Philippians - Lesson 1

I. Introduction & Background

Hi, my name is Lynn Cohick, and I am distinguished Professor of New Testament at Houston Christian University in Houston, Texas. Probably more important, I love the letter to the Philippians. I've written a commentary on it.

I've visited the site, and I am so excited to explore the letter and Paul's teaching with you in this lecture series.

What we're going to do is, first of all, take a look at the background of Paul's day from the archaeological evidence, from the political evidence, the literary evidence of the day. And then we're going to take a look also at the literary evidence that we have in the New Testament, including the Book of Acts.

Plus, we will then look theologically at what Paul is saying to us, even as he said to the Philippians about 2,000 years ago. And in each of the subsequent chapters, as we look closely at these chapters and what they have to say, I'm going to be referencing historical material. We'll be looking closely at the literary evidence, how Paul constructs his argument. And then we'll also pay special attention to the theology that Paul is presenting to us. And all of this is done with the hope that we will become more like Christ.

II. First Century Philippi

Well, let's go back to 1st century Philippi. Today, we have a saying, location, location, location. And that certainly holds for those of us who want to study the biblical text as well. So that's why we're taking a look at the archaeological evidence. What did Paul experience as he entered Philippi? And what was the mindset of those Philippians?

So we know that this city, Philippi, is about 10 miles inland from the Aegean. Paul would have traveled to the port city, Neapolis, and then would have walked on the road Via Egnatia, which would have gone the whole way to what is today Istanbul, was Constantinople in the church period, and all the way across to the Adriatic. So this is a heavily traveled road, and Paul was on it, and he enters Philippi. There would have been probably 10,000 people who lived in Philippi, and there were plenty of fertile fields just outside the city that would have provided grain and other nourishment for the city. Nevertheless, they still would have been importing things that they would need, olive oil and that sort.

What we find in the city, it was an ancient Greek city, but we'll start its history when Philip II of Macedon conquered it. And hence its name, Philippi; it is important to know Philip II. He is Alexander the Great's father. Philip of Macedon's Philippi had valuable mines, silver, gold, and so the city itself had money when Philip of Macedon conquered it. He built a great wall around the city. He also built a theater. That theater still exists today, although in the 2nd century, under a Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, it was expanded and updated. You can still see 2nd century BC retaining walls when you get there. And so the Greek influence in Philippi was quite strong, but Rome was expanding.

Rome is still a republic at this point, and in 168 BC, the Macedonian kingdom fell to the Romans, and the Romans sort of took charge, if you will, of this region. So we've got early Roman influence in Philippi, and this Roman influence will continue to grow. Philip of Macedon's son, Alexander the Great, famous Alexander the Great. One note we should mention of him before we continue on looking at the archaeology in Philippi is that Alexander the Great was associated with the Greek god Dionysus, and this association developed as Alexander the Great conquered more regions.

He eventually goes through Judea, down into Alexandria, North Africa, and while he's in North Africa, he is designated by an oracle to be the son of Zeus, just like Dionysus, the son of Zeus. I want you to keep this in mind because we start to have, and we will continue to have, this association of a key ruler connected with a god, and this will play out then as Paul enters the city 200 years later, 300 years later, preaching Jesus, Messiah, Son of God. We know from the time of Paul that in Philippi, Dionysus is actively worshipped. So there's this continuity right between Alexander the Great, his influence in Philippi, his later association with Dionysus, and that continued reverence of Dionysus. It's just something to keep in mind.

III. Roman Influence & Colony Status

Well, let's fast forward a little bit and we have the fall of the Roman Republic with the assassination of Julius Caesar, and we have the transition then to the establishment of Imperial Rome, and Philippi plays an incredibly important role in this moment. In 42 BC, Brutus and Cassius, who were two of the leaders of the revolt against Julius Caesar, who were most important in his assassination, they face off against Octavian, who will later be Caesar Augustus, and Mark Antony. Octavian and Mark Antony are together over against Brutus and Cassius, and they fight outside on the plains of Philippi, and they defeat Brutus and Cassius. And so Philippi is honored later by Caesar Augustus because they are the place where he became victorious.

Now, a few years later, 31 BC, Mark Antony, who has now teamed up with Cleopatra, Cleopatra VII in Alexandria, those two team up against Octavian, so the two that were together, Octavian and Mark Antony, now have separated and are fighting each other. And in the Battle of Actium, Octavian, he defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra, who scramble back to Alexandria and then commit suicide there.

What we have, though, with Philippi, and why this is so important, is military veterans, whether they fought for Mark Antony or they fought for Octavian, both of them are honored by the now sole ruler, Caesar Augustus Octavian, and they are granted land in Philippi. So if you were a Roman soldier, you'd be a Roman citizen, and you were on the side of Mark Antony, you really probably wouldn't be welcomed back on Italian soil. Nevertheless, you might have fought also in Philippi defending Octavian. So he solved that problem of wanting to reward his troops, even if they later sided with the wrong guy, by giving land there in Philippi. It appears to be the case that he did remunerate those who had previously owned this land, hard to say if he did it fairly or not. But the upshot of it all is that you're going to have retired army veterans who are living in Philippi.

So one ramification of that is that you have a lot of Latin inscriptions, even though, as we noted earlier, this is a Greek city, Philip of Macedon poured a lot of money into it. Alexander the Great, his son, continued that. But by the time of Paul, the city itself is going to strongly associate with Rome, and Latin is going to be used much more extensively than what you would find in like Corinth or Ephesus. The city itself is renamed by Augustus as Colonia Iulia Augusta Philippensis. And that is a colony of Rome. It's a little bit of Italian soil set down in Macedonia.

How does this matter as we read Philippians? Well, Paul will use some language in the letter itself, both in chapter 1 and in chapter 3, that sound like our word for politics, but it really means more like commonwealth. Paul will be playing off of the Philippians and the broader history of Philippi to think about what it means to be a colony as believers who await a savior. So when he talks about conducting yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel at the end of chapter one, he's referencing language that reflect Philippi's own claim to be worthy of being a Roman colony. And he flips that on its head and says we actually need to walk worthy of being members of God's kingdom.

IV. Roman Social Constructs & Honor

So in Roman Philippi, when you walk in there today, you can walk on the same road that Paul walked. He would have experienced residential homes there. There would have been a Roman bath. And often connected with the bath would also be a latrine, a public bathroom. The Romans were able to construct a water system that allowed for a hot room like a sauna, a tempered room, and then a frigid room, cold water. As the water then moved through, it would also go through a building that was a latrine. And I have to say that although I love 1st century history, and I think it'd be fascinating to travel back to Rome, I also really love my hot showers and flush toilets. Yes.

Along with the extensive bath, there would also be a forum. And Philippi might have had two forums. One that would be a marketplace. And later history in Philippi, the church built a large cathedral maybe in like the 5th century over what was in Paul's day probably the market forum. And then the forum that we see now that's been excavated, that's likely the administrative space. There would probably also be a gymnasium there. So, and the gymnasium again would be in the space where now we find over top of it, a Roman basilica. The excavations in Philippi often show more enhancements from the 2nd century. So Paul wouldn't have seen everything that we now see. Marcus Aurelius, one of the more famous emperors, he's known as being somewhat cerebral, kind of a stoic thinker, Marcus Aurelius also enhanced several of the buildings. But I guess what I want to emphasize is there would have been a library there. They would have had city archives. There were special buildings where a council that governed the town would have been. I want us to think of this city as reasonably impressive. It's not going to be as grand as Ephesus, certainly not as grand as Rome, but it's somewhat awe-inspiring. They would have felt comfortable with themselves. There would have been a pride in the city. Or maybe say it another way, I don't think they would have felt the need of the gospel. So I want you to have that framework as we explore the letter further.

What the Romans admired was, and this would be especially true for free male Romans, is a process called the cursus honorum, climbing the ladder of honor. So I mentioned a few minutes ago, there was quite a number of military retired veterans, and these men, many of them would have climbed the ranks. We have a couple of inscriptions that indicate, like a Gaius Vibius Salutaris, for example, he made it all the way up to tribune, starting as a soldier, and that is in the inscription. So Paul would come into the city and he would see inscriptions, and of course the Philippians would also know of these people and these inscriptions, of how you climbed the ladder, how you found honor at this time. And I would suggest that for Paul, he flips this on its head and there, instead of having the cursus honorum, you would have the cursus pudorum, that is the honor of suffering or being persecuted for the name of Christ. Why I'm mentioning this construct, the social construct in Rome, is that we are going to see Paul play off this and present to us what modern scholars have called the cursus pudorum in a couple of places. In chapter 2, in that beautiful tribute to Christ, and also in chapter 3 at the beginning, when Paul talks about his own background and history in verses 3 to 6. Paul is going to, throughout the letter, be reframing what honor means in this new citizenship or commonwealth, the kingdom of God.

The other point I think we should note as we're discussing the idea of honor, Paul will talk to the Philippians about his own imprisonment. He'll talk about this in chapter 1, and he says he's imprisoned. And the charge that he seems to suggest here is that he diminished the majesty of the emperor and the people of Rome. And so the charge, if you will, is that he dishonored the emperor. So I hope you're hearing that honor plays a big role in Paul's day. And the gospel has its own definition of honor that bumps right up against Roman understanding of honor.

Well, as Paul is traveling through the city, he sees the bath, the gymnasium, the government buildings. He's also going to see temples and shrines. There will be a temple to the imperial cult. That would be Julius Caesar, Augustus, his wife, Livia. That will be in that main forum. There'll also be hero shrines. These are smaller spaces, sacred spaces, smaller shrines. There'll be a temple to the Capitoline Triad. That's Jupiter, Juno, Minerva. That's also going to be in the forum. There'll be a shrine to Livia herself. There's going to be shrines on the cliff side. So Philippi has a natural rise to one side where the theater has been built in. And on that cliff, you also have shrines to various gods and goddesses, including Artemis. Artemis is known in part as being a hunter. And so we have depictions of her. Silvanus, the forest god, also there. Cybele shrine, shrines to Egyptian deities.

So there's a number of deities honored in Philippi, like there are in most towns and cities where Paul traveled. You'll have the imperial cult. You'll have these regional deities. You'll have cults from around the empire, but a lot from Rome as well. Interestingly, many of these deities, aside from the imperial cult, tend to emphasize the crossing the border between life and death. So I mentioned that because that may have been a natural opening for Paul in presenting the gospel and the Philippians in sharing the gospel with their neighbors, because the gospel, of course, brings resurrection life. And we think of at the end of chapter 3 in Philippians, where we are awaiting a savior, right, who will transform us and into a body that is fit to live in the new heavens and the new earth. Christ is the Lord of the earth, of everything under the earth, of everything over the earth. That message would strike a chord and maybe a challenge to those in Philippi.

V. Jewish Presence & Religious Context

Now, not everyone in Philippi is pagan. We do have a Jewish presence in Philippi, but the archaeological evidence is quite scant. There's not much at all, and it's not entirely clear how large this group would be. We do know that, generally speaking, Judaism in Paul's day, that 1st century, had an extensive diaspora. Many Jews lived outside of Judea and Galilee, large group in Alexandria, maybe 40,000 in Alexandria, maybe 40,000 in Syrian Antioch, and then Ephesus and Corinth, and all around the Aegean.

The synagogues that would be in these places would be places where the Jews would meet and hear the word read. I just refer, for example, to Acts 15, where the Apostle James talks about in every city, the words of Moses are read every Sabbath. It's not a sacred space, which meant Gentiles, those who are technically unclean, non-Jews, could come to synagogue and hear the Word of God. Also, these synagogues were not segregated by sex with women on one side and men on the other. Later, Rabbinic Judaism develops this way, but in Paul's time, families would sit together. It was open to Gentiles to come in. There'd be the Law read. There'd be prayers given.

The one thing, though, that would strike Gentiles is that there was a special day to meet once a week, the Sabbath. There is no pagan analog to Shabbat, to the practice of resting one day. Only the Jews, because of the Law, the self-revelation of God, only the Jews had Sabbath. The Jews were given a special dispensation, if you will, from the Romans to be able to practice their faith. In particular, their monotheism. So I've sketched out paganism, which permeates all of life for the Gentile. And then the Jew comes in and says, "But I can only worship the one true God. And I only have one temple, and that temple is in Jerusalem. And so I want to send—" And they did, they would send a donation annually into Jerusalem. That caused some problems because the local authorities like to keep money local. They didn't like the Jews sending it off. But Rome supported the Jewish privilege of being able to send money to support their one temple to the one God.

They also had no statues or images of this God in their synagogues. And that seemed odd to the pagans, because there were statues of the god or the goddess everywhere. And often, most often, these statues would be painted to be lifelike, and often they were larger than life. So the pagans had a physical representation of what they thought would be these powerful gods and goddesses. And Paul presents what might seem to them initially as an invisible God, but one that has such power over nature and over illness and over death.

The Jewish presence in Philippi is expressed by Luke in Acts 16, as them meeting in a proseuche, a house or a place of prayer. It's an unusual word in the Book of Acts, and thus it sounds unusual to our ears. But actually, it was a common enough term, a synonym for the term synagogue that we are so used to today. Certain writers, both Jewish and Gentile, in Paul's day, describe the Jewish meeting place and a building as a proseuche or house of prayer. And in fact, a well-known author in the turn of the eras, late 1st century BC, early 1st century AD, by the name of Philo, who lived in Alexandria, it's the only term that he uses to describe the meeting place for Jews. And it typically does indicate a building.

However, archaeologists have not found an actual synagogue. There's debate on just what the relationship might be between the Jewish community, how large or small it was in Philippi, compared to, let's say Corinth, where Paul gives us—Luke tells us Paul's experience much more directly about a synagogue there. But it's interesting to me when you look at Acts, Acts 16, where we read of Paul's first visit to Philippi. The accusation leveled against Paul, the first accusation is that these men are Jews. So it's hard to know how much to push this. But it's clear that at least being a Jew was an important identifier for the Gentiles in Philippi.

VI. Early Church in Philippi

It will be really important, this proseuche is very important in the story. In Acts 16:13, Paul on the Sabbath, he goes outside the city, down to the river, where he expected to find a place of prayer. And when he's there, there's a group of women gathered. He talks about this place of prayer also in verse 16.

And there he's traveling, as he's walking, he exercises a slave woman from her spirit of possession. She's possessed by a python spirit. There was a very important oracle in Delphi at this time. And this woman apparently had the spirit of this very famous oracle. And her owners made a lot of money, presumably, from her pronouncements. And Paul freed her from this demon, but her owners were not happy at all about that. And that precipitates then Paul and Silas's arrest.

But I want to mention these two women for a couple of reasons. First, Lydia, who becomes a believer, she is identified as a God-fearer. So this is a set, I've talked about the category of Jew and the category of pagan or Gentile, but there's another category that we find in Acts. And it's also in inscriptions and Gentile writers talk about it, this category of God-fearer. These are Gentiles who are interested in Judaism in some degree or another. They may be fascinated by the Law of Moses. The Romans and the Greeks, they were attracted to ancient works of law and reflection. And so the Laws of Moses, the first five books of the Old Testament had a certain attraction to some. Others might be attracted to the way of life, the morality that was reflected in the Jewish community. More difficult for the Gentiles would be the food law, especially the food law against pork, because the Romans loved their pork. That was a big hurdle. And then of course, the biggest hurdle for any Gentile man would be circumcision. And circumcision, Sabbath rest, and food laws, especially not eating pork. Those three identifiers were what the Gentiles used to explain who the Jew was. And these God-fearers then might be attracted to a God who asks you to rest one day, or a God who has this ancient law. But the God-fearer by definition is not a proselyte, has not converted to Judaism. But these God-fearers, because they've been interested anyway in the Law, in knowing this Jewish God, they are there at synagogue, and they are often the ones who first hear Paul's message, including in our case, Lydia, the first convert there in Philippi.

I also mentioned slave, the slave woman. We don't know if she converted to Christ. I hope so. We'll spend a little bit more time talking about the institution of slavery when we begin our direct focus on the letter, because Paul identifies himself and Timothy as a slave of Christ Jesus. So we'll talk a little bit more about that a little bit later.

So let me just recap where we've been. Paul sails into Neapolis, and then he walks along the Via Egnatia to the eastern gate of Philippi. He walks into the city. He sees all of the Greek and Roman formal buildings and theater and bath and gymnasium. And he also connects with the Jewish community. Lydia, a God-fearer, she converts. She invites Paul and Silas to stay at her house. And Paul stays at the city a little bit. He continues to engage, to preach the gospel.

He heals a woman, exercises the demon from this woman, a slave whose owners are angered. They try to get a riot going. The city council steps in. Both Paul and Silas are thrown in prison. We have them freed from prison by an earthquake, an act of God. The jailer, he's Gentile, and his whole family are converted. The next day, Paul is invited to leave the city. He's a Roman citizen. They've not treated him as they should have, so they want to escort him out of the city. Importantly, he stops on his way at Lydia's house. And I think the reason he does this, it gets back to honor again. Lydia is a target. Because she has sided with Paul, there's still going to be people angry at Paul's message. But by Paul, a Roman citizen who the town council has approved, stops at her house, he is declaring that she is his friend and thus carries his protection.

And then from there, Paul leaves. But he doesn't forget them. And the Philippians don't forget him. We know that Paul will go back and visit the Philippians. He tells us this both at the end of 1 Corinthians and also at the beginning of 2 Corinthians. Paul will spend a brief time in Philippi over Passover before heading back to Jerusalem. We see this in Acts chapter 20. And he talks about how the churches in Macedonia helped him. This is in 2 Corinthians chapter 8. When Paul is writing to the Philippians, the letter that we're going to study, they send to him a man by the name of Epaphroditus to help Paul in his imprisonment. So there's a connection. The Philippians have never forgot Paul. They aren't always able to communicate with him for various reasons we're not sure of. But they are a tight friendship. There is a tight community. There's a partnership. It's a partnership that they have in the gospel. And that's what we'll explore as we look at the letter more closely. But before we get to that, I'll talk more generally about the letter itself and also the theology that we need to be alert to.

VII. Q&A: Diaspora & Biblical History

Student: When you were talking about the presence of the synagogue there and the way that they met, you mentioned that that was the result of the diaspora. What does that mean? What does that term mean?

Dr. Cohick: Yeah, the term diaspora is a term that reflects a group of people who are no longer living in their homeland or their home area. So today we can speak of the Nigerian diaspora, the Greek diaspora. The fun fact, there are almost as many Greeks living in Melbourne, Australia as in Athens. But Athens is the home area and Melbourne is their diaspora city.

Student: Well, and for the Jews at that period of time, was there a specific event that caused that?

Dr. Cohick: Yes, so the Jewish diaspora grew up in part, I would say in part because of the initially the exile. So the way back in 700s BC, you had the fall of the Israelite kingdom, the 10 tribes. And then in 587, you had the destruction of Jerusalem and a number of Jews were taken from Judea to Babylon, which is outside the Roman Empire. It's in the Persian Empire. And Babylon and the Jewish community there continued to thrive. And they would continue to connect with Jerusalem on up through the period of Paul and beyond. And so within Judaism today, we have the Babylonian Talmud, a very sacred text for the Jews that was formed by this diaspora Jewish community.

So any Jew that lived outside of their homeland, which in Paul's day would be Judea and Galilee, less so Samaria, which was more Roman, and which is associated with the Samaritans, which is a group that is established at the time of the Israelite kingdom. And which today, I don't know the numbers, but there is still a living Samaritan community, you know, from the time of Paul and earlier that exists today.

The diaspora becomes really important for understanding Judaism at the time of Paul for a couple of reasons. One, the Jews living outside of Judea and Galilee would most likely speak Greek and might not even know Hebrew. And so the Jewish community around 200 BC, in the wake of Alexander the Great's conquests of this space and the establishment of Hellenism, the Greek way of life that included so many aspects of these cities that I've just talked about, theaters, gymnasiums, baths, all of that. It also included the Greek language. And the Jews wanted the Word of God to be understood in the Jewish community. And so around 200 or so, Jews in Alexandria translated the Hebrew text into Greek. So the Jewish community, and then any interested Gentile, could come to the worship space, the synagogue, and hear the Word of God in Greek. This becomes the Christian text, the translation, if you will, that is used most in the evangelism, in the quotations in the New Testament. In our case with Paul, I think he knew Hebrew, but when he cites the biblical text in his letters, it will be this Greek translation.

As just an aside, but from a missional standpoint, I think this emphasis on putting the Word of God in one's heart language or mother tongue is one of the important and unique aspects of the one true God's love and interest in every human to draw them to himself, that he would have his Word in a language that they would know.

Student: I just want to clarify something. When you refer to the Israelite kingdom, you're talking about the kingdom of the northern 10 tribes, and then the Judean kingdom would be the kingdom of the southern two tribes. Is that right?

Dr. Cohick: That's right. Yes. So we have in the history of Israel, you have King David, and it's a united kingdom of all 12 tribes. And in Solomon's day, also all 12 tribes together. But after Solomon's reign, the brothers have serious disagreements, if you will. And you have 10 tribes in the north, and that becomes Israel, the Israelites. And then you have two tribes in the south, Judah and Benjamin. And those tribes make up the kingdom of Judah. That is the kingdom that comes back from the exile. Whereas the 10 tribes in the north, in the understanding of Judaism in Paul's day, they have not yet been reconstituted and brought back. That is the promise of God that Jews in Paul's day are awaiting to see its fulfillment.