Philippian Studies Part 13

Lastly, the normal Christian life, thus conditioned, is a life whose mental energies (_logixesthe_) are fully at work, always gravitating towards purposes and actions true, pure, gracious, virtuous, commendable; "sowing the fruit of righteousness in peace," at the side of "the G.o.d of peace." True, the man may have many things to think of which are either perfectly secular in themselves (he may be a servant, he may be a man of business, he may be a physician, he may be a minister of state); or which are evil in themselves (he may be an investigator, or a judge, of crime). Nevertheless, this will not deflect the true current of the mind. These "thinkings" will all find place and direction in the "thought" which remembers that the thinker is the Lord's, and that in his _whole_ life he is to be true to the Lord's glory and the good of man. "The G.o.d of peace will be with him"

wherever he goes, whatever he does; deep below the surface, but so as to control the whole surface all the while.

Such is the Christian life, where the Christian "stands firm in the Lord." It was thus at Philippi. In the early generations of the Church (let the _Apology of Aristides_ alone be adequate witness) it was thus, to a degree and to an extent most memorable, in at least very many Christian circles. It is thus still, in many an individual life.

But is it in any sense whatever thus in the rule and average or even earnest Christian lives? Is it thus in ours?

"Henceforth, let us _live_--not unto ourselves, but unto Him who died for us, and rose again." To Him, in Him, by Him, we are bound to live so (Rom. viii. 12, _opheileta_), we are able to live so. Let us "present ourselves to G.o.d" (Rom. vi. 13), watching and praying, and it shall be.

"Two arms I find to hold Thee fast, Submission meek and reverent faith; Held by Thy hand that hold shall last Through life and over death.

"Not me the dark foe fears at all, But hid in Thee I take the field; Now at my feet the mighty fall, For Thou hast bid them yield." [11]

[1] So certainly read, not _Euodias_, which would be a man's name, a contraction of Euodia.n.u.s. Euodias as a fact is not found in inscriptions. Euodia on the other hand is a known feminine name; and the words just following ("help these women") make it practically certain that the two persons just named were both female converts.

(_Euodian_ of course may be the accusative of either _Euodias_ or _Euodia_.)

[2] _Cor Dei in verbis Dei_; Gregory the Great's n.o.ble description of the Bible, in a letter to the courtier Theodoras, begging him to study daily "the Letter of the heavenly Emperor."

[3] "I exhort," R.V. A slightly tenderer word seems better to represent _parakalein_ in this personal connexion. "I beseech" (A.V.) is _perhaps_ rather too tender.

[4] "As a curiosity of interpretation, Ellicott (see also Lightfoot, p.

170) mentions the conjecture of Schwegler, that Euodia and Syntyche are really designations of _Church-parties_ [the imagined Petrine and Pauline parties], the names being devised and significant [Euodia='_Good-way_,' Orthodoxy; Syntyche='_Combination_,' of Gentiles and Jews on equal terms]. This theory of course regards our Epistle as a fabrication of a later generation, intended as an _eirenicon_. 'What will not men affirm?'" (Note on ver. 2 in _The Cambridge Bible for Schools_).

[5] We know nothing for certain of this person. Lightfoot suggests that it was Epaphroditus, whom St Paul would thus commission not only orally but in writing, as a sort of credential. One curious and most improbable conjecture is that it was _St Paul's wife_. Renan (_Saint Paul_, p. 148) renders here _ma chere epouse_.

[6] Perhaps the bishop of Rome of a later day. So Origen and Eusebius.

But we cannot be certain of the ident.i.ty.

[7] "Cp. Rev. iii. 5, xiii. 8, xvii. 8, xx. 12, 15, xxi. 27; and Luke x. 20. And see Exod. x.x.xii. 32, 33; Ps. lxix. 28, lx.x.xvii. 6; Isa. iv.

3; Ezek. xiii. 9; Dan. xii. 1. The result of the comparison of these pa.s.sages with this seems to be that St Paul here refers to the Lord's 'knowledge of them that are His' (2 Tim. ii. 19: cp. John x. 27, 28), for time and eternity. All the pa.s.sages in the Revelation, save iii.

5, are clearly in favour of a reference of the phrase to the certainty of the ultimate salvation of all true saints . . . so too Dan. xii. 1 and Luke x. 20. Rev. iii. 5 appears to point in another direction (see Trench on that pa.s.sage). But in view of the other mentions of the 'Book' in the Revelation the language of iii. 5 may well be only a vivid a.s.sertion that the name in question _shall be found_ in an indelible register. . . . Practically, the Apostle here speaks of Clement and the rest as having given ill.u.s.trious proof of their part and lot in that 'life eternal' which is 'to know the only true G.o.d, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent' (John xvii. 3).--The word '_names_'

powerfully suggests the individuality and speciality of divine love."

(Note in _The Cambridge Bible for Schools_.)

[8] I think the Apostle has in mind Ps. cxix. 151, where the Septuagint version has _su eggus ei, Kurie_. He is thinking of "the secret _of the Presence_" (Ps. x.x.xi. 20). We need not shut out the calming thought of the Lord's approaching _Return_; but it does not seem to be the leading thought here.

[9] Bishop Ken.

[10] G. M. Taylor, in _Hymns of Consecration_, 349.

[11] _In the House of the Pilgrimage_.

_THE COLLECTION FOR ST PAUL: THE FAREWELL_

"Is thy cruse of comfort wasting? rise and share it with another, And through all the years of famine it shall serve thee and thy brother.

"Is thy burthen hard and heavy? do thy steps drag wearily?

Help to bear thy brother's burthen; G.o.d will bear both it and thee.

"Is the heart a living power? self-entwin'd, its strength sinks low; It can only live in loving, and by serving love will grow."

E. RUNDLE CHARLES.

CHAPTER XII

THE COLLECTION FOR ST PAUL: THE FAREWELL

PHILIPPIANS iv. 10-23

The Philippian alms--His sense of their faithful love--He has received in full--A pa.s.sage in the Scriptural manner--The letter closes--"Christ is preached"--"Together with them"

The work of dictation is nearly done in the Roman lodging. The ma.n.u.script will soon be complete, and then soon rolled up and sealed, ready for Epaphroditus; he will place it with reverence and care in his baggage, and see it safe to Philippi.

But one topic has to be handled yet before the end. "Now concerning the collection!" Epaphroditus, who had brought with him to Rome the loving alms of the Philippian believers, must carry back no common thanks to them. All honour shall be done by the Lord's great servant to those who have done the Lord this service in him; they shall know how it has rejoiced and warmed his heart; they shall be made very sure that "inasmuch as they have done it to" their Missionary "they have done it to" their KING.

We do not know how much the money amounted to. It was not improbably a substantial sum. Among the contributors might be Lydia, whose means may well have been comfortable; and the Keeper of the Prison would be by no means a beggar: what grat.i.tude to St Paul glowed in both those hearts! But not in theirs only; the rank and file of the mission would do all that love could do for the man who had manifested JESUS to them.

And when that is the spirit, the liberality will often be surprising.

Not long ago in one of our North American missions a small meeting of poor Christian Indians apologized for the scantiness of their collection for _missionary objects_; it was worth only 7; they would do better the next time!

But small or large, the Philippian gift was precious with the weight of love. And no doubt it was exceedingly useful practically. It would secure for the imprisoned missionary many alleviating personal comforts, and part of it would probably be spent upon the work of evangelization in Rome and its neighbourhood; for then as now work inevitably meant expense.

Ver. 10. +But+, to turn now from teaching to thanking--+I rejoice+ (_echaren_: the English present best gives the point of the "epistolary" aorist) +in the Lord+, in our union of heart and life with Him, +greatly, that now at length+, after an interval which was no fault of yours, +you have blossomed, out[1] into+ loving +thought on my behalf+. +With a view to this+ (_eph o_), this effort to aid me, you +were, I know+ (_kai_), +taking thought+ (_ephroneite_), even when you made no sign; +but you were at a loss for opportunity+ for the transmission; no bearer for your bounty could be spared, or found.

Ver. 11. +Not that I speak thus in the tone of need+ (_kath usteresin_), as if I had been wondering, and fretting, and suspecting you of forgetfulness or of parsimony; no, I have been in a happier mood than that; +for I, for my part+ (_ego_: slightly emphatic), have learnt (_emathon_: our perfect tense best gives this aorist) +to be, in my actual circ.u.mstances, self-sufficing+ (_autarkes_); "carrying with me all I have"; independent, not of grace, but of surroundings.

Ver. 12. +I know both+ (_kai_, not _de_) +how to run low,[2] and how to run over+, as I do now, with your bounty; and both experiences need a teaching from above if they are to be rightly borne. +In everything and in all things+, in the details and in the total, I have been let into the secret, I have been initiated into the "mystery,"[3] +of being full fed and of being hungry, of+

Ver. 13. +running over and of coming short. For all things I am strong in Him who makes me able.+[4]

But not even this joyful testimony to the enabling presence of his Lord must divert his thought from the loving act of the Philippians. He seems about to dilate on the glorious theme of what he can be and do in Christ; the wonder of that experience on which he entered at the crisis detailed in 2 Cor. xii. is surely powerfully upon him; the "My grace is sufficient for thee"; the sense of even exultation in weakness and imperfection, "that the power of Christ may overshadow" him. But all this leaves perfectly undisturbed his delicate sympathy with the dear Macedonian converts. And so he will a.s.sure them that no spiritual "sufficiency" can blunt the sense of their generous kindness.

Ver. 14. +Yet you did well+, you did a fair, good deed, +when you joined together+ (_sunkoinonesantes_) +in partic.i.p.ating in my tribulation+, with the partnership of a sympathy which feels the suffering it relieves. +But you

Ver. 15. +know+, (to add a thought on your previous bounties, which may as it were correct (_de_) the thought that I needed this last bounty to a.s.sure me of your love,) you know, +Philippians,[5] that in the beginning of the Gospel+, in the early days of the mission in your region, +when I left Macedonia+, parting from you on my way south, in order to quit Macedonia (Roman Northern Greece) for Achaia (Roman Southern Greece), _via_ Thessalonica and Beroea,[6] +no church partic.i.p.ated with me+, helped me in my labours, +in the matter of giving and taking+, (they giving and I taking the needed monetary aid,) +but you alone+. But

Ver. 16. you did so; +because even in Thessalonica+; even when I was still there, in a place which was but ninety miles away,[7] and in the same province still; twice over (_kai hapax kai dis_) +you sent+ aid +to my need+, within the few weeks which I spent at Thessalonica.