PRACTICAL ISSUE FOR THE PHILIPPIANS (PHIL 2:12-18)

NOVEMBER 11, 2010 – THE NEW BIBLE COMMENTARY
PAGE 1038, 1039

PRACTICAL ISSUE FOR THE PHILIPPIANS (PHIL 2:12-18)

Work out their own Salvation (Phil 2:12-16)

Inspire the readers

Jesus impressive humility

Prone to high-mindedness, the fertile source of dissension

To work out for themselves their on Salvation, to use every effort the maximum

Labour earnestly at their own salvation

Labour offered with meticulous reverence

For it is God which worketh in you, enable you

It is nether Paul who is the dynamic nor any ideal of their own that can accomplish Salvation to its completion. It is God alone.

The iniatiation of the effort and the very effort itself, both of which carry out the divine will, the good pleasure of God

the sons of God, without rebuke (Phil 2:15)

Not disruptive

Luminaries – they are destined to be lights in the world, attractive brilliance

Dispelling the spiritual darkness amidst a crooked and perverse nation

The practical issue – of the humiliation of the Lord Jesus Christ

If the disciples at Philippi abandon their high-mindedness and crucify their pride and self-will they shall be truely the sons of God (Phil 2:15)

The apostle is destined to pour out his life-blood as a libation upon the sacrifice (Phil 2:17) (Num 28:7) – It is a triumphant joy both for them and for Paul.

Paul contemplates three visits to the Philippians

Likeminded helpers – ‘of equal spirit’

All those around Paul at the time, except Timothy, are fully taken up with their own concerns (Phil 2:21)

Timothy:

Special qualifications of Timothy
Timothy is a tried servant of the Lord

Timothy is a son ‘lawfully born’, ‘born in wedlock’, genuine, true

Paul is willing to send to them the only like-minded companiion whom he had at the time

Paul is ready to become a martyr for the faith
Observe, the repetition of the phrase ‘in the Lord’ (Phil 2:19) (Phil 2:24)

Epaphroditus:

Epaphroditus means ‘charming’

Epaphroditus not to be confused with Epaphras (Col 1:7) (Col 4:12) (Philemon 23)

It was not willing that the apostle let him go, but Paul deemed it necessary

Epraphroditus had been sick even to the point of death (Phil 2:27) (Phil 2:30) and also sick in mind and yearning to be home again
Epraphroditus held some eccesiastical position in Philippi

Paul is here thinking of his friend’s escape from death by the mercy of God, and his imunity from any recurrance of illness away from the perils to health existing in Rome.

Epaphroditus and the Philippians promsed the apostle some relief from his distress about their anxieties.

On this day…

• 1 Chronicles 15 – 2024
• 1 Chronicles 14 – 2024
• Daily Confession and a Burlier Church – 2011
• Know the Truth About Carrying the Cross – 2011
• Penal Substitution – 2009
• Overcoming Fear – 2009
• Rememberance Day – November 11 – 2009
• Charles Finney – Writer – 2009
• The Call of God – 2008
• A Friend of God – 2008