Philippians 1: 1 Continued

Chapter 1


1: 1
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons: NIV

Now we turn to the title Paul gives himself and Timothy. He declares that they are “servants of Christ Jesus”. The term translated “servant” is doulos, that literally means slave. The slave was the lowest rung on the social ladder in the 1st century world. The slave belonged to another. She had no rights. She could not go wherever she wished. She could not marry whomever she wanted. Her rights were determined by the values and wishes of her master. The slave was the property of her owner. Of all that Paul could say of himself, first and foremost he wanted the church to know that he and Timothy were slaves of Christ Jesus. He was the preeminent missionary of all time, the great writer of the scriptures, personally called by God to preach the gospel. Thousands had become Christians as a result of Paul’s courageous work. Yet, he makes no mention of any of his credentials except one. He was a slave of Christ.

Paul in Galatians 1: 10 describes what it means to be a servant of Christ: Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. (NIV) For Paul, to be a servant of Christ means that your concern is to bring joy to the face of Christ, craving the approval of Jesus. No matter what neighbors may say, relatives may argue, self-interests may encourage; it is the will and desire of Jesus that drives the plans and actions of the servant of Christ. The servant of Christ has one allegiance, and that is to Jesus, one purpose, and that is to please Jesus, one direction and that is the way of Jesus.

Some Thoughts With Christmas In The Wings

A shower of leaves fall as the cold wind snapping through the autumn air splatters about my office window.  A rust brown squirrel bounds along the fence and jumps up into the redwood tree staring across at me.  Christmas music bears in on me as I ponder the next move I will make in my head first plunge into trusting Jesus for everything.  I don’t really need any presents and my lifelong plan to be a successful something has dimmed even while I finish a book on why I need to be successful and why it is so crucial I gain favor in the quest for God’s consuming blessing.  Why is it so small, this urge to make it and make big?  Why do I miss the old days of wanting and needing and craving and pleading and missing and searching?  The good old days were ones of pursuit and action.  Today I pray and wait.  I trust God and it seems unnatural, sluggish, wasteful.  Have I lost my mind…or my soul?  What I am most comfortable embracing…frustration, worry and busyness are bywords for the pursuit of everything I wanted and hoped would be mine.  My heart could not contain my provocation at making good on my promise, my potential.  This is ebbing though as I bear in on Christ and He bears in on me.  I cannot stand the thought of wasting time sitting and praying when my mind is such an avalanche of activity and turmoil…but it is a day and it is time to wait…as success ebbs away.  I wonder what Mary thought as she succumbed to a God she barely knew and to a plan she never would have chosen, giving way to a failure she could not stop.   The virgin with a husband in waiting let loose her reputation and her portion with the secure and made God her home.   Elizabeth called her blessed.  I would too!

My Take On Philippians

I will begin posting from my commentary on Philippians.  Years ago I memorized the book and then began writing on it.  I hope this is a beneficial set of postings...

Chapter 1



1: 1



Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons: NIV






Paul starts the letter in a unique way, at least for him. He refers to both himself and Timothy as servants of Christ Jesus. Usually he speaks of himself as an apostle or in Philemon, “a prisoner of Christ”. Anyone else he includes in his greeting, he refers to separately as a “brother” with the exception of his two letters to the Thessalonians. It would seem that there are two reasons for the alteration in his normal pattern of greeting. First, with the Philippian church, he did not have to assert his apostolic authority. The church was well aware of his standing with God and they greatly respected him. He along with Silas, Timothy and Luke was the founder of the church; his courage and faith were well attested. The Christians in Philippi did not have strong Jewish roots that could have confounded their opinion of Paul. His teachings weren’t in dispute. He was clearly the leader of this dynamic church.






Second, Paul wished to give equal status to Timothy. Timothy was not the co-author of the letter just Paul wrote Philippians. Continually through Philippians, the writer says “I” not “we” in speaking to the church. Paul in including Timothy in the greeting wanted to express symbolically the unity in the body of Christ. Yes some are apostles, others evangelists, pastors, teachers; others have the gift of giving or hospitality but all are one in Christ. Members of the body may disagree but there is no room for division in the church. Christ alone is the head-not Paul, not Timothy, not the overseers or deacons. We must all seek the voice of Christ and follow Him together. He is our Word---not personal opinions or preferences.

My Tribute

A Friend died
   Years have passed
      The days of time linger
           Stands taken
              Hands shaken
                  Demands forsaken


a .
   or --
      a ( )
         no  ?


but rather !


Gardens shake
    Hearts quake
         Desires break


But still the Three Winds stake
      a claim
          none can make
               and fewer take


Life holds
   the Tomb folds


Love lives within the Bold


"Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus".  Philippians 3:12

Like or Love, Look or See, Be or Was

I am not quite sure when I realized I wasn’t good enough for something and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t do it but that realization keeps popping up again and again now. I can’t run anymore. I can’t read small letters. I can’t dunk. I can’t make people like me. I can’t sing. Try and make me a good singer. You can’t do it. We can train all you want and you can’t make me a runner. I am never going to dunk again despite your best efforts. You can though like me. Despite my temper, despite my difficulty expressing myself, despite my negativity and despite my opinions that rile you, you can like me.


I struggle with my insecurities, struggle with my inner demons, struggle with my ugly attitude and sinful habits but one thing I never struggle with…being someone God made. Regardless of how badly I botch my opportunities and wreck my relationships, you can still like me and I can still like you. It is funny, this matter of being made in God’s image. Even the worst of us has something of Jesus about him and only the devil doesn’t like that. I was thinking today about how much I wanted to be in the mountains, around wildflowers and babbling brooks and trembling aspens with a squirrel or two chattering about me and a stellar jay calling to me in the distance. Instead I was around people…people who gossip, people who snap, people who pay no attention to what I have to say, people who don’t think much of my best effort.

Name one person who isn’t broken over something, who isn’t locked up about something, who isn’t afraid to cry about something. Your list would be pretty short. How can you not like being with someone just like you…someone who wants to be loved, someone who wants to be encouraged, someone who wants to have another shot at getting things right? It is pretty cool to watch a hummingbird flutter among the jasmine, emerald green flashing in the mid-morning sunlight but it isn’t the best. The best is holding hands with someone in the image of God, laughing with someone in the image of God, crying with someone in the image of God, listening with all you’ve got to someone in the image of God. Funny but I have never lost sleep over a rainbow trout and never dreamt about lazy raindrops but I have been caught by the whirlwind of distorted love and fractured likes. My kids can make me furious and my wife steamed but when it comes to love, a glacier can’t hold a candle to them. The image of God gets distorted, badly distorted at times, but it is the best we see here about us. If I held the sparkle of my son’s fear in my hand as tightly as God holds mine, I would be a happier and more contented man. Like even for a moment the meanest of us and you have found a keyhole peeping into the most holy place.

Spacemen and Zombies

Our four-year old son drew a picture for me yesterday. It had four circles in a vertical row on one side and next to them were two much bigger circles in a vertical row beside them. The two circles on the right had smiley faces on them and the four circles on the left were blank. For all those Freudians, here is my son’s explanation of his drawing. The four circles on the left were him and his siblings. The two on the right were me and my wife. We were smiling because we had just punished his older brothers and the children had nothing for faces because they were sad.


What do you do when you hear that? I was stunned for a moment. I glanced across the page and there he had drawn four hearts with the initials of him and his siblings in them and below two bigger hearts labeled “mom” and “dad”. So on this spontaneously sketched page was illustrated the terrible tension in every home…happiness and trouble, discipline and pleasure, separation and joining.

How can you smile when failing grades are brought home or towels are casually tossed about the room or rapid fire insults are swirling around the dinner table? Who grins contentedly when one child smashes another’s sword or milk is left dripping off the table for mom or dad to clean? It is an impossible task being a parent and yet somehow we do it. Sometimes I come home from work and immediately start hunting for the bomb shelter. My kids have one. Most people call it the bathroom.

Recently the four-year old hit one of his younger friends at church and we took away his dessert and made him have water for dinner. Brutal I know…but it had to be done. If our children were interviewed by reporters for the National Enquirer, imagine how the stories would read. “Parent traps son in torture chamber! Sends him to his room.” “Father humiliates son! Takes away his Xbox for the week.” “Mother berates daughter about grades! Makes her do her homework!” Parents can’t win. Kids probably feel the same way. I know I did. I still do.

Families are the crucibles in which all joy is squashed and all contentment is obliterated and yet we still get married at staggering rates and we continue to have children. Why? It is nice to have someone to pray with as you drop off for the night and no one can hold you like your husband or your wife. The other day Ben and I were holding hands as we walked together after dinner. He was wearing his space man costume and I pointed up at a planet and told him I thought it was Mars. He agreed and asked me a deep philosophical question. “Do astronauts really pee in their spacesuits? “ Perhaps it’s not so bad being a parent…

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” Isaiah 55: 6

The Power of Pain

A friend of mine told me recently that he was talking with a researcher who was studying the effect of chronic back pain on the sufferers and discovered that over thirty percent of the patients dropped out of the longitudinal study prematurely do to death. They committed suicide. Ongoing pain shrivels your perspective. It gobbles up the cranial space devoted to thinking about sports teams, finances, dirty dishes and celebrity sightings. The housing market fades when a lower back spasms or a kidney stone passes. God and death have few rivals in the contemplative shadows where pain is roaring. The other day I saw a friend in terrible pain and she could barely acknowledge my casual greeting, let alone make much of it. I had broken into her pain and she could not make room for me.


My back is throwing a fit today and it forces me to listen. I can’t cry out to God for help…I just wait for Him. I have cried out before and found it was wasted effort. Listening for Him though does something, means something. Waiting for Him does even more. You learn a lot from those who suffer terribly. Job is one of the great teachers. He cried and cried and cried to God and battled his way with his friends until he had nothing left to him psychologically but death and God…and it was God who broke through. In the end it was the silence and the waiting that mattered to him most and made sense in pain. Trying to get at the cause of the pain, trying to scapegoat the pain, trying to slap away the pain and disregard its vigor only exacerbated the horror of pain’s continuance. God did break through and pain made Job ready to meet Him. Pain, of all the windows into heaven seems to open widest.

The saints who speak most clearly and profoundly of God are the ones who suffered most. Think of it. Jeremiah, Job, Paul, Jesus. My friend Duke. Pain makes love more than a seasoning, it makes it the meal. The most loving people I know suffer. They look you in the eye and care about you. They watch you to see that you are being honest about your hardship. They listen. They have time for you. I cannot judge with this but I know what I have seen. Love and kindness seem to be genetically linked to suffering. Friends come and go but it is the ones who have suffered who make the most of my own life and who celebrate with me when I have a little victory to share. The best counselors suffer. The best lovers too.

Zeros and the Great Beyond

I was once asked by one of my children what would happen if everyone in the world jumped at the same time? Would it crack the earth apart? Would it send our planet spinning off course? Certainly not. We are far too little, even all of us combined to pitch our earth one way or another. The insignificance of man in the swirl of the cosmos is a common philosophic thread running through the neo-ecocentric academic community. Man is less than a zero in the bigger scheme of things…if the bigger scheme of things means mother universe and Grandpa Darwin. It is funny that mankind either gets blamed for scorching the earth and wrecking the established order of eco-equilibrium or he is a shadow slipping about in the random bliss of the circle of life. He is not good though whatever may be said of him and his influence in the universe is either revolting or negligible for the philosopher duped into a Godless myopia.


Christianity is so different from the current philosophic view of man. Elijah was big enough to start a regional famine and then end it, Moses big enough to split a sea apart and Joshua big enough to stop the spin of the earth. Paul raised the dead. Adam infected the universe with sin and death. We may not be super nova large but people have been dramatically impacting universal outcomes since the beginning of time.

We are no small things when we pray. The entire universe is within our grasp both today and tomorrow. We can rework cultural systems, rebuild social structures and reboot generational links. Lions and Zebras and miniature plankton cannot change the course of history…at least not intentionally. We are, as people, artists of change. God hears us pray. He makes changes in what is happening in response to us. We are magnificent when it comes to altering the universe. We stop crimes. We put together marriages. We cure diseases. We halt floods. We heal wounds. God is with us and because of our prayers, He changes the way the universe is going.

Belief is not a theological proposition. It is a way of life. If you do not believe, you do not pray constantly for God to guide you, help you, rescue others, change the universe. God is with us and so we pray and God answers our prayers and makes it different. You became a Christian when you first believed God. So, why did you stop? Because God is bigger than the universe, there is not a bit of it we cannot reach and alter through Him. The only way you become a zero is if somehow you lost God and somehow He lost you. The philosophers may have lost God…but you haven’t. So pray. Change the world.

God Think

We have come to the end of the line or maybe the line has come to the end of us. Is the stuff of our lives that intoxicating that we think of Jesus just when the God tether ball wraps back around on us again? What great responsibilities do we have and what momentous activities engage our minds that thoughts of Jesus slip away from us so easily? We are what we talk about and we don’t talk very naturally about God. It is discombobulating for us to speak of Him in a normal, non-church conversation, our tongues clumsily trip over His name because he is not on our minds much.


The end is drawing near and all of us will either become completely wrapped up in God forever or we will boil in the stew of atheism—in either case, Jesus will be at the center of it and we don’t think much of Him. We may like Him, may even want to please Him but honestly we don’t think much of Him. We have perhaps grown weary of God being here…right here. God in a box is much more comfortable—God in Taiwan or hiding within the rainforest is even better. God with me, watching me, listening to me, monitoring my every move is disconcerting so I try not to think of Him. Like a shadow I can’t avoid until nightfall, God there is much too unsettling to bear. So I don’t bear…I think of something else.

Here is an idea. Take this day and think of Jesus again and again and do not quit on it. Say something about Jesus in a normal conversation. It may feel like belching at a formal dinner or wearing cut-offs to an opera but try it. God is there. He is within your mouth…buried in your brain and He loves you. Say it. Say Jesus in a regular chat with a friend. Make something of Him in your conversation even if it makes your nose twitch and your tongue pinch up against your teeth. Who knows? Maybe the most important part of all of life will improve your friend’s day and make him come alive. Maybe your God talk will clear your head and fill you with an unspeakable joy. Doesn't Jesus love you?  Don't you love Him?

Your mind is made for God thoughts because He is there. He is there in your head and the only way your thoughts come clean and alive is when you think of Jesus. Every other thought is a dingy, musty relic of a dying age—the age of Cain over Abel. Listen. God is there. He is there and He is crazy about you. Think about Him and regain your day. Regain your mind. 

Gratitude

I have started each day writing down a line of blessings. It has just been a three day discipline but already it feels like stretching out a bad back or flossing infected gums. I am not very good at it and it shows. My first day I could only write down two blessings; the second day I really improved and came up with three. One was pretty pitiful. I wrote that I was thankful that my car was repaired. Of course the repairs cost me one hundred dollars more than I expected and in the end, the mechanic listed two major problems my car has that because of its age and mileage are too expensive to fix. So, my repair gratitude was grudgingly added to make me sound thankful…or pretend I was thankful.

It cannot be simply a natural tendency to pessimism that makes gratitude such a strain. I just do not have the inherent talent to be thankful when I have a headache, the living room is full of clothes and toys and half the congregation is gone on Sunday. My gratitude list is far too short for someone living with Jesus and much too shallow for all I have been given. When I was in graduate school, my supervisor was providing an in-service on parent training. She talked about how difficult it is sometimes to compliment your children. She told of one parent, determined to say something good about her child blurting out, “I really like how your nose sits right in the middle of your face.” My prayers often have that same feel. “Thank you Lord for the air I breathe.” “Thank you Lord for the flu only lasting three days.” Thank you Lord that my car broke just forty-five minutes from the nearest mechanic.”

It is a stretch to be thankful but it is a stretch to cook dinner sometimes, a stretch to get up before dawn and a stretch to smile when your back aches but we do all these things anyway. The other day I was asked by one of the teens in our youth group whose idea it was to organize a hike up mission peak. Because I wasn’t sure if he was glad he went or angry he had to go, I hesitated before I answered. He did get to stand at the end on top of the world looking down on a billion city lights, look up at trillions of stars and breathe the fresh air of a cool breeze floating over the peak. I think I like life better when I think a bit more about the twinkling city lights than the sweat dripping off my brow. That alone may make gratitude worth the effort. I read recently of a beautiful young professional golfer who committed suicide. I do not know why she took her life but perhaps she missed the sparkling stars one too many times as she climbed the peak she was given. The Apostle Paul warned that in the last days there “will be terrible times…” He also said in the same letter, “I thank God…” The two can co-exist in one heart at the same time. Gratitude may be the most viable and definitive mode of expression limiting the progression of bitterness, pride and despair all in one fell swoop. Just one thankful comment can turn around a gloomy day…a cheap remedy that no elixir can match.

Sourpuss Faith

It seems like faith is mostly grim-faced determination. You gut out faith. Faith means you're not happy about something, you are tired of the same old struggles, grumpy about your difficulties. What if faith were happy, cheerful, more like eating Oreos and milk just before bed rather than carrot juice and a bowl of broccoli. It is funny in a tense and disconcerting way that Jesus' first public manifestation of faith was during a party. Laughter, feasting and pleasure filled the air as He made His faith mark. A collection of servants and friends scooped up 180 gallons of water in faith, blinked and had wine. If our faith was more like this, we would certainly be less tensed and angry. Faith and laughter seem to be Jesus' way of making faith a lifestyle. The other day I did something pretty immature. I prayed for my favorite baseball team, the Oakland A's to win. I know it is silly for a 53 year-old man with four kids to stoop to such theological lows but I wanted more laughter in my faith. Like salt on my chicken and sugar in my apple pie, it was tasty praying for the A's to win. They were behind and so I prayed for them. Imagine the goofy little smile that crept over my heart when I later logged on the Internet and found they won. Goofy faith is better than none at all. Better to have prayed for something silly and ridiculous than to keep faith balled up inside and have just grim faced determination and a stern solemnity that never walks on water.

What?

Last night I had a Christian song playing as Benjamin and I got ready to read a book together in bed when I switched the ipod to a smooth Miles Davis tune. Abruptly he jumped up and ordered, "I want to hear music about Jesus. Switch it back." Of course, being the good Christian man I was and the affable father, I responded, "No!" And that was that. We went back to the preschool book about stars and dad remained dad and son remained son. As I lie in bed, staring up to the ceiling while Ben snored softly nearby, I pondered my fatherhood, my priesthood and my life in the hood.

How much Christianity is too much? Why do I so often feel this great urge to take a break from 'religion"? What strange urges well up within me that make me cringe when told what to do, when to do it and how it must be done? Why do I hate it when my dentist tells me to floss and my doctor tells me I need to get a prostate exam and my son tells me I need to switch back to a song about Jesus. Am I that hardheaded that even the simple things that are right make me want to bail and the worst little corners of my head feel like home?

The other day I went back to reading through the Bible. I had given up this yearly tradition of mine in 2010 so I could work on memorizing the book of James. Both good and worthy of Christian discipline but one brought pride in accomplishment and the other had become a "task" demanded. It was as simple as that. I did not want to do what I should do...didn't want to be "told". I battle against the "do its" of life like a little Rocky Balboa fighting off Apollo Creed. Sometimes I feel like I am defending my very soul when I run through a yellow light rather than cautiously stopping and giving up on my rush to beat out a few seconds of drive time. Turn back to the Christian song and give up on Miles? What? Lordship is nothing if it is not submission to a "do it" you despise in the broken corners of your sin cringled brain. Oh, to love the "God of all grace". Lordship beyond "what?"

Running on Empty

For the second time in seven months my laptop has been stolen out of my car. The thief stole the quarters out of my ashtray, the cokes and waterbottles out of my cooler and my son's basketball. He even took the quarters out of my son's wallet lying on the floorboard. For five minutes, the laptop sat in my car in the church parking lot. It was 8:30 in the morning on a Sunday and absolutely no one was around...or so I thought. Why does Satan have to put so much thought into getting my laptops...not sure what his gripe is with me. This is the second laptop I have had stolen at our church. Another laptop was taken from my car while I was leading a Bible study...of course my car was stolen along with it. So why does Satan care so much about my laptops? Has he targetted them as a major force of power against his kingdom? Is he that interested in getting my sermons from me or those cell group Bible studies? Did he decide I was such a powerful warrior with the Dell laptop in hand that he had to break me free of my RAM and my Disc drive? Three thieves...three laptops...one master stategist fighting for his kingdom. I know it all sounds a bit melodramatic but are we really fighting against thieves and bad neighborhoods or powers and principlities in high places? I recently preached on Satan and his power in this world and so I shouldn't be surprised when he or his compatriots knock on my door but I am never really prepared for his blows. They are always so sudden, so maddeningly abrupt. You can never really prepare for them because they fit so perfectly into the commonalities of daily life and yet they are tazers that hit from your blindside...and they do hurt. Today a friend asked me to pray for her as she tried to make her jogging comeback. It felt good to return to reality. This is not our home and never will be. We live with the three realities crashing together. God is here, satan is here and my laptop just disappeared. It is a world of hide and seek...but it isn't a child's game.