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)
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 [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
No comments:
Post a Comment