An Introduction to Philippians

“No matter what happens, conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” Philippians.1:27

Welcome to our brand new series on the book of Philippians that we’ve tag-lined, “NO MATTER WHAT”, where over the next few Sundays we will be navigating our way through this 4 chapter letter that the apostle Paul wrote in AD61 to the church who met in Philippi.

 

To help us get the most out of this letter, it’s important we ask ourselves three key contextual questions before diving in:

1.Who wrote it?

2. Who was it written to?

3. Why was it written?

 

 

WHO WROTE PHILIPPIANS?

PAUL

In the third chapter of Philippians, Paul himself give us a little bit of his background before he came to Christ:

^” I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law.  I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. -Philippians.3:5-6

Paul was so passionate as a Jew that it lead him to gain notoriety as a persecutor of the church and anyone who claimed that Jesus was the only way to God. His zealousness and fervour actually lead him to make a living from murdering Christians!

You think you’re too far gone? You think the things you’ve done are just too bad? The man who God would use to write most of the New Testament was famous for murdering Christians before He encountered God!

-But in Acts 9 , he encounters Jesus in a radical way and his life takes a 180 degree turn

-From Acts.10-12 he preaches in Jerusalem and Damascus and then from Acts.13-15 he goes on what is referred to as his first missionary journey taking the Gospel for the first time out of the Jewish landscape

-In Acts 16 Paul kicks off his 2^nd missionary journey and it’s in this chapter in Acts that we come face to face with the first time Paul engages with the city of Philippi

 

 WHO WAS IT WRITTEN TO?

PHILIPPI

Positioned in modern day Greece, this city was located on the Via Ignacia trading route that connected Europe and Asia and was a gateway city where east met west. It was a roman colony but a city that had no one predominant culture because of it’s transient nature. It was a prosperous trading city and it became a premier location for business to be done in this ancient world. When Paul lands on it’s shores for the first time in Acts.16 there would have been no Christians there, or anywhere in Europe for that matter. However, because of it’s melting pot culture there was every spiritual expression under the sun! But along with the liberal culture clashes came the negative outworkings of racial strife, economic oppression and spiritual confusion. In fact, not to dissimilar to what we find here in present day Cape Town!

 

Acts.16 tells us of Pauls visit to this area in Ad51-53 and the first three people who came to Christ

A. Lydia and her family

-business woman, religious but not a Christ follower yet, high profile fashion designer. In my mind she could have been a judge on “Philippi’s Next Top Model”

-Paul preached, she listened and God awakened her heart

B. Demon-possessed slave girl

-A psychic, fortune teller who was pimped out by slave owners

-In my mind she is young, walked away from her family in rebellion to seek her fame and fortune in the big city, got caught up with the wrong crowd, who wooed her in with promises of lavish living, only to use and abuse her for their own gain

-Paul confronted her and cast the demon out of her and she got set free

C. Gentile jailor and his family

-Blue-collar worker who took pride in his job as a jailor working for the Roman government

-Can imagine that he had a young family and had been moved to Philippi by the government, as a promotion and he was desperate to do his parents proud back home in Rome.

-Paul was thrown in prison unfairly and was put under the jailors charge. God supernaturally burst open their jail cells with an earthquake and the jailor gave his life to the Lord when he saw they had not run away.

 

There is a prayer that all Jewish males pray:

“Thank God I am not a woman, a slave or a gentile”

What’s amazing about these first three converts and their families is that they were a woman, a slave and a gentile!

 

And out of these first three conversions a counter-cultural community, almost rebels in their society,  was born. And it is to this growing community that Paul writes to almost 8 years later in the letter we are going to be preaching through.

 

 

WHY WAS IT WRITTEN?

 

When Paul wrote this letter (in AD61) he found himself once again being unlawfully held in prison in Rome, awaiting execution, in pain, and having been abandoned by several of his friends and colleagues.And yet the predominant theme of the letter is Paul’s deep joy and rejoicing!

Most of Paul’s letters are written with a purpose to bring a correction, a rebuke or direct instructions but the Philippian church had actually been thriving: giving, serving, laying down their lives, and Paul loved them dearly (he thanks them for their partnership in the Gospel), but now they were under pressure, as in a Roman colony they were not a popular group of people.

Paul was in a sense giving them a guide on how to have joy not just despite what they faced, but also how to have joy in what they faced.

 

Three pre-suppositions for everyone:

 

1.Everybody is searching for joy

-if you scratch hard enough, the underlying motive for everything that we do as humans has the goal that if we do it, we will be happy

2.Very few of us have much joy

-We live in a society where everybody is peddling joy. Every advert seems to employ a smiling protagonist who attempts to sell you the notion that if you buy their cream, pill or new car you will be happy. This pursuit of happiness promises much but never fully delivers. So much so that there are two ways to be unhappy: to not get what you want and to get what you want. Just ask families who have longed for a baby, and then when they get the baby they long for sleep! It’s a constant bait and switch where we just keep changing our fix

3.Everybody will suffer one way or another

 -If you live long enough, you will bleed. Jesus never promised us a pain-free life. In fact we were promised the exact opposite: “in this life you will have trouble” (John.14). The great news for us is that He also did promise that we can have righteousness, peace and joy in all circumstances.

 

In this letter, Paul is acknowledging these 3 facts but letting this early church know that they can be joyful, have peace and be content in all things…no matter what!

So as we kick off this series, no matter what struggle you are facing, marital, financial, health pressures, Paul is offering us too a guide on how to have joy no matter what.

 

We invite you to dig into this letter with us by reading and studying it on your own, listening to the sermons each week and by engaging with the discussions and readings in  our Wednesday night Fast-Track series, and allow God to shape a “No Matter What” attitude in your heart and life. We believe that we will never be the same as a people.

 

Listen to the introduction to this series here:

Sermons Series