My Thanks For Your Support
But it was very good of you to help me in my troubles. You Philippians know very well that when I left Macedonia in the early days of preaching the Good News, you were the only church to help me; you were the only ones who shared my profits and losses. More than once when I needed help in Thessalonica, you sent it to me. It is not that I just want to receive gifts; rather, I want to see profit added to your account. Here, then, is my receipt for everything you have given me—and it has been more than enough! I have all I need now that Epaphroditus has brought me all your gifts. They are like a sweet-smelling offering to God, a sacrifice which is acceptable and pleasing to him. And with all his abundant wealth through Christ Jesus, my God will supply all your needs. To our God and Father be the glory forever and ever! Amen. Greetings to each one of God’s people who belong to Christ Jesus. The believers here with me send you their greetings. All God’s people here send greetings, especially those who belong to the Emperor’s palace. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Phil 4:14-23
This is such an interesting passage. But what passage am I talking about? This passage before us, Philippians 4:14-23 or am I talking about Philippians 4:8-23? Have you noticed something about Philippians 4:8-23? Did you notice right from when I started talking about splitters and joiners? The multiple ways publishers and translators over the years have divided this passage differently. Go back and have a look at Gem 1959. Some have divided it into as many as four segments. It could be just one segment or section. Have you seen that? What theme would make it just it just one section? Remember the markers I used to divide the sections? I believe they were the ones Paul used, but to really test that theory we will have to ask him. I could have placed 4:8 with the section above and started this whole section from Philippians 4:10 onwards under the heading My Thanks for Your Support. Have you noticed that Paul begins talking about the issue of the Philippians support for him in verse 10. The NLT begins this section at verse 10 and titles it God’s Provision. Then the NLT has a closing segment called Final Greetings (Phil 4:21-23). It’s complicated.
I chose to subdivide it as I did into two sections called:
- The Secret of Contentment
- My Thanks for Your Support
Yet Paul appears to combine them together from verse 8 onward. If I had divided it at verse 10 I would still have called it My Thanks for Your Support. Do you see why? Because verse 10 is where Paul begins talking about the Philippians support for him. We have a Support Sandwich so to speak. All of what follows from verse 10 onwards is about the Philippians support of Paul but it is divided into two sections. Have you seen that each section is subtlety different? See if you can determine how? I divided it as I did because I wanted to highlight Paul’s topic of Contentment in the midst of lack. You could divide it that way, but I do really think Paul combined it all together. Besides we know already that back in the time when Paul wrote the letter it was not the done thing to divide letters into titled sections. Neither would it be these days but of course letters are a thing of the past anyway. Now we write emails, texts or tweets and get ourselves and others confused. It actually would have been to our benefit had Paul put in the section breaks with titles.
As you well know, if you have been following the Gems for a while, I will now begin to dissect this last section of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. There is more that requires our attention than you might imagine. There are a number of elements of the text that require comment to draw out the nuances of what Paul was saying. But the only way we can spot those is if we pay attention to the bigger picture first and then take care of the details. That is why I always start by rightly dividing the text and not following the chapter breaks that Robert Estienne put into Scripture. Simply because he put some of them in the wrong place. Over the years when I have said that orally or written there have been people who have reacted because I seem to saying that the Bible is not perfect. The text of the Bible is fine and can be relied on. It is division of the text and the titles that can mislead us.
Take your time now to read through the larger section from Verse 8 or from verse 10 and see what you think of how it hangs together. What was Paul thinking when he was writing these words, or dictating them? What was his purpose in making the comments he made. If we combine the section, what holds it together? If we divide the section, what determines the divisions? As I have said a number of times, there are splitters and joiners in the world of Bible translation. Welcome to a classic passage which demonstrates that.
One more thing I suggest you do, as I most often tell you Gem readers, pay careful attention to the detail as well and ask questions of the text or of Paul. Of course you are not going to get an answer from Paul at this stage, but one day you will be able to ask him for yourself. That is if you are bound for the Life of the Age to Come! This is our last segment of Philippians so let’s make the most of it and draw out all that Paul intended the Philippians and us to take from what he wrote. Exegesis not eisegesis. If you for some reason you are new to Bible Gems and haven’t come across those terms before simply type either one or both of the terms into the search-this-website slot at the top of each Gem and you will see what is involved with each of these terms. If you don’t want to miss any of these Gems either go to the website to view them at your leisure and work you way through a book, chapter or pericope or sign up online to have the Gems or Nuggets or both sent to you by email each time I write them.
Now it is time for you pay careful attention to what Paul wrote about the Philippians support of him and the subtleties of what he wrote. Send me any questions you have left from this section and I will seek to respond to them in the remaining Gems on the letter to the Philippians. So far I have written 109 Gems on Paul’s letter to the Philippians. When I began I didn’t imagine I would write that many but it is not surprising in that it is my favourite book in Scripture. What is more surprising is that I only wrote 130 Gems on John. Personally I regret that now but I am not about to change it. What’s done is done. Think about it. I covered John’s 21 chapters in 130 Gems and I am about to cover Paul’s four chapters to the Philippians in almost as many Gems. It just shows how my focus has changed over the years. All because of the input from you Gem readers. In the early years I had many readers encouraging me to: give us more, give us more. At the beginning I was focusing on the sparkling Gems only. Now I am taking my time to look at all the angles. No, let me rephrase that. Not all the angles, no one can do that with the Bible! As my Greek prof used to say, “There’s always more.” No one can cover everything that can be said about Scripture.
John himself said:
Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.
John 21:25
Welcome to the world of the Bible as those who are finishing Deeper Bible 701 at the moment are beginning to realise.
Take a breath and relax 701ers. There is only one more session to go! Ah, but what might be in that last Session?