‘Christian community’, Prayer and Praise, 11th June 2025
Philippians 1:27- end of chapter 2
How do you see the fellow Christians you serve with in a ministry? Maybe you are part of the music or technical, Sunday School, Emmaus, coffee team, a steward etc. Or the Christians in your life group? How do you see those Christians?
Or the Christians you spend most time with? How would you describe them?
Do you think about them at all, or is life too busy?
We want to focus tonight on relationships with our fellow Christians.
Our main focus will be on Timothy and Epaphroditus.
1:27- end of 2 is one long section that can be described in one word ‘’relationships.’’
The theme that covers 1:27 – end of 2 is relationships
(1:27-end of chapter 1) The relationship with non believers.
1:27 Whatever happens conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. The Greek word conduct yourselves could be translated as ‘’be a citizen’’ – ie a member of society.
Michael Gorman translate it as ‘’your public behavior must match up to the gospel of the king.’’
How you live among the non believers, should line up with how King Jesus wants you to live, as a member of his kingdom.
V1-4.
Into what we heard.
The relationship between the Christians – v1-4
V5-11
How Christ Jesus related to us – one of servant hearted ness and obedience no matter the cost
V12-18
The exhortation by Paul that the relationship between the Christians should reflect how Christ related to us..
Then Paul talks about T and E. This is where we focus. V12-end.
Timothy and Epaphroditus
We are learning from Timothy, Epraphoditus.
But we do not learn what they think,
but how theology shaped their lives… practical theology.
Paul shares a character reference for Timothy as he does later for Epaphroditus.
They are discussed and described to share practical info about travel plans. I often read these section as a strange insert by Paul – he is teaching about life in the world and in the community and then he starts talking about people travelling. As if he went off on some big tangient – maybe you can relate to that…
But when I looked closer, last year, I saw, that they are also working models of all Paul has been communicating. Yes Paul wants to share about these two fellow missionaries and their plans, but he does so for a bigger purpose. He shares about them, because Paul wants them – T and E – to be models to be imitated.
Philippians may have been saying – so far as they heard his letter – well Paul, that is okay for you, to talk about the mind of Christ and imitating Christ, but you are the GREAT Paul, you met Jesus on the road, you started us…
T and E are ‘people like us, strangers on the bus making their way home’ – regular believers… suggesting, if they can do it, you can too…
Timothy.
Timothy appears in our story in Acts 16. He was there when Philippi was founded.
The plan is to send him once the result is known about Paul’s trial – v23. So Paul knows a conclusion is coming sooner than later. In chapter 1, that Paul is aware that the answer is unsure – he shared his desire that ‘Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.’’
‘’I hope in the Lord Jesus’’ (v19)
Paul hopes to send Timothy –
‘I hope’. This could be seen as ‘crossing your fingers?’ I hope it will not be too hot in my flat tomorrow or not too hot for my kids at school tomorrow…
I hope in the Lord Jesus – Paul says in Phil 3 his life’s aim : he wants to be found in him, he wants to know Christ; and as for Paul ‘to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ Christ has become his whole life. ‘’I hope in the Lord Jesus’’ Everything Paul says, thinks, does is based on his relationship with the Lord Jesus. His planning included…
So he sends T to share news about him and then to return with news about them. ‘’That I may also be cheered when I receive news about you.’’
The reason – often he sends a worker for their sakes, whether to build them up, or facilitate some ministry like in the gift collection of 2 Corinthians when Titus is sent. Yet while Timothy would strengthen, he is sent for Paul’s sake. V19
‘’that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.’’
Cheered means refreshed or encouraged. What does he want to be cheered about – he wants to be cheered about his words in v27-2:18 – that they have helped, and things have improved in that church.
Vulnerability
This is a moment of Paul’s being real, or vulnerable.
At theological college one of the topics I studied was generational differences. It was said that comparing Boomer leaders – who were born post war up to mid 70s, versus Gen X leaders born mid late 60s to early 1980s, was their vulnerability.
The boomer leaders – all was fine, successful, press on.
The Generation X were more vulnerable about their failings, weaknesses and that connected with many younger believers because they saw the world was busted and they knew their leaders walked with a limp…
You will have your views on vulnerability. But here Paul shows us he is no robot. He rejoices in the Lord. Yet he wants to be cheered about how they are doing… He is willing to be vulnerable with others. Philippians is a letter where we get to know Christ’s mind but also the mind of Paul.
References
Paul describes Timothy. What a reference.
‘’I have no one else of his qualities. No one else who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. For everyone looks out for their own interests not those of Jesus Christ’’
Paul had said
2v4 each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others.
2v5 your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus.
Timothy is living this.
Timothy has the servant mind of Christ,
and he has the focus – the obedience to what the Lord Jesus Christ asks – already his knee is bowed and calls him Lord.
He describes his relationship with Timothy – as a son to the father – words like an apprenticeship – Paul says he has proved himself, he has got what it takes. Paul is saying – he is a living breathing example of what Paul has been teaching.
First Generation
The Philippians were first gen Christians. They had no other examples.
I saw this for the first time in Albania 5 6 years ago when I met Christians there. I remember in a bible study thinking and listening as they said, they were the first every Christian in their family… for Albania as you know had been declared as the world’s first atheist state… Philippians were the same. They are trying to work it out, and Paul says – look at these guys, they can show you how to do, and live, what it means to be a citizen, to follow King Jesus and to do what I have been saying…
Epaphroditus.
You know in this church we have lots of biblical names for the kids and many of you are named of course after biblical names. But a name we don’t hear used very much – Epaphroditus. One to remember.
Paul feels it is necessary now to send E back.
What appears to have happened – he got sick – on the journey or after he arrived.
One reason to send him back is ‘’they had heard he was ill’’. E was full of concern for them. He risked his life on their behalf to help Paul – v30.
Paul praises E and commends him as he returns.
And he is very highly commended.
My brother. My fellow soldier. My fellow worker. Your messenger whom you sent to take care of my needs…
He is a brother.
It is a reminder for us of the relationship between believers in a community – we are each brothers and sisters. In Galatians 3:26 Paul puts it another way – ‘’you are all songs of God through faith in Christ Jesus.’’
E is to Paul, what the rest of the community are to Paul and to each other.
Co-worker – a term Paul uses elsewhere eg to describe Titus, Priscilla and Aquila, Apollos etc. and it uses it later for Euodia and Syntyche in Phil 4. Syntyche another name we don’t have too often here in ASA.
He says ‘fellow soldier’. Not surprising Paul may use such an image with the Praetorian Guard around him. Or by the fact that Philippi’s recent history is of it being settled by Roman veterans of war… The image is of a wounded comrade in arms, being sent home for rest…
He was their messenger. The Greek is apostle – one sent by a congregation with a specific task.
This is again about example – welcome him and honour him. Paul says. This is a living example of suffering for the gospel. E had lived our their service of him – he acted on their behalf, E was a servant to him – he took care of his needs – again the echoes of Christ likeness.
And now Paul is thinking of the needs of the Philippians too by placing their needs before his, by sending E back. So ‘’you may be glad.’’ V28.
In that obedience to the call, E suffered – he nearly died.
As a church in suffering – Philippians is a letter by a persecuted Christian to persecuted Christians – here is an example of someone who suffered and risked his life in obedient service of Christ.
E is encouraged and encouraged before the church.
When I was a minister in Telford, we had a 48 hours away as a team of pastors. One activity was that each of us got a piece of paper and we wrote encouragements about each other. We then folded it, passed it on etc.
What would you write about those you serve alongside here at ASA ?Or about the Christians in your life group or small group?
What biblical phrases can you use?
Words like Paul says about E
or is it attitudes like Paul shares about Timothy.
And if you think them, have you shared them… so they can be ‘’cheered’’ like Paul was?
Is that something to do on the coming summer months?
Healing and Sorrow.
God spared Paul sorrow. It was a serious illness – v29 and repeated in v30.
I am part of a tradition – some call it charismatic – where there is a belief that God’s kingdom as revealed in the Gospels and Acts, can still and does still break in – through not only conversions but through healings, deliverances, miracles, supernatural gifts etc. Some day the Kingdom will be fully present; but until then we have times when it breaks in, the future is revealed in the present. Personally I believe that such thinking can be part of All Saints thinking as a community.
Paul – the man who prays, people are healed etc – mentions how God spared him sorrow upon sorrow. Healing is not automatic. This reminds us to be humble.
It is in God’s hands as we bring people before Him. Sorrow is spared us and them if healing comes. Paul admits the sorrow he felt or knew he would feel if healing did not come… It was by God’s mercy.
Paul again shares his vulnerability – it was not all smiles, he will go to be with Christ and to die is gain.
He talks of sorrow – sorrow at this loss, and the loss for the community and the sorrow for how it will affect them…
Vulnerability – he wants to be cheered,
he faced sorrow…
someone fully alive in Christ,
someone who wants to know Christ,
someone for whom to live is Christ, to die is gain,
is someone who can be vulnerable – perhaps you can say it is a safe community to do so – but he can be vulnerable about encouragements and sorrows..
We repeatedly hear of Paul rejoicing.
BUT joy does not mean the absence of sorrow.
We are reminded joy can be about learning to rejoice in the presence of sorrow.
Theologian Gordon Fee reflects on these verses…
‘A passage like this one reminds all of us that the NT was written in the context of real people in a very real world.
Bible texts can become the scholars play ground and the believers rule book., without appreciating the very human real world of these passages.
The text is written by Paul whose words are influenced by his theology and yet who expressed that theology in a practical and personal way.
Paul lived in a world where friends brought him joy, the untimely death of friends would have been a great cause of sorrow – thus the sense of relief in the letter when E survives and recovers well enough to travel.
It is worth noting that E’s illness was a direct result of him risking his life for the work of Christ –
we note this, when we consider that often in western culture, risk taking is usually described for business ventures than the personal risks related to one’s love for Christ and for his people.’ Fee p284.
To finish.
Questions to reflect on tonight.
1. T and E were willing to pay the price, in order that the word of God moved forward. What is that price for you, at this time?
2. How does E show us how to put other’s interests above our own?
3. How do you see the Christians around you? Those you serve with? How does Paul’s words about T and E help you see them in a new way?