas – in NRSV much better than NIV.  All three of the phrases that I want to group together are grouped together.  Then the “both in prison and out of it” idea comes in…and it makes sense to me, the way it’s presented in NRSV, as a subordinate idea that follows the main thoughts.  Also as foreshadowing of what will come up after verses 9-11 (Paul’s prayer for the Philippians, which I’ve often adapted into either a public benediction or a private benediction/prayer during my own devotions).  NIV more closely follows the Greek word order here, but in this instance I don’t want to keep the Greek word order.  I want to say what flows more naturally to me in English.

Do I want to memorize exclusively NRSV, or do I want to adjust any words or phrases?

“It is right for me to think this way about all of you…” (NRSV)  Most of the other versions I looked at said feel instead of think.  The Greek word is more often translated “think,” I think…but it seems that “feel” would be at least as appropriate here; perhaps more so.  In the Myers-Briggs personality test, I’m borderline between “thinking” and “feeling,” so maybe I’ll simply allow myself to fluctuate between the two words and say whatever comes out at the time.

The next question is a weightier one, and I suspect it’s one I can’t answer.  Who is in whose heart?  NIV and most other translations say, “I hold you in my heart,” or some such thing.  NRSV reverses that:  “you hold me in your heart.”   But there’s a footnote saying that “I hold you in my heart” is another possible reading.  I looked at the Greek, but everything is in accusative case, and participles are involved; and if biblical scholars at their best haven’t come up with a definitive translation, then I suspect a sleepy me is also not going to figure out exactly what Paul meant.  I wonder if both meanings could have been intended.  I’m inclined to go with “I hold you…” …but it doesn’t hurt to also think about the other way around.  Being held in someone’s heart gives you a warm, cared-about feeling.

For the next two phrases, I’m going to choose pure NRSV.  I realize that I can’t choose what to memorize based on what I want to memorize rather than what the Bible says!  But these thoughts, presented in this order, make so much more sense to me than the NIV. 

And for verse 8, I also like the NRSV phrasing better than NIV, at least at the beginning of the verse.  “Compassion” and “affection” are both good, and I would be comfortable using either, but I suspect that “compassion” will come to my mind more readily.

So I think I have come up with the text of what I want to memorize.  I already have the first two phrases by memory; and choosing this arrangement of thoughts should get me past the road block of what comes after “I hold you in my heart.”  I don’t have any hymns or musical settings of these two verses.  (This may be part of why I skip these two verses and gravitate toward the ones that do show up in musical settings.)  Should I add a few verses to the Philippians 1:3-6 hymn I just wrote?  If so, I’d want to include verses 9-11, as well.

⁷ It is right for me to feel this way about all of you,

because I hold you in my heart;
for all of you share in God’s grace with me,
both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
⁸ For God is my witness,
how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:5-6 He's Still Working on Me

The summer I turned fifteen, I attended my first nation-wide church youth conference.  Thousands of Mennonite youth converged.  The worship services included some music I knew, and some I didn’t.  Our theme song for the week – probably because Phil. 1:3-6 was our theme Scripture, but I’m not sure of that – was a musical setting of Phil. 1:6.  Maybe you know it:

I’m confident of this very thing:     (echo)

That he                                         (echo)
who has begun                             (echo)
a good work                                  (echo)
in you                                            (echo)
He shall perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.  (sing all together, 4 times)

I looked for this song online, so I could give credit to the composer, etc.  But it’s a little tricky to find a song with a title like “Phil. 1:6” – or, maybe, “I’m confident of this very thing” – especially when there are other musical settings out there of the same Bible verse.  For example, Steve Green’s song “He Who Began a Good Work in You.”  (For a more complete list of the music I found, see the “Hymn alert” at the bottom of this blog post.)  To the best of my knowledge, the above song is anonymous and in the public domain.

The message of Philippians 1:6 is important.  It’s the basis for the familiar saying, “Have patience.  God isn’t finished with me yet.”  Another musical reference:  when I was growing up, I used to listen to a Gaither record that contained the song, “He’s still working on me.”  The chorus lyrics are:

He’s still working on me,
to make me what I ought to be.
It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars,
the sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.
How loving and patient He must be,
‘Cause He’s still working on me.

So, what is this good work that God has begun in me but has not yet brought to completion?  That answer will be different for each of us.  What are my spiritual gifts?  What do I care passionately about?  What is my personality type, and how does that interact with my spiritual gifts and my passions?  These questions, by the way, come from a book called What You Do Best in the Body of Christ, by Bruce Bugbee.  The church I belong to studied this book a year or so ago:  I thought about those questions then, but I would like to put some more thought into them at some point.

Browsing through the book, and reviewing the descriptions of spiritual gifts like “teaching” and “creative communication,” I can think of ways I am using those.  One thing I feel pretty strongly about – passionate, you might say – is Scripture memory.  Partly because what you store in your heart is more likely to be accessible to you if you don’t have a Bible handy or if you start losing your eyesight or ability to physically hold a book.  And partly because Scripture that is told, rather than read, engages much more fully with the listener.  I’m leading a workshop on biblical storytelling the first weekend in November:  I’m looking forward to it.  (First time I’ve led a workshop on such a thing, so any prayers for me will be appreciated!)

And “creative communication” – “the divine enablement to communicate God’s truth through a variety of art forms” – you’ve surely noticed, by now, that music comes to my mind quite readily.  I preached yesterday (2 Tim. 3:14-4:5):  it was going to be a regular sermon.  But late Thursday evening, I got the idea of comparing God’s presence in our lives to the ever-constant, ever-present repeating bass line of Pachelbel’s Canon in D.  I could have just stood up in the pulpit and told people to listen for God’s leading in their lives.  But I think they’ll remember the message better – certainly in a different way – because I asked them to listen for that bass theme (relabeled "the God-theme") as our pianist played sections of the Pachelbel piece.

Enough about me.  What about you?

Philippians 1:3-6 as a whole

Now, regarding the actual memorization of this entire chunk of Scripture.  (You may have surmised, correctly, that always staying on schedule, when missing the deadline is not catastrophic, is not my strongest point…probably because I commit to as much as I think [or hope] I can do, and then things sometimes converge to make one week intensely busy.)

^1:3 I thank my God every time I remember you,

⁴ constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you,
⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel
          from the (very) first day until now,
⁶ being confident of this,
that the One who began a good work among you
will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

I like “your partnership in the gospel” (NIV, New Jerusalem…) better than “your sharing in the gospel” (NRSV).  Partnership gives more ownership, perhaps more equality; it seems to imply that the Philippians were not just on the receiving end of the Good News, but also worked alongside Paul in telling it to others…

Last question:  what phrasing should I choose for verse 6?  I could always use the exact lyrics of the song I know so well.  If I’m memorizing this just for myself, that will give the content of the verse well enough.  But if at some point I tell this Scripture to other people, I’m not sure I want to use the phrase “He will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”  (In the song, God’s continuing action is signified by singing the phrase four times…but I don’t want to do that if I’m saying this verse aloud.)  Look at the shades of expression in different Bible translations:

NRSV:  ⁶ I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

NIV/TNIV:  ⁶ being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

NJB:  ⁶ I am quite confident that the One who began a good work in you will go on completing it until the Day of Jesus Christ comes.

NLT:  ⁶ And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again. 

I like saying “the one” or “the One” rather than “he”:  it’s not cumbersome, and it’s probably more reflective of the Greek than the traditional “he.”  (But will I be able to get it to roll off my tongue, when I’m so used to saying “he”?)  I’m also OK with following the lead of the New Living Translation here, and specifying “God,” since we know that’s who we’re talking about.

I strongly prefer “among” rather than “in.”  I learned “in,” so the same difficulty in changing my memory might apply; but “among” has the connotation of community.  God has begun a good work among the Christians in Philippi.  And God will carry that to completion.  “In,” at least to 21^st-century Western ears, implies that God is working within an individual.  “Within” (New Living) gives that impression even more strongly.  And if you look back at all my above reflections, they show that Western bias.  But the culture in Philippi was not based on the individual, but on the community.  I really think I need to train myself to say “among.”  And we might all want to reflect on how “among” leads to meanings in this verse that we may have neglected.

Moving toward completion…  Of the four translations I looked at:  I like them all.  I like the shade of meaning expressed in NRSV…but really, I like them all.  And in this instance, the NIV looks a little more similar to the Greek than the NRSV – most noticeably, in the use of “Christ Jesus” rather than “Jesus Christ.”  Since I may want to pay attention to when Paul says “Christ” first and when he says “Jesus” first, during this entire letter, I’m going to choose the NIV phrasing.

So, how long until I have this whole paragraph memorized?  I haven’t really been working on it the last half of this past week.  (And it’s really already time to be looking at verses 8-9.)  The basic structure, for my purposes, is:

          I thank my God for you
                        how

why

song

I already know the thanking-God verse; and I’m pretty close on the how.  Why shouldn’t take too long, IF I actually copy this onto an index card I can have with me when I’m waiting for school to let out.  Then it’s just a matter of how picky I want to be about phrasing of verse 6.

So stay tuned:  hopefully we’ll look at verses 7-8 later this week.

Hymn alerts: 
·         Phil. 1:6  “I’m Confident of This Very Thing” (sometimes simply called “Phil. 1:6”), camp-type song; probably anonymous and in the public domain.
·         “He Who Began a Good Work in You,” Steve Green.
·         “He’s Still Working on Me” – I thought this was by the Gaithers, but I guess words and music are by Joel Hemphill.
·         Brentwood Kids Music has a “Phil. 1:6” song on the CD/DVD Crazy Praize, Vol. 1.  But it’s not the same tune I was thinking of for the first song I mentioned.
·         There’s a Bible memory program (Fighter Verses) that includes a CD of songs:  word-for-word Bible verses set to music.  Phil. 1:6 is on the CD Fighter Verse Songs, Set 1, but I don’t know the tune. (http://fighterverses.com)

Hymnary.org suggests quite a few hymns for Phil. 1:6.  (Most are thematic connections, some more direct than others.)  Two that caught my eye (partly because I know and love them) are:

·         Lord of Our Growing Years
·         I Was There To Hear Your Borning Cry

Belated addition:  "I Thank My God," my own hymn setting of Philippians 1:3-6 (late October 2013)

Philippians 1:3-4 Thank God for you...

The Scripture passage for this week is actually Phil. 1:3-6.  I had intended to look at all four of those verses today, but it’s not going to happen.  I include all four verses here for the comparison between versions; but today I’m only going to focus on verses 3-4.  I hate to stop in the middle of a sentence, but…

 
³ I thank my God every time I remember you,
⁴ constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you,
⁵ because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.
⁶ I am confident of this,
that the one who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
                             – New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

³ I thank my God every time I remember you.

⁴ In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy
⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now,
⁶ being confident of this,
that he who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

 – New International Version (NIV); Today’s New International Version (TNIV)

³ I thank my God whenever I think of you,

⁴ and every time I pray for you all, I always pray with joy

⁵ for your partnership in the gospel from the very first day up to the present.

⁶ I am quite confident that the One who began a good work in you

will go on completing it until the Day of Jesus Christ comes.

– New Jerusalem Bible (NJB)

 ³ Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.

⁴ I always pray for you, and I make my requests with a heart full of joy
⁵ because you have been my partners
in spreading the Good News about Christ
from the time you first heard it until now.
⁶ And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you,
will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day
when Christ Jesus comes back again. 

–       New Living Translation (NLT)

 

So here it is!  The verse at which I usually begin paying attention to the letter to the Philippians.  Phil. 1:3 “I thank my God every time I remember you.”

From a memorizing standpoint, this one shouldn’t be too hard.  I don’t have to spend much time deciding what words to memorize when most of the translations agree on exact phrasing!  The main choice will be whether to say “remember” or “think of.”  Different shades of meanings, both good translations, and I’m OK with switching back and forth depending on what comes to my lips at any given time.  The same is true – even more so – for “whenever” as compared to “every time.”  So the only thing I might have difficulty remembering – the only part of this beloved verse that I don’t already have memorized, in some form – is that it’s “my God” rather than just “God.”  Why does Paul say “my God”?  Does it matter?

When I think of this verse, I don’t usually think so much about God as about God’s children.  There are people who, whenever I think of them, a smile comes to my face.  You have been blessings to me.  Chances are, most of you who are reading this fit that category!  So I do thank God for the wonderful people God has brought into my life. 

And, of course, it feels great to be on the receiving end of this sentence.  To know that when someone thinks of me, they get that warm, glowing feeling and thank God because of me.  (Always?!  I do have some rough edges, after all…)

⁴ constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you

Before I think about how I want to memorize this – in what order I want to say all those little units of meaning – let’s think about what Paul is saying.  And what it might mean for us.  Who is Paul praying for?  Lydia and the other women who met down by the riverside before Paul and his companions brought the good news about Jesus, the Messiah.  The jailer who had been about to kill himself.  And their households, of course.  Probably the girl who used to be possessed by a spirit of divination.  Clement.  Epaphroditus.  Euodia.  Syntyche.  Possibly Syzygus, although I suspect that would be better translated “my true companion,” and we don’t know who it refers to.  (See 4:3)  Paul is praying, with joy and thanksgiving, for each of the members of the group of believers in Philippi.

Maybe this isn’t so surprising.  Let’s add a few more congregations.  Where else has Paul spread the good news?  Can we assume that each time Paul prays, he also prays for each of the people in all of those other congregations?

This verse sounds joyful and thankful…but I can easily turn it around into an impossible-to-meet standard for my own prayer life.  Does this mean that every time I pray, I need to think about every congregation I have been a part of and give thanks for every person in each of those congregations?  During the years that my husband and I were in seminary, we changed congregations every year or so, because we were taking turns doing internships.  So even if I just think about my church membership between 2002-2007 (this also includes the congregation where we became pastors after seminary), I’m thinking of five different congregations of wonderful people, for whom I can pray with thanksgiving…five congregations, totaling perhaps 700 people.  That’s way too cumbersome to pray for each one of those people each and every time I pray; and it doesn’t even include the congregation I belong to now, or the other congregations to which I’m currently connected.

I like the concept of “praying through the church directory” – praying for one or two people every day, but not feeling obligated to mention every person every time.  I like the idea of thinking about different congregations on different days of the week.  I think, for me, I need to continually remember to focus on the aspects of joy and thanksgiving in this verse, and not turn it into a prayer to-do list.

Speaking of joy…over the weekend, I was part of a conversation where we identified joy as one of the main themes of Philippians.  (Verse 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again I say rejoice,” is one of the verses I memorized long ago and still know.)  Hmm… 1:4 seems to be the first appearance of “joy”…4:4 is a famous joy-related verse…I want to be on the lookout for more joy between here and there.

So how do I want to memorize this verse?

^NRSV constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you,
^NIV In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy
^NJB and every time I pray for you all, I always pray with joy
^NLT I always pray for you, and I make my requests with a heart full of joy

The Greek word order, transliterated, is something like:

pa,ntote evn pa,sh| deh,sei mou u`pe.r pa,ntwn u`mw/n(
always      in     all     prayers - my    for         all        of you,

meta. cara/j th.n de,hsin poiou,menoj(

with       joy      the   prayer    making/doing

Or, made slightly more fluent: 

always, in all my prayers for all of you, praying the prayer with joy.

That’s still too much of a transliteration.  So the elements of the sentence – actually, the participial phrase – need to be rearranged in some way for them to flow well in English.  And different translations rearrange them different ways.

I think, for verses 3-6, I’m going to try to imitate the fact that it’s all one sentence in Greek.  Verse 3 is the main clause, with an actual subject/verb:  I thank.  (The rest of the verse, the way I intend to say it, also has “I remember” which is another subject/verb; but in Greek a more literal translation would be “upon every remembrance of you.)  Verse 4 is a participle phrase, which continues into verse 5.  Verse 6 is another participle phrase.  So if I use the NRSV phrasing for verse 4, “constantly praying…”, then that could be parallel to verse 6 “being confident of this…” [NIV].  Of course, there’s a good chance that could turn out to be too cumbersome…but we’ll see, later this week.

So it appears that for both verse 3 and verse 4, I have strong NRSV leanings.  But looking ahead to the next two verses, I foresee at least one or two places where I’ll lean toward NIV.  Hopefully by the time I get back to this blog, I’ll have figured out how to remember all those little parts in verse 4!

 

³ I thank my God every time I remember you,
⁴ constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you...

 

Hymn alert: 

"I Thank My God," my own hymn setting of Phil. 1:3-6, written in late October 2013

 

 

Philippians 1:1-2, Midweek Musings

I thought I had it.  I thought I had those two verses memorized.  Then I realized yesterday that I had been omitting the “bishops and elders” phrase.  Why?  I value church leadership.  I’m part of church leadership:  right now, I’m at a retreat and continuing education event for pastors and other church leaders.  So why did I skip that line when I was saying these verses to myself?

Maybe it was because the previous line does not roll easily off my tongue.  I have to think hard about each word of “all God’s holy people.”  “To all the saints” would be much easier to say.  But not so easy to understand.  So I’m going to keep it as it is, and just try to say it aloud as much as possible, rather than silently, so that it starts to flow better.  And then I have a tendency to want to forget “in Christ Jesus” and go directly to “[who are] in Philippi.”  Not sure I want to explore the theological implications of that!  Actually, it’s probably because I look back on this letter that was written almost 2000 years ago and I automatically assume that of course the recipients believed in Christ Jesus.  The informational part, for me, is the location of the church being addressed.  So Philippi is important to say.

To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi…

Actually, I’m pretty sure the reason I had been skipping the “bishops and elders” line is that I had already mentioned everybody!  All the saints…all God’s holy ones who are in Philippi…I’ve already mentioned every single member of the group of believers at Philippi.  It simply didn’t occur to me to consider that I might mention some of the believers a second time.

For that matter, am I sure that the bishops and elders all lived in Philippi and were part of the group of Philippian “saints” addressed?  Maybe the elders were part of the Philippian group, but the “bishops” or “overseers” moved around between multiple congregations???  I’d have to look it up in church history or a commentary or something, and I don’t want to go prowling around the library right now (even though it’s a good library!).

Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ?

Another thing that took up some of my concentration this week was sorting out the three occurrences (within two verses) of Jesus’ name.  It’s always coupled with “Christ,” which means “Messiah,” the anointed one.  But which comes first, “Christ” or “Jesus”?

In verse 1, it’s Christ both times.  In verse 2, it’s Jesus.

In verse 1, Paul and Timothy are servants/slaves of Christ Jesus.  To be a servant of the Anointed One…that might be considered a big deal!  Similarly, the recipients of the letter are “all God’s holy people” [set-apart-for-God people] in Christ Jesus.  Again, the emphasis is on the Messiah, the anointed one.

In verse 2, on the other hand, “Jesus” is sandwiched between “Lord” and “Christ.”  Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  With emphasis on Jesus’ lordship as well as the fact that he’s the Messiah.

Grace to you.  And peace.

Speaking of verse 2…it was super-easy to memorize because I know a song with those lyrics.  The rhythm of the song even matches the way you would normally read the verse.

But then it occurred to me, Tuesday or so, that perhaps I could help people better hear the meanings of “grace” and “peace” if I added some extra-long pauses.

Grace to you.  And peace.  From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It works, I think.  Except it messes with my ability to recite the verse!  For several days, I would get to “peace” and then I couldn’t think what came next.  This is one example of the fact that knowing a song for something can be a mixed blessing!

Well, now you know some of what happened when the theory of memorizing Philippians 1:1-2 encountered the practicalities of actually trying to do so.

I must admit, I’ve also been thinking ahead a bit – I love the “I thank God every time I think of you” part that’s coming up!  So tune in Monday, and hopefully I’ll have a chance to look at that in some detail.

Philippians 1:1-2

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi,
       with the bishops and deacons:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  
                                   –New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,

To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi,
       together with the overseers and deacons:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
                             –Today’s New International Version (TNIV)

This letter is from Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus.

It is written to all of God’s people in Philippi, who believe in Christ Jesus,
       and to the elders and deacons.
May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
                                 –New Living Translation (NLT)

 This is the part of the letter that you usually skip!  It’s just the greeting:  who the letter is from, who it’s to, and a basic standard “grace and peace” salutation.  We already know from the title of this book of the Bible that it’s a letter to the Philippians; many of us already know it was written by Paul; so why even look at these two verses?  Why not go on to the “good stuff” that begins in verse 3?

Well, do I know these two verses well enough to say them by memory?  Not quite.  I know the letter is from Paul, but who else?  Timothy.  (I’m guessing the letter is in Timothy’s handwriting, not Paul’s.)  No one else listed besides those two people.

Usually, when Paul begins a letter, he says something about himself right after giving his name.  In this case, he identifies himself and Timothy as “servants of Christ Jesus.”  Or slaves, or bond-servants; the Greek word has all of those meanings.  This reminds me that at the beginning of chapter 2, Paul is going to encourage all of us to have the same attitude that Jesus had:  even though Jesus was in very nature God, he didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped, but humbled himself and took on the very nature of a servant.  (2:6-7)

So, do I want to say “servants” or “slaves” if I memorize this?  Or hold both in my mind, and sometimes say one and sometimes say the other?  Actually, I like that last option…though I might gravitate towards “servants.”

Next question:  what does Paul mean by “saints”?  And do I want to say that, or do I want to go with something less traditional but perhaps more understandable in today’s world?  Actually, I really like the way the TNIV says “all God’s holy people.”  The word usually translated “saints” means something like “the holy ones” – the people who are set apart for God.  And I’m used to seeing and hearing “saints” in that verse…but it’s hard for me, an everyday-type Christian, to think of myself as a “saint.”  Over the past millennium or two, we’ve developed other, more exclusive meanings for “saint.”  “Holy,” also, tends to get pretty exalted…but really, it means set apart for God.  And any of us who have committed ourselves to belonging to God qualify as holy.

What do I want to do with the two prepositional phrases that describe God’s holy people?  I was going to leave “in Christ Jesus” as is, but then I noticed the New Living addition of “who believe,” and it pulls out the meaning a little better.  But then it’s a bit awkward to go on to “in Philippi” or – my preference – “who are in Philippi,” which is probably why NLT rearranged the word order and put the place name before “in Christ.”  I’m not quite ready to rearrange those two prepositional phrases; I’m pretty used to them in the established order, and I like to match the Greek when possible.  I think I’ll mentally include “who believe in” but I might (most of the time) say simply “in.”

Now…what do I want to call the bishops/overseers/elders/presiding elders?  Maybe I should translate it into modern terms, into a denominational term that resonates with me, and call them conference ministers!  But for now, I’ll just stick with bishops.  No great theological decision has taken place for me to arrive at this conclusion; it’s just getting late and I want a term that, for me, carries religious connotations rather than reminding me of the corporate world or of an Egyptian overseer mistreating slaves when the children of Israel were living in Egypt in Moses’ day.  Oh, and I do think I’ll say “together with” rather than just “with.”

I bet you didn’t know I could say so much about one verse at the beginning of an epistle!  I’ll try not to be so wordy for verse 2.

“Grace to you and peace…” I love that phrase, and it appears as a greeting in more than one of Paul’s letters.  I currently have a musical setting of it in my head.  And, thanks to a seminary classmate, I can tell you where to find that musical setting.  It was written by Alice Parker in 1962, and it appears as #646 in The Mennonite Hymnal – the hymnal I grew up with.  (This is “the red [brown] hymnal” that came out in 1969, the year before I arrived on the scene, and was replaced in 1992 by the blue Hymnal:  A Worship Book which was a joint publication between Mennonites and Church of the Brethren.)  “Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.”  The hymn – which can be sung as a canon – is based on Romans 1:7, but the words are exactly the same.  Except both Romans and Philippians call God “our Father,” rather than “the Father” as the hymn says. 

So, because I am familiar with this hymn, and because the hymn matches the Greek word order, I’m going to stick with “grace to you and peace” rather than rearranging it to “grace and peace to you,” which matches our usual English sentence structure more closely.  Does that put too much emphasis on “peace” by singling it out and dangling it at the end of the phrase?  (Is it possible to put too much emphasis on peace?)

I was going to try to flesh out, a bit, what Paul might mean by “grace.”  The word is so commonly used that I think its meaning sometimes gets lost or watered down.  But for now, let me just encourage myself (and you) to be on the lookout for what Paul might mean by “grace,” and what it means to us today.  Maybe it will show up again later in this letter.

My final, to-be-memorized version of these two verses of Philippians is:

Paul and Timothy, servants [/slaves] of Christ Jesus,

To all God’s holy people [who believe] in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi,
       together with the bishops and deacons:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

And I suspect this is already nearly memorized.  If not, calling these two verses to mind once a day while I’m waiting to pick up my son after school should allow me to have them memorized by this time next week.

 

 

Hymn alert:  Phil. 1:2  “Grace to You and Peace,” by Alice Parker, Mennonite Hymnal #646

 

Why Philippians? Why now? What kind of focus?

Why is Philippians one of my favorite epistles?  Don’t know.  It has a lot of good stuff in it.  Verses that speak to me.  Verses worth memorizing.  Verses I have memorized. 

There’s a lot of joy in Philippians – and I sometimes need to be reminded to rejoice.  The “don’t worry” passage in chapter 4 has a box around it, in my Bible, because I’ve memorized it and try to remind myself of it. 

Verse 1:6 is great, too:  during a high school church convention I learned a song based on it, and it’s a message I still need to be reminded of:  “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”  In other words, God isn’t finished with me – or us – yet.  And that’s OK!

Last April, I led a Bible study about Lydia.  When researching, I discovered that she was a leader of the followers of Jesus who were in Philippi.  That sheds a whole new light on Philippians – or reading the book of Philippians sheds a whole new light on Lydia – and I want to more fully explore that connection.

But what prompted this blog, right now, right here?  I want to attend the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference next July.  The focus of the conference will be the book of Philippians, and our conference moderator is encouraging folks to engage deeply with Philippians between now and then.  Maybe memorize some or all of it.  Maybe simply “marinate” ourselves in this Scripture.  (My term, not hers.)

I am not promising to memorize Paul’s letter to the Philippians within the next nine months.  But I might.  I will at least look at each of the suggested weekly sections – usually only 2-3 verses at a time – with an eye to what I would think about if I were to memorize them.  I want to think about what the verses say…and which passages are especially familiar…which ones I’ve encountered in hymns or praise songs…

Nine months.  That’s the usual interval of time between conception and birth, for humans.  In this case…today is the beginning of something.  A nine-month focus on Philippians.  I wonder what new thing might be birthed between now and the end of July!