Philippians 2:1-11

What follows are my notes for this classic passage in Philippians 2 which we will discuss at our workplace lunchtime bible study this week.

During our study, we all bring a "standard" translation, so below is posted Eugene Peterson's paraphrase version from The Message:

^1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. ^5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
^9-11 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

v. 1: "Therefore" is there to connect the thoughts expressed in Chapter 1 with respect to conduct and exhortations towards Godly attitudes (ie: joy in the midst of suffering) with what follows.

Within verse 1, the benefits of 1) encouragement, 2) comfort, 3) fellowship, and 4) tenderness & compassion are all lumped together as what should be present realities for the church in Philippi.

v. 2: Paul indicates that his joy would be made "complete" by the church in Philippi being unified.  The NASB translates as "united in spirit, intent on one purpose."  A parallel passage is found in Romans 15.

So, what barriers are there in our lives, churches, homes, workplace, etc. that cause us to not have a unified vision?  When is it OK to not have unity? 

v. 3-4: Paul contrasts selfishness/conceit with humility of mind and exhorts the church to regard others as more important than yourselves. 

How often is it that we're so busy that we neglect even thinking of the interests of others, let alone acting or dispositioning ourselves in a way that benefits others?  How often is it that we justify our actions as being somehow for others when in reality we're being selfish?

How is humility misunderstood within our culture, both within the Church and outside of the church?  One of my favorite quotes on this comes from G.K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy (written in 1909, by the way):

But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert--himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt--the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance. It is exactly this intellectual helplessness which is our second problem.

v. 5-11: The model of Christ.  Many scholars note that verses 6-11 were part of a song/hymn in the early church.