The Internet Monk Archives

Fridays with Damaris: Another Look – Filled with Passionate Intensity

Filled with Passionate Intensity
By Damaris Zehner

Does anyone else cringe when they hear the over-used word “passion”? “What’s your passion?” — “I have a passion for — something.” — “I’m so passionate about that.”

I don’t think these people know what they’re really saying.

Bear with me here. I’m launching into a history of the word from its origins to its modern usage. I have a purpose in doing so, one that relates to a proper understanding of the Christian life.

The word passion comes from the Latin word meaning “to suffer.” There are two meanings combined in both the Latin and the English. One is simply to endure, or to be the recipient of action, to be passive. The other is to experience pain.

The first meaning of passion in the Oxford English Dictionary, the multi-volume resource of word usage throughout the history of English, is generally capitalized.

It means Jesus’ suffering before and during the crucifixion.
It may by extension mean the Gospel narratives referring to his suffering.
Or it may even be a piece of music on the same topic, such as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
Next, it can mean the suffering of any martyr, or the suffering brought on by any affliction or disease.

These are not what modern evangelicals mean when they refer to their passion for orphans, or teaching Bible studies, or scrapbooking for the Lord.

The second category of meaning in the OED is “the fact of being acted upon by external agency, being passive, being subject to external force.” Do the people who boast of their strong feelings for a particular calling mean to imply that they are passive and are possessed or propelled by some outside force? What outside force would that be?

The dictionary moves to the more familiar usages: “an affection of the mind; a feeling by which the mind is powerfully moved or acted upon.” It goes on to “an abandonment to emotions,” “angry or amorous feelings” and “sexual desire.”

Finally it arrives at the meaning we commonly hear in evangelical circles: “an eager outreaching of the mind toward something; an overmastering zeal or enthusiasm;” or as a noun, “an aim or object pursued with zeal.”

Several things are common to all these definitions.

First is the strength of feeling involved, whether it is presumed to be a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling.
Second is the “passivity” of the person experiencing the feeling. We speak of being moved as a synonym for feeling passionate, and it is a good synonym. The OED uses the words “acted upon,” “abandonment” and “overmastering” in its definitions of passion, also implying a loss of control or a loss of self.

What do people think they’re really saying when they claim to be passionate about something? Are they implying that the strength of their feelings determines the value of the object or pursuit? Or do they mean that the strength of their feelings witnesses to the fineness and devotion of their own characters?

I think they’re often saying both.

Certainly people who have a passion think well of themselves for having it. Linguistically they are comparing their interest in their current spiritual hobby with the suffering of Jesus and the deaths of the martyrs. But was passion the foundation for the obedience of the martyrs or the total self-emptying of Christ? We know that in human relationships passion is usually the opposite of committed longevity. No, the passion of the martyrs or Jesus means not the fervor with which they faced suffering but the suffering that came about because of their faithfulness.

To me the proclaiming of a passion sounds like boasting. I don’t know that I’m right to think so in every case. Many people who declare they are passionate about something are just using the accepted phrase without considering what they’re saying. But some people who “have a passion” are definitely trying to trump others who are humbly obeying God’s word and finding God’s work.

Boasting of passion, however, is a dangerous boast. As I mentioned above, one aspect of “passion” is being acted upon by an external agent. These boasters may not think so, but the’re saying that they are under compulsion from some source, that they are being moved, or driven, to feel as they do. Let’s remember that strong feelings and external compulsions are not solely the attribute of the good. The poet Yeats reminds us that “the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”

You may be thinking that I am blowing this out of proportion. The huge majority of people who talk about their passion don’t mean any of the things I’m saying, nor do they know or care about the etymology of the word. They just mean that they care a lot about something.

But even that is tricky. I find very often that the things I care most about, that I’m most passionate about, are not the things that God cares most about. Some of my most passionate prayers have been answered with a resounding “No!” Saint Paul found the same thing. He prayed three times, he said, to have his affliction removed from him — that would qualify as passionate. God told him no, that God’s purposes will be accomplished in his own way, that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness.” Not Paul’s passion but God’s will determined what was right and important.

To the Church Fathers, passion, or zeal, was always bad. Passions were uncontrollable forces that you suffered. If they weren’t sins themselves they were at least temptations to sins. The passionate man never dwelt in God’s peace. He was like the infant described by Saint Paul in Ephesians 4:14, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.”

Saint Isaac of Syria, one of my favorites among the Fathers, says this:

A zealous [or passionate] person never achieves peace of mind. And he who is deprived of peace is deprived of joy.

If, as is said, peace of mind is perfect health, and zeal [passion] is opposed to peace, then a person stirred by zeal is ill with a grievous sickness.

Zeal is not reckoned among mankind as a form of wisdom; rather it is one of the sicknesses of the soul, arising from narrow-mindedness and deep ignorance.

The beginning of divine wisdom is the serenity acquired from generosity of soul and forbearance with human infirmities.

• Daily Readings with St Isaac of Syria, A.M. Allchin, ed., Templegate Publishers, Springfield, IL 1990.

Passion and soul-sickness on the one hand? Divine wisdom and serenity on the other?

I’ll choose Door Number Two.

• • •

Photo by Anna Hesser at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science. A review of the book by Mike “Science Mike” McHargue. Part 2.

Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science. A review of the book by Mike “Science Mike” McHargue. Part 2

• • •

Fat. Nerdy. Bullied. I think it is hard to overestimate how much these early life experiences influence us, even all our lives. That need for acceptance, the sting of rejection. We are social animals. We have that imprinted drive for social acceptance. Our family, our group, our tribe. No doubt this need has an evolutionary advantage that has been selected for and is now part of our DNA.

Mike McHargue was raised in a conservative Southern Baptist family. Conservative Southern Baptists stress “asking Jesus into your heart” from an early age. Perhaps no denomination is known for evangelizing their young children more diligently and energetically, with the possible exception of some Pentecostal groups. Walk the aisle, say the sinner’s prayer, and accept Jesus into your heart. It’s difficult to say what level of understanding young children exhibit to these abstract theological concepts, but one thing I believe is understood; and that is the social acceptance aspect. Mike said:

God was someone who helped you make the right decisions, understand the Bible, and find peace no matter what was happening to you. That sounded wonderful to my small ears.

So Mike was baptized at 7 years of age. That faith and his growing competence with computers sustained him through those lonely years. He didn’t have any friends at school, but that was OK; his best friend lived in his heart. Mike still felt the rejection of his peers, but God accepted him as he was. That is a very powerful emotional experience. Then Mike hit puberty and as he tells it:

Just before high school, two things mercifully conspired to transform me from an ugly duckling into—well, not a swan, but at least a slightly cuter, hipper duck. First, thanks to a flood of hormones, I grew taller with such speed that in order to feed its metabolic furnace, my body had to burn off it prodigious belly fat. Second, one of my friends from middle school told me I should learn to play bass guitar. He was learning to play guitar, and he thought that if we started a band, people would like us. Girls might even go out with us. Maybe. It was the romantic equivalent of a get-rich-scheme, but it worked…

For the first time in my life, I had friends. Lots of friends. Even football players and cheerleaders were talking to me. For a kid who’d spent his early years hiding from everyone else at recess, this sudden rush of attention and acclaim was a powerful drug. I craved more of that validation, and I got it.

Of course, being a hipster making it with the ladies did not sit well with the Baptist church elders. And Mike very well could have drifted away from church and religion had it not been for a good Baptist girl that he wanted above all else; his future wife Jennifer. She refused to compromise her principles and beliefs for him and finally gave him the ultimatum; get serious about the Baptist church and his faith or hit the road.

So he took Jenny’s words to heart and began taking seriously his commitment to their church. They got married and at 26 he had a daughter and then two years later another daughter. Mike was ordained a deacon, which is a big deal in Southern Baptist circles. This was somewhat a golden age for Mike. Married to the love of his life, two beautiful daughters, an accepting church home, the acceptance of his peers. I know we knock evangelicalism around Internet Monk; there is a lot to knock. But evangelical churches are great at doing a lot of important things. They showed Mike how to be a good employee, a loving husband and father, to live his life with integrity. They provided community, comfort, and stability. And, at least initially, they were there for him when his life fell apart.

Mike’s Dad called a family meeting. He was leaving Mike’s mother after 30 years of marriage… for another woman. Mike was devastated. Divorce is difficult on the children. We think usually of young children or teenagers, but divorce is difficult for children in their 20’s as well. Mike refused to accept the situation. In his words:

Looking back now, it seems so crazy. I was a man in his twenties, married less than a decade, telling two seasoned adults with nearly 30 years of marriage how to live their lives. I was so certain that I had it all figured out. I loved my wife “as Christ loves the church”. I taught my children but didn’t “provoke them to anger”. I worked hard at my job “as working for the Lord, not for human masters”. I followed God, and he’d given me a better life than anyone deserves to have.

I remember leaving my parents’ house thinking, “God can fix this.” All we had to do was obey Him. My dad had obviously been charmed by the devil, but I knew that the power of Satan was no match for the power of Jesus.

To their credit, Mike’s pastors saw the dangerous shoals ahead for Mike’s faith and tried to caution him about his denial. But Mike was having none of it. One of the things he decided was that he was going to read the Bible for all he was worth; surely he’d find the answers he was looking for in their pages. During that year of his parent’s divorce he read the Bible through 4 times from cover to cover.

It’s at this point Mike’s evangelicalism betrayed him. We have talked through this many times at Internet Monk, and we will talk through it many times again. Flattening the Bible in a coarse, wooden literalism. Trying to make it an encyclopedia of everything, a manual for everything, life’s rulebook. A book of promises that can be claimed absolutely without fail. God’s literal word dictated to his servants magically. “God said it, I believe it… that settles it.”

The problem was that Mike, like too many evangelicals, had a view of the Bible that Christian Smith calls “Biblicism”. In his book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture, Smith lists 10 characteristics of Biblicism:

(1) The Bible is “divine writing” (2) that represents all of God’s communication to humanity and (3) touches every issue of human life. (4) Its meaning is clear to average readers (called “democratic perspicuity”), and (5) can be understood at face value without reference to context or (6) historical creeds. (7) Its message is internally consistent and (8) universally applicable assuming one has (9) pieced together the proper truths from the text. Finally, (10) it is like a “handbook” for Christian living and belief, speaking to subjects as diverse as “science, economics, health, politics, and romance.”

So this time, reading the Bible didn’t help. All the contradictions, inconsistencies, and anachronisms that were in the back of Mike’s mind that he had always ignored or hand-waved away with trite apologetics came flooding to the forefront of his consciousness. There were days before there was a sun, there were trees before there were stars. Genesis 1 says that God made plants, then animals, then people. Genesis 2 says that God made Adam, then plants and animals, and finally Eve. As Mike says:

Impossible! How had I missed this? I’d read the book of Genesis countless times, never picking up on this issue of chronology. My stomach turned cold, and my face felt flushed as I pondered the idea that troubled me deeply: It’s one thing for the Bible to contradict science, but it’s something else entirely for the Bible to contradict itself.

God can’t contradict God. Either God made people on the sixth day, or He didn’t. The first two chapters of Genesis seemed to offer different answers from each other, and that wasn’t possible. Every spiritual leader I knew told me that the Bible was without error or contradiction. My parent’s marriage depended on this core truth, as did my faith.

Mike, being the nerd he was, decided to make a spreadsheet on which he could keep track of verses that seemed to hold contradictions. The spreadsheet started filling up. He read the story in which God drowns all life on earth except for a lucky few who got put on an ark. Yes, the Bible said mankind had become wicked, but as a new father he couldn’t see how infants and toddlers could be wicked enough to deserve that kind of death. He read about God ordering genocide when Israel entered the Promised Land. The same God who “so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son” ordered soldiers to kill infants and burn innocent animals so that His chosen people could have their own land.

This was not the loving God I knew.

This God was terrifying and brutal.

How had I missed all this before?

The only thing worse was the answer proffered by apologetics; that God had a right to do with His creation as He pleased.

To me, that God seemed like a sociopath.

He expected to find relief when he got to the New Testament. But why is Jesus cursing a fig tree when it wasn’t even the season, or saying men should castrate themselves for the Kingdom of God, if they can handle it? The Gospels had the same problem as the earlier books; they didn’t line up with one another. And Paul. What was his problem with women? Why did he think marriage was to be avoided? And just when you think the New Testament is done with the Old Testament “Warrior God”; here comes the Book of Revelation with Jesus himself making the blood run as deep as the horse’s bridle.

In his attempt to reconcile these contradictions, Mike became a Progressive Christian. Forget all this fundamentalist bible crap, it doesn’t matter anyway. The important thing is to live like the example Jesus set. If my life was wonderful enough, and if I was loving and helpful enough, surely people would connect my peaceful centeredness with my love of God. Nevermind God didn’t answer my prayer to keep my parents together, my job was to love them anyway. All you need is LOVE (cue Beatles song).

But Mike had an online friend, Tom. Tom was an evangelical atheist in the mold of his hero, Richard Dawkins. As Mike moved into Progressive Christianity, Tom felt like Mike was finally being reasonable. Of course, evolution was true, science proved it… and so on. So Tom made Mike a deal, he would read a book of Mike’s choosing if Mike would read one of his choosing. So Tom read Velvet Elvis and Mike read… The God Delusion (da…da…da…duhhhh!!!!) (Cue ominous organ music.) (Or… if you’re an atheist, cue The Ride of the Valkyries.)

Anyway, Dawkins deals at length with prayer. He references a series of scientific studies that failed to show any positive effect of prayer on people recovering in hospitals. Now prayer was important to Mike, prayer sustained him when he was hiding from bullies in the woods, he prayed for healing from cancer for his Grandmother, and the tumors went away. But most Christian’s theology of prayer is problematic. As Mike says:

Most Christians say that God answers prayer in three ways: yes, no, or wait. If God says yes, you get whatever you were praying for. If God says no, then you don’t. If God says “wait”, then you keep praying for your desired outcome, knowing that God’s timing is different from your own.

But the problem is, that covers every possible outcome. Things either happen now, later, or not at all. There’s no other possibility. How can you be confident that prayer works if there’s literally no scenario that could prove it to be false?

It seems obvious, but I’d never thought of it that way before. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that God had never answered a prayer of mine. My grandmother’s cancer did go away, but it’s not unheard of for cancer patients to go into remission without therapy. I wasn’t necessarily witnessing the hand of God; I was witnessing probability and ascribing God’s hand to it. It made me feel silly and superstitious…

I read the rest of The God Delusion and then moved on to dozens of works from other skeptics. Each one introduced me to new arguments that challenged God’s existence and cemented the ultimate conclusion: There is no evidence that God exists.

Then one night about 18 months after that fateful family meeting with his parents, his wife Jenny and the girls were out of town. Mike settled in with Carl Sagan’s, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space .

Earth as seen by Voyager 1 at a distance of 4 billion miles

Of the picture taken by Voyager 1 of Earth at a distance of 4 billion miles, Sagan says:

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

Mike said, “Sagan’s words wrecked me. Nothing had ever shifted my perception of reality so violently.” In the next chapter, Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan, proposes an experiment. She writes:

Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter. Take a good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn’t strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?”

Mike closed the book. He felt a profound grief, an inky-black darkness, as he realized there was neither mission nor redemption for humanity:

The universe was indifferent to us. We were all just an accident of the self-organizing principles of physics—mere quirks of gravity, electromagnetism, and chemistry. This was it. This was the end of my search. “God, I don’t know why I’m praying. You aren’t even real.”

In the time it took to say those 11 words, I’d become an existential nihilist.

And my parents got divorced anyway.

Ordinary Time Bible Study: Philippians – Friends in the Gospel (4)

Dexter Training Ground, Providence RI. A park donated for the poor and indigent.

Ordinary Time Bible Study
Philippians: Friends in the Gospel
Study Four

Note: When passages are quoted at the beginning of new sections, I will be using The Message translation because of its conversational, friendly tone. You can compare this version with others, as well as have access to Gordon Fee’s commentary, at Bible Gateway.

✥

Here, then, is the paradigm of Pauline spirituality: thanksgiving and prayer, filled with joy, on behalf of all of God’s people in Philippi.

• Gordon Fee

• • •

PHILIPPIANS 1:3-8

Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God’s Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.

It’s not at all fanciful for me to think this way about you. My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality. You have, after all, stuck with me all the way from the time I was thrown in jail, put on trial, and came out of it in one piece. All along you have experienced with me the most generous help from God. He knows how much I love and miss you these days. Sometimes I think I feel as strongly about you as Christ does!

In ancient letters, the opening greeting was usually followed by an expression of thanksgiving and a wish/prayer for the well being of the letter’s recipients. Philippians takes this pattern, and in verses 3-8, we read of Paul’s gratitude for the Philippians.

A few observations about the way Paul states this:

He expresses his thankfulness in the context of his habitual prayers for the Philippians.
He bases his thankfulness on the good relationship he has with the church, and with their ongoing partnership in life and gospel ministry.
His thanksgiving is filled with joy.
His thanksgiving is filled with affection.
His thanksgiving leads him to make confident statements about them and the faith-path they are on. Paul sees God at work among these believers and he affirms that God will continue to work in and through them to the end.

When I was in high school, I worked in a couple of shoe stores. In one of them, I had a decent boss and coworkers. But we were in a declining downtown location and the store’s business was beginning to fade. I enjoyed interacting with my boss, but she didn’t do much more than supervise my work and communicate the bare minimum of expectations. I would say that this store was in maintenance mode, and that those of us who worked there drew a paycheck but didn’t get much more out of the experience than that.

A neighbor of my parents owned another shoe store, and when I was looking for additional work, he brought me on. The difference could not have been more stark. He gave me regular verbal affirmation, asked me to take responsibility for certain aspects of running the store that I had not done before, and regularly praised me when I succeeded in fulfilling even the smallest task. I found that I wanted to work harder for him, to ask more questions and learn more about the business. It became more than a job. I looked forward to going to work and finding out how I could contribute more.

My second boss had the spirit Paul exhibits here toward the believers in Philippi. He is encouraging and affirming toward them. He expresses confidence in what God is doing in their midst and how they are responding with faith and participation in the work of the gospel. I love the fresh way Eugene Peterson translates Paul’s positive words: “There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.”

Of course, it is easy to say such affirming things when all is well, when relationships are strong, when the work is advancing and succeeding. However, remember that Paul was in prison and perhaps facing a death sentence when he wrote these words. And the Philippians were by no means a perfect church, as this letter will reveal.

Note also that Paul gave thanks for a church like the one in Corinth, that was about to go off the rails:

Every time I think of you—and I think of you often!—I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus. There’s no end to what has happened in you—it’s beyond speech, beyond knowledge. The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives. (1 Cor 1:4-6, MSG)

In fact, in every letter except Galatians (which may be understood as an emergency intervention), Paul says “Thank you” before he gives any doctrine, any instruction, any exhortation, any warnings.

What a profound lesson on how to relate to others! What a great example of the kind of leadership that builds others up and sets them free!

What a rare quality and approach in our day.

• • •

Ordinary Time Bible Study
Philippians – Friends in the Gospel

Another Look: If You Are Not Afraid, You Are Not Human

Hello. My name is Mike, and I am afraid.

I am afraid of life, and I am afraid of life’s end. I am afraid of being alone, and I am afraid of being with people. I am afraid of hatred and I am afraid of love. Truth and beauty frighten me even as I delight in them. I especially fear pain, loss, unbearable sorrow, and death itself.

It has taken me years to realize how afraid I am, and I’m sure I still don’t know.

I do not always feel this fear, mind you. It is not as though I am consciously obsessed with it or paralyzed by it.

But the fear is there and I know it. Every once in awhile, it pokes its head around the corner and startles me.

I fear my past. There is a reason the psalmist prayed, “Remember not the sins of my youth.” At certain moments, mine haunt me, even though I believe I am forgiven in Christ. I am not afraid of God’s judgment, but I do fear the corrosive effects of regret, guilt feelings, and unprofitable preoccupations.

And then, here I am, six decades and more into my life, and I am still afraid I will disappoint my parents.

The older I get, the more I see that I have an interpretation of my life. It is generally favorable and approving, but my own understanding is limited and skewed. Occasionally, one of my children or an old friend or even a stranger makes a comment that opens my eyes. They see me differently. They have an interpretation too, and it is not always as flattering as my own. I fear my mirror lies. I fear I may be looking at a stranger when I think I am seeing someone I know deeply.

I fear things present. I fear the beautiful and terrible things of life. My current vocation finds me in companionship with those who are dying. I have learned that life surprises, and not always in happy ways. I have shaken my head and said, “I wish I had answers, but I don’t” more times than I can count.

I fear chaos. Crippling accidents. Losing a job. Making bad, life-altering decisions. Being the chance victim of crime. The death of a child. Missing opportunities to love. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hearing that most unwanted diagnosis. Speaking words I can never retrieve.

The profound beauty of life frightens me. The beloved ocean. The austere mountains. The night sky. Billions of light-years and space we cannot fathom, and an entire unseen quantum world, besides. And I, a speck of dust — I fear absolute anonymity.

I have been able to fool myself for many years, having known so much good fortune. My health and that of my family has been extraordinarily good. We have never truly suffered material loss or devastating circumstances. In my saner moments I realize that there are storm clouds on the horizon and that the wind may blow them our way at any time.

As I visit with older folks, I hear the stories of veterans, and marvel that any of us have survived such human cruelty. I read the news and weep to know that the drumbeat of war goes on. I fear for my children and my children’s children.

I am realistic enough to know that every human being leaves this world with unfinished business. I am also foolish enough to imagine that I could be the first to buck the trend. But I won’t be, and the best I can hope for is that I can whittle my unfinished business pile down to something those who come after me will find manageable. Will I have time?

I don’t want to die. At least not for thirty or forty more years. I don’t want to lose my parents or others I love. I’m afraid family members are going to ask me to officiate their funerals, and I’m afraid to say yes or no. It is a dreadful task to tell a life’s story, to attempt to summarize something so wondrous with words few and poor.

One of the things Michael Spencer wrote that drew me to him as a kindred spirit was his article, “Death, the Road that Must Be Traveled” —

Near number one on my list of things I don’t like about Christians is the suggestion I should have a happy and excited attitude about dying. “Uncle Joe got cancer and died in a month. Glory hallelujah. He’s in a better place and if you love the Lord that’s where you want to be right now. When the doctor says your time has come, you ought to shout praises to the Lord.” Or this one. “I’d rather be in heaven. Wouldn’t you? This earth is not my home. I’d rather be with Jesus and Mama and Peter and Abraham than spend one more day in this world of woe.”

Not me. Not by a long shot. I like this world of woe, and I really don’t want to leave it.

That’s why I love Michael. He wrote things that few other Christians have the honesty to say out loud. But then, Michael died. May he rest in the peace that knows no fear.

I am afraid of the kind of “faith” that won’t acknowledge fear. This is the reason I write at Internet Monk. I hope to honor Michael’s legacy by refusing to settle for the life-evading, truth-denying, Polyanna BS that too often gets passed off as “Christianity” in our day. No amount of shouting, “Perfect love casts out fear!” can change the fact that human beings live with the daily reality of being afraid. No triumphalist trumpeting of victory and “overcoming” can eradicate the gnawing anxiety that besets us all.

Yes, there is hope. Yes, Jesus has risen. Yes, in the end nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. The reason I need these great and precious promises every day of my life is because every day has its fears. Accepting the Gospel does not inoculate me from being afraid. It helps me. It encourages me. It braces me. It does not eradicate my humanity.

Perhaps seminaries ought to require every person who wants to become a pastor or minister of the church to memorize and internalize the Book of Psalms. Here is the complex reality of the utterly human life of faith:

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Ps. 27:1)

Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. (Ps. 55:5)

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. (Ps. 56:3)

If you are not afraid, I doubt if you are awake, or maybe even human. For all our talk of “conquering our fears,” we remain captives. Can we just admit it? Can we just be real? Can we just stop pretending we’re past that?

I am afraid that few will listen.

And then the end will come.

Another Look: Perfect Love

…No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.

…If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus?

…In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.

• From Matt. 5:38-48, MSG

• • •

if only this spiritual life
were about “spiritual things”
i might manage

if only i could cloister myself
to worship, watch, and pray
i might feel competent

if only there were a simple list
rules to guide and bind and lead
i might make the grade

but it’s not just jesus and me…

there are kooks in cars
who cut me off while on their phones
and cause my rage to rise

there are critics in corners
who trash my name behind my back
and rankle my resolve

there are crooks in commerce
who make false claims and double-deal
and rile my sense of rectitude

and i who am our father’s child
who breathes the air of kingdom new
yet still enfleshed and flawed and frail
must greet and speak and work beside
all manner of neighbor and friend and foe
and this is where new life must grow
in soil of human interchange
where we shake hands or by hands are struck

and heaven’s rain falls on us all

4th Sunday after Trinity: Sermon and Cantata of the Week

Today, I am preaching at our first church, in East Dover, Vermont. For today’s Sunday post, I include the text of my message along with a fitting and delightful aria from Bach’s cantata, “Merciful Heart of Eternal Love” (BWV 185).

• • •

SERMON: Friends in the Gospel (Philippians 1:1-11)

Thirty-nine years ago, I was preparing for my first journey into the world. I was living at home with my parents in Maryland, serving as an assistant pastor in my home church, and get ready to launch out on my own. I was planning to move to Vermont, where I would live with my fiancee’s family and work for her father while I looked for opportunities to serve as a pastor in a congregation.

We had heard reports about a small congregation in East Dover that had been without a pastor for a few years. A friend, Jack Caulfield, had been preaching there, and some of the folks at Community Bible Chapel in Brattleboro, where my fiancee’s family attended and served, were familiar with the church.

And so it came to pass that, in the course of a few months, I acquired the title of “pastor” of East Dover Baptist Church at the ripe old age of 22. I won’t say I “became” the pastor, because I wasn’t really a pastor yet. I was barely an adult. I was as yet unmarried. I had little experience. Though I didn’t know it at the time, my Bible college education was woefully inadequate to prepare me for actual pastoral work. I didn’t really know myself. I knew little about life, even less about how life in a small Vermont community and church family works, but all that was about to change as I entered a new season of life.

What I did know was this: God loved me and had welcomed me into his family through Jesus Christ. I believed he had called me to be a minister. I knew a little bit about the Bible — probably just enough to be dangerous! — but also enough to get started in teaching a few things to others. I could do a little music, and I had a gifted future wife with a love for church music. I had a wise and loving future father-in-law who believed in me and was mentoring me. And here was a group of people who were willing to take a chance on a young man with not much more to commend him than his availability.

When I began ministry here in East Dover, I chose the book of Philippians as the first book to preach and teach in our services. I had come to love this little letter from Paul when I was in college. It was so simple, friendly, filled with Jesus and joy and affection that I thought it was the perfect place to start. I didn’t make a lot of wise decisions in those early days, but that was one. And I’d like to take you back to Philippians this morning to bring you a message from God today, thirty-nine years after we first studied this epistle together.

Philippians is a certain kind of letter. Some of you may remember the days when you learned in school how to write letters. You learned that there were different forms to use for different kinds. If you were writing a business letter, you followed a certain pattern. If it was a personal letter, you used another form of writing.

In the ancient world, people followed forms like that, and Philippians uses the form of a “friendship letter.” Paul follows the form those letters would take, but he also fills the form with the language of friendship. He talks about how he and the Christians in Philippi have developed a working partnership, he expresses joy in their relationship and talks repeatedly about the mutual affection they share, he expresses his gratitude for the generous and practical help they have given each other, discusses their mutual desire to see each other face to face, and reinforces their mutual desire for each other’s well being.

In some of his other letters, Paul comes across as authoritative, as a leader who calls the church to get in line. But in Philippians Paul does not appeal to his apostleship and authority. Rather, he appeals to their mutual faith in Christ and the example he and others have set for them. There is a remarkable sense of equality in their relationship. In other words, he speaks to them like friends, in a face to face kind of way, not like someone who has a position over them, directing them.

The other characteristic of this letter that I love is that it so centered on Jesus. As you will hear when I read the first eleven verses, Paul mentions Jesus over and over again. And so it continues throughout Philippians. In fact, Paul’s own testimony in this epistle is that for him, “to live is Christ.” His whole understanding of what life is about revolves around the Lord Jesus Christ.

And when he writes to the people in Philippi, he writes to friends who are “in Christ.” He calls them “saints who are in Christ Jesus.” In 1:27 he urges them to live lives that are worthy of the gospel of Christ. In chapter 2 he asks them to have the mind of Christ. In chapter 3 he encourages them to join him in pressing on press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ. And in chapter 4 he appeals to them to “rejoice in the Lord always.”

Clearly, when Paul writes a friendship letter to fellow believers, he is talking about a certain kind of friendship, a special kind of friendship, a friendship that exists because we are bound together in the love of God that has come to us in Jesus Christ. We are friends in the gospel. We are friends in Jesus.

So, to summarize this letter of Philippians:

It is a correspondence between friends in Christ.
It shows us what it looks like to be friends in the gospel of Christ, what it looks like to love each other, to encourage each other, to help each other, to sacrifice for each other, and to partner with each other in sharing the love of Jesus with the world around us.

Today, let’s just hear the opening of this letter to the Philippians.

PHILIPPIANS 1:1-11

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 I thank my God every time I remember you, 4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, 5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.

9 And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11 having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Letters in the ancient world began with three things: a greeting, an expression of thanksgiving, and a prayer or wish for the recipient. That’s how Paul starts his letter, and he fills these elements with explicitly Christ-centered content.

And so in the greeting (1:1-2), Paul introduces himself as a servant of Christ, he addresses them as saints in Christ, and he greets them with the grace and peace of God in Christ. Their whole relationship and his every wish for them revolves around Jesus.

Paul’s thanksgiving for his friends is found in verses 3-8.

First, he says, “I thank my God every time I remember you.” If I could say just one thing to you folks here at East Dover, that’s what it would be. I am so grateful for you, for our friendship, for our mutual faith, for the various ways we have helped each other in life. I think of you often. I reflect on the beginnings of my adult life and ministry with a sense of profound thankfulness for all you taught me and for the many ways you exemplified lives of faith, hope, and love to me.

I say along with Paul that this leads me to a place of joy. We shared something very special: a partnership in the gospel that led to meaningful times together, sharing our lives, laughing together, helping each other when we hurt, encouraging each other when we were discouraged, doing our best to show Jesus’ love to our neighbors.

Paul goes on to say something else: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” Don’t you just love Paul’s encouraging spirit?

I have confidence about this church as well. This congregation was founded in 1814, over 200 years ago. It has had so many ups and downs that it’s hard to imagine it has survived and is still a vital place of community and ministry today. But it is, and God is not through with you yet. The work God began in this church will be brought to completion. God will bring it to completion. As older generations pass, new ones will arise. As people relocate, new ones will arrive. As pastors move on to take other opportunities, new ones will see opportunity here and come to be with you. It won’t always be easy and at times it won’t even seem possible, but God will complete what he started in East Dover Baptist Church.

Paul turns his confidence for his friends into prayer in verses 9-11. Note how Paul focuses his prayer on the most important thing. He prays that the Philippian Christians will be people of overflowing love. There is nothing more important than that.

Paul prays that God will fill them with the kind of love that is rich with wisdom and insight, with the kind of love that discerns how to best serve and benefit others, with the kind of love that will plant seeds of the new creation here and now, seeds that will bring forth a bountiful harvest when Christ returns to make all things new.

In my ministry now as a hospice chaplain I meet many wonderful people, people who show this kind of love. I’d like to tell you about one such couple this morning.

Freda died last year. Her family all said she missed her husband Louis since his death a few years ago, and would be happy to be at peace and reunited with him.

Freda and Louis were faithful Christians. At her funeral, the priest said Freda loved to share in communion and to pray. She and her husband raised a large family on the east side of Indianapolis and were the central figures in their family’s life. I served them both as hospice chaplain, and loved every visit with this gentle, kind, and funny couple.

Louis had been forced as a young man to give up his work because of an accident. A piece of drywall fell on him and injured his leg so severely it had to be amputated. From that point on, he stayed at home and Freda went to work to support the family. This was how they supported each other and took care of the family, and from all the reports I heard, did so without complaining or ever suggesting they got a raw deal.

About eight years ago, when the couple was in their mid-70’s, Freda answered the door one night and a young man pushed her back into the house. She grabbed his sweater and managed to kick him as they fell to the floor. But she was no match for his strength, and he beat her mercilessly. Hearing the commotion, Louis rolled his wheelchair in and soon came under attack as well. The home invader beat him in the face so badly his eyes were swollen shut. Freda gave the thief her purse and told him they had no valuables in the house, and he eventually left. The wounded couple spent two weeks in intensive care, recuperating from their injuries.

The children were obviously angry and frightened that someone would do such a thing to their parents. But when they visited the hospital, they were surprised to hear words of forgiveness coming from mom and dad’s mouths. The couple expressed not even the least bit of ill will toward the stranger, and they urged their children and grandchildren to turn the other cheek.

The children convinced their parents that forgiveness was fine, but that they should also consider moving to a safer neighborhood. They found a nice senior community a few miles east for their folks and Louis and Freda relocated there.

That’s where I met them, when Louis was diagnosed with a terminal disease. Do you know that in all of our conversations during his time on hospice, neither of them ever once mentioned that home invasion? It wasn’t until after Louis had died and I was making a bereavement visit to Freda that I learned about their ordeal.

A year or two went by, and then just last fall, Freda’s own health took a turn for the worse. In her illness, she suffered from an extraordinary number of wounds as her skin broke down. She was almost always in pain, and had to endure the agony of daily wound care and dressing changes.

Once again, Freda refused to be a complainer. When I visited, she never mentioned her pain to me, and instead always focused on making me feel welcome or asking a question that was on her mind.

I went to see her right before she died, and through some kind of remarkable change the swelling in her body had diminished and her wounds were healing. It looked now like God would take her home comfortable in both body and spirit. I prayed for her, gave hugs to her children at the bedside, and departed. She passed soon after I left.

At the funeral, the priest read something which Freda herself had written and asked him to share. It was a brief letter to her family.

Freda encouraged them to find solace in the many good memories of their life together and in the love that they had known. She urged them to remember that, although she would be separated from them bodily for a time, the love they shared would always be in their hearts. And then she wrote these unforgettable last words: “When all that is left of me is love, give me away.”

When Jesus ascended to heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to live within us. And the fruit of the Spirit is love. I think Jesus is saying the same thing to us today. What he wants more than anything is that we continue to be friends in the gospel, friends in his love. And that we learn to give that love away every moment, every day.

Amen.

• • •

Make every effort in this life
soul, to scatter your seed generously
so that the harvest may make you rejoice
in the riches of eternity
where whoever has sown goodness
joyfully gathers the sheaves.

The IM Saturday Brunch: July 8, 2017 — Random Thoughts Edition

THE INTERNET MONK SATURDAY BRUNCH

”It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.”

Fireworks–Fall River, Mass., 2017

This is a random thoughts edition of our Saturday Brunch. I will simply be passing on some of the curious things that have been running around my mind, especially during this past week.

Feel free to comment or add thoughts of your own.

• • •

One of the reasons I cannot ever fully shed my “evangelical” identity became clear to me this week. I was a team leader for a group of young people who had traveled to Providence, RI for a short-term missions/service trip. There we served the people at Providence Rescue Mission as well as some of the children in one of the poorer parts of the city.

Nobody I’m aware of helps people have such dramatic conversion experiences as we heard about this week better than evangelical Christians. One man I spoke with had been homeless for 30 years, from age 12 to 42, had been an IV heroin user, and had watched his own brother as well as countless other people die from overdoses and street violence and troubles. He had a conversion experience through the ministry of another organization, and that transformation was genuine enough that he was able to survive the disappointment of realizing the hypocrisy and unethical practices of that group through which he was saved. Now he is working with the rescue mission to help others and share the love and life-transforming power of Jesus. His story was compelling and inspiring.

You all know that I respect and appreciate historic and traditional expressions of the Christian faith, but nobody gets the power of conversion like the evangelicals. And few are doing the hidden work that they are doing in places like this to help people overcome evil with good.

• • •

I loved watching the fireworks this year. But I couldn’t help but think of many veterans who dreaded the experience of hearing those explosions and reliving memories no one should have.

• • •

This week, I was also reminded how good it was to hang around with young people. One of the reasons older folks become codgers and curmudgeons, complaining about how they’ve lost faith in the younger generations, is because they only view them from a safe distance, where they don’t have to be personally affected by the noise and unpolished, raw energy of youth.

They forget that many of the things they complain about reflect the same immaturity, lack of experience, and experimentation that they themselves took part in in their own younger years.

Older does not always = wiser. The wise will befriend the young, be willing to learn from them and find ways to share their lives together. The future depends upon it.

• • •

The older I get, the more I long to live by the ocean. Nothing else gives me perspective, clears my head, and refreshes me like time walking the beach to the rhythm of the waves and looking out on that vast, living watery world, smelling the salt air, hearing the gulls cry, and feeling the sand between my toes.

Plus, there are lobster rolls at the restaurants.

Fridays with Damaris: Another Look – How We Become Human

Polychrome Stations of the Cross – Santa Pau, Catalunya, Spain. Photo by Michael Foley

How We Become Human
By Damaris Zehner

I know, as a tenet of my faith, that Jesus’ incarnation, death, and resurrection somehow have set me free from death and given me new life. I know that God says that he will take away my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. But I can’t say I understand how that happens or even how it looks in human terms. Recently, though, I may have gotten a glimpse at part of the process.

Our normal pew at church is more than halfway around the Stations of the Cross, which are displayed up and down the side walls. On the other side of the church, bas relief panels show the earliest steps leading up to the Crucifixion, but from where I sit the scenes show Jesus stumbling and falling, wounded and exhausted. I really don’t like looking at them and usually turn my eyes away. Sometimes the depictions make me feel angry, sometimes depressed and disgusted with the whole human race. But on a recent morning, for some reason, my usual defenses were breached. I looked closely at the images of Jesus collapsed and crushed, and I felt pity, overwhelming pity, for – well, for God.

It seemed like hubris, to pity God, as if I were above him somehow and condescending to him. Then I remembered the trial depicted in To Kill a Mockingbird. Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, was asked why he had approached and interacted with her. “I felt sorry for her,” he said – and we know at that moment that Tom was doomed regardless of the facts of the case. That a black man would dare to feel sorry for a white woman – poor trash or not – was insupportable to the all-white jury. Tom, being black, could not be thought of a human in the same way they were. They could not stand the realization that pity made Tom Robinson truly human in a way that most people in the courtroom weren’t. In that aspect he was like Jesus, who pitied the people who had it in their power to put him to death.

It occurred to me, in the quick glances of the Stations of the Cross that were all I could endure: God gave himself to us partly in order to be pitied. The Maker of the Universe, the Holy, the Almighty, became a baby and a victim of our sin and injustice so that we would pity him. Maybe my pity is the first sign that my heart of stone is turning into flesh. Maybe my new life is not just the result of Christ conquering death, which inspires feelings of gratitude and joy. The new life is also being bought for me daily by his weakness and suffering, which inspire me to pity God himself.

• • •

Photo by Michael Foley on Flickr. Creative Commons License

Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science. A review of the book by Mike “Science Mike” McHargue. Part 1.

Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science — A review of the book by Mike “Science Mike” McHargue. Part 1.

• • •

Back on April 17 of this year, Pete Enns hosted Mike McHargue on his podcast: B4NP Podcast Episode 5: “That Topic that Isn’t Going Anywhere Anytime Soon: Science and the Bible,” with Mike McHargue . I was utterly intrigued by the podcast and ordered Mike’s book immediately and read it. Here is how Amazon and the book’s jacket describe the author:

Mike McHargue, also known as “Science Mike,” is a Christian turned atheist turned follower of Jesus who uses his story to help people know God in an age of science. Mike is the host and co-host of two podcasts–Ask Science Mike and The Liturgists Podcast –that have attracted a curious following among Christians, the spiritually interested, and the religiously unaffiliated. He is an in-demand speaker at conferences and churches around the country, and he writes for the Storyline Blog, Sojourners, and Relevant magazine.

This is not the book you might think it is. Yes, it is the story of how a fundamentalist evangelical lost his faith in God, became an atheist, and then found his way back to God. But the story doesn’t fit the evangelical “I-once-was-lost-but-now-I’m-found” typical script. In fact it doesn’t fit any script I’ve ever heard before. For example, Mike was helped on his journey back to the Lord through the ministry of Rob Bell. Yeah—that Rob Bell. Bell writes the forward for Mike’s book and here is part of that forward in the inimitable Bell style:

I’ve known Mike for four years now and I’ve been struck on a number of occasions by how engaged and involved and tuned in and

fully alive

he is to people and experiences around him.

Yes, Mike is a smart dude, but it isn’t just his brain,

it’s his heart

And it isn’t just his heart, it’s his refusal to let his life pass him

by with without giving it everything he’s got.

Whatever he does, he throws himself into it.

All of himself.

That’s the thing about being fully alive—you feel everything so

much more—

the pain and

loss and

doubt and

anger and

bewilderment and

confusion and the

joy and

love and

euphoria and

everything in between.

I point this out about Mike because I know some people

will read this book and think that it’s about

science or

faith or

doubt or

belief or

atheism or

Jesus or

God or

prayer or

church or

marriage or

friends.

And they’ll be right. Kind of.

But that’s just scratching the surface.

At its heart, this is a book about being fully alive.

And to be fully alive, you have to be honest.

About everything.

On his blog page Mike has some brief trailers about why he wrote the book and what it is about. Although “brutally honest” has become a cliché, in Mike’s case the cliché fits. Mike did not lose or drop his skepticism as he found God again. In fact he subjects his religious experiences to a ruthless dialectic that some Christians find disturbing. For example, look at this review of his book on Amazon:

A few good thoughts here and there. But most of it is gobbledygook. Author overthinks things. Would have more peace if he took God at His Word rather than trying to filter it through a brain impacted by the fall. This side of eternity, there is just gonna be a lot that requires faith. Paradoxes or things that seem to be in opposition here are part of the mystery and beauty of living by faith . . . and knowing that answers will come later. No need to throw out the baby (the Word) with the bathwater (the parts of the Word and science) that are not understood or seem to be in contrast when our imperfect brains try to reconcile it all. We are told to live “faith to faith” . . . but this book grates against the peacefulness that can be found in journey and tries to boil it down to explanations (which fall short due to the nature of the walk of faith). At first I thought it might be a good tool to share with those questioning the Christian faith, but this book would totally confuse them or, worse, confirm cultural stereotypes from one man’s experience. Glad for the acknowledgement of a relationship with Jesus. Not glad for the dismissal of the inerrancy of Scripture. Our brains lead us well if we are guided by the Truth in Scripture, but they fail us when we try to make an infinite and ineffable God fit our finite understanding (while we live with fallen minds and bodies).

So if you were expecting your stereotypical evangelical “testimony” from this book, you will be disappointed. But having deconstructed his faith, Mike is in the process of reconstructing what it means to be a believer, even a worshipper, in the 21^st century, without sticking his head in the sand about what science and scholarship are revealing.

The fact that Mike has achieved a following from many millennials of the “none” or “done” persuasion is significant. They are not going to be persuaded by “doubling down” on the usual evangelical apologetics. If we who are trying to follow Jesus can’t find a way to speak to them where they are at, in a way that promotes dialogue, rather than speaking down to them, then we are going to lose them permanently. They want an honest discussion of the problems they see with Christianity and the Bible, not a bunch of doublespeak and hand waving.

Look at the way Rob Bell was treated when he raised the issue of eternal conscious torment (ECT) in hell. Yet many of these “nones” and “dones” have the same questions as Bell was raising. Questions that, by the way, had a long history in the church of being raised. Questions that deserve a discussion not a circle-the-wagons and fire on the dissenter’s type of attitude.

Look at the way Bruce Waltke and Pete Enns were forced to resign from their seminaries for discussing evolution. Consider Waltke’s quote from the Biologos interview he gave:

“…if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult…some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God’s Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness.”

Is Waltke showing the way forward, or the Ken Ham and AIG Creation Museum and Ark Encounter the way forward? As Pete Enns said in a recent post :

Sometimes thinking clearly and deeply changes what you believe, and that does not make baby Jesus cry. Neither does it cue the seventh trumpet of judgment or kick over the seventh bowl of God’s wrath in the Book of Revelation.

Some of us are just made that way. And God can handle it…

Maybe changing our minds on some things—even on points where our “authentic commitment undergoes change”—is part of what it means to be a thinking Christian.

And maybe it would help a lot if our churches understood that and supported those of us who are wired this way as a needed presence in the church.

Maybe there’s more to this Christianity business than making sure we don’t wander off of the beach blanket.

So, a perfect book for us to contemplate and discuss here at Internet Monk, as we work our way through the post-evangelical wilderness.

Ordinary Time Bible Study Philippians: Friends in the Gospel (3)

Philippians 2:5-8. P46 (Chester Beatty Papyrus, c. 200)

Ordinary Time Bible Study
Philippians: Friends in the Gospel
Study Three

✥

In grammar school I was taught some rudimentary rules about writing letters: that there are basically two types (personal/friendly and business); that one (business) has an inside address, while friendly letters do not; but that both begin and end the same way (with a greeting, such as “Dear Father,” and a closing, “Your son, Gordon”).

Letters in the Greco-Roman period had this pattern in reverse, with a threefold salutation at the beginning: “Gordon, to his father: Greetings.” Very often the next item in the letter was a wish (sometimes a prayer) for the health or well-being of the recipient. Paul’s letters, which follow this standard form, usually include a thanksgiving report and sometimes, as here, a prayer report (telling his recipients specifically how he prays for them). In contrast to most first-century letters, where (as in ours) these formal items were stereotyped, Paul tends to elaborate them; and in his hands they become distinctively Christian.

• Gordon Fee

• • •

PHILIPPIANS 1:1-2

Paul and Timothy, both of us committed servants of Christ Jesus, write this letter to all the followers of Jesus in Philippi, pastors and ministers included. We greet you with the grace and peace that comes from God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ.

In comparison with some of Paul’s other letters, the address in Philippians is brief. He mentions himself along with Timothy, addresses all the believers together along with their leaders, and greets them with a gospel-transformed ancient way of saying “hello.”

Note that Paul mentions himself and Timothy together, without distinguishing that Paul is an apostle. He had no need to emphasize his status or authority. He was writing to friends, and the description “servants” well characterizes the kind of relationship they had with each other and which he encouraged in the congregation. When he has to remind them of this in chapter 2, it is a vivid act of Jesus as a servant that he appeals to (2:5-11).

He calls the Philippian congregants “saints” (Peterson substitutes “followers.”) In Exodus 19, Israel was called to be a “holy nation” through acceptance and observance of the Law of Moses. But the gospel Paul brought to the Philippians was apart from this Law. He had not called them to become observant Jews and thus set themselves apart for God, but rather had called them to faith in Jesus the Messiah apart from any legal requirements of that older covenant. They are “saints in Christ Jesus.”

Why does Paul mention the Philippians’ “pastors and ministers” (lit. overseers and deacons) in particular? This is unique among Paul’s letters.

It is likely that this is a gentle prod, first of all, to the whole congregation. Paul is reminding them that God has given them gifted people to help them practice faith, hope, and love together as a community. The internal strife that will be mentioned later is one situation that perhaps the apostle is anticipating with this reminder.

It is also possible that the conflicts that were brewing in the church were among the leaders themselves. He may have singled them out as a way of getting their attention in particular.

Also, the suffering that the Philippians were experiencing may have prompted Paul to remind them that they and their leaders needed to support each other in the midst of stressful circumstances.

Finally, as we will see in chapter 4, Paul is thanking the Philippian congregation for their generous gifts to support his ministry and to help him in a time of trial. Perhaps he singles out the church leaders because they helped administrate these gifts.

In verse 2 we read the Apostle Paul’s standard greeting. As Fee observes, Paul’s greetings are wonderful examples of how he turned even the most common courtesies into gospel. He also notes, as have many, that these two words — grace and peace — represent the overall theological perspective of Paul and the NT authors.

The sum total of God’s activity toward his human creatures is found in the word grace; God has given himself to his people bountifully and mercifully in Christ. Nothing is deserved, nothing can be achieved. The sum total of those benefits as they are experienced by the recipients of God’s grace is peace, God’s shalom, both now and to come. The latter flows out of the former, and both together flow from God our Father and were made effective in our human history through the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is in the context of this gospel that Paul and the good folks in Philippi enjoyed their friendship and served one another in love.

• • •

Ordinary Time Bible Study
Philippians – Friends in the Gospel