Philippians - Lesson 8

I. Appeal for Christian Unity & the Trinity

In our lesson today, we're going to take a look at the opening verses in chapter 2 of Philippians. In this, well, actually, it's one sentence in the Greek—verses 1 through 4 is a single sentence here. And Paul is going to… He's pulling out all the rhetorical stops. He's going to connect with the Philippians at their heart level, as well as their head level, trying to get them to think about their heart, mind, soul, all of them together, working in unity for the sake of the mission of the church.

In this passage, verses 1 through 4 of chapter 2, Paul, I argue, will be alluding to the Trinity, and some of his language alludes to or points to the Trinity. He will also be looking at the Philippians' salvation in Christ and their membership, therefore, in the community of believers. And all of this is moving towards exciting their imagination to think about joy, specifically Paul's joy in ministry. So we'll get to all of this soon.

We have just left the last chapter, chapter 1, where Paul had talked about how the Philippians are both called to believe and also to suffer. So now we move into what would be the best way to live out their belief in their current situation, which involves external forces pushing against them, not at the level of persecution unto martyrdom. We're not at that point, but financial problems or relational problems in the family based on people stepping away from them based on the Philippians' belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the world. In these verses, Paul doesn't look outward, but he looks inward at the community, and that's going to be our focus here on these four verses.

So Paul, as he starts this passage, in some of the translations, it'll start, "Therefore, if," but Paul is actually already telling the Philippians what they know. This "if" is not kind of, "if it rains today, we won't have a picnic" kind of thing, but rather, this is something that they already know to be true. And that's why in other translations you might have, "Therefore, since this is true." So Paul is getting the Philippians…he's in a sense reminding them, he's getting them to think about who they are in light of who God is. And Paul starts out in this opening, verse 1, and he says, "If there's any encouragement in being united in Christ." This language of encouragement we find throughout Paul. And we'll be talking a little bit more about this idea of being united with Christ personally and united with Christ as a community as this unfolds. But here's our first hint of where Paul is going here: "If there's any encouragement in being united in Christ," and then he goes on, "if there's any comfort of love."

And I would suggest here that we can imagine an implicit reference to God the Father, because Paul has framed, both to the Philippians and elsewhere in his letters, this idea of God's love, God the Father's love. So while he doesn't specifically say the love of God here, it is a common enough perspective that Paul has. And I imagine when he was there in Philippi, he would use that phrase, you know, "any comfort, love of the Father, the Father's love," that we can see Paul implying the Trinity here. Now, this term that we have translated here as "comfort," this is the only place we find that particular word in Paul. But there's a cognate noun that is used in 1 Corinthians 14:3. In 1 Corinthians 14, this is a place where Paul talks about prophets, and he actually uses both the term "encouragement" and this term "comfort" when speaking about how prophecy encourages and comforts the community. So we have encouragement being united in Christ, we have comfort in love—and I'm suggesting be thinking love of God the Father here—and then we have fellowship or partnership with the Spirit.

Now, the term "Holy" is not found in the verse, just "Spirit." But again, I think that underneath this language is Paul's belief in the Trinity, and this is implied in this passage. The Holy Spirit is both the gift that believers receive and, of course, also He gives gifts. So Paul uses these three clauses to remind the Philippians of the truth of who God is, of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He's not as clear here in this sort of an abbreviated form; he is much clearer in the first chapter of Ephesians. But the thought is similar here. We also find this kind of phrase to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians, chapter 13. In a conclusion, Paul writes, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." So this kind of language where Paul brings in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we want to be alert to this as we read through Paul's letters. Even though in Paul's day they didn't talk in a doctrinal sense about the Trinity, the language of the Trinity permeates Paul's letters.

II. Call to Be Like-Minded

We're going to come back in a moment to "make my joy complete," but I want to just pause for a minute here in chapter 2 and talk about this phrase, "like-minded." The idea of being like-minded—Paul will use a verb here, actually twice in this verse: "make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind." So twice in this verse, the Philippians are encouraged to have a particular frame of mind. And then we will see in verse 5, this verb repeated. When we think of thinking or having the same mind, often today the idea, I think, is around knowledge, having a certain knowledge. But actually, the Greek term here, this Greek verb, carries with it the idea of having a wise outlook and wise behavior, having a proper attitude. So it is not just knowing the facts of something, but having the truth shape your attitude, your mindset, your behavior.

We're going to see later in the letter, in chapter 4, verse 2, that Paul will encourage Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind, and it's this similar phrase to what we have here in chapter 2. So this phrase, "think the same things"—well, it's not just here in Philippians. Paul will also say this to the Romans; he'll use it in 2 Corinthians. He wants to cast a vision of the community having a singular focus in the Lord Jesus that thus then helps them engage in the world in a Christlike way. So Paul will say to the Romans in chapter 15:5, "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind towards each other that Jesus Christ had." So I guess what I'm driving at here is this same mind or having this same attitude, this godly wisdom, all of this packaged together that then is executed in one's behavior—this is a theme that Paul has throughout his letters. But it's especially important here in Philippians because we are leading up to Paul's beautiful description of who Jesus is. And so, this having the same mind, we want to make sure we understand what this term means, because it occurs three times in very short order here.

III. Complete Joy in Ministry

But Paul starts this phrase, verse 2, "make my joy complete." So he's described what will make his joy complete, that is, them having their same mind. But here—and it's interesting—the verb is in the command form, the imperative: "make my joy complete." Paul is describing what he would like as a pastor or as a leader in this community. And I just find it interesting that he holds joy as being of paramount importance in his ministry as he relates to the Philippians. Paul has, in different letters, referred to himself as a nurse when he talks about his care for the Thessalonians. He has talked about likening his ministry to a woman giving birth, this to the newly formed church, the Galatian churches. When he talks to the Corinthians, he talks about being their father in Christ. Paul assumes that him having joy is both an appropriate goal for him as a pastor to have or him as the evangelist, the apostle to have, and that it will be a motivator for the Philippians.

I could say this another way: Paul speaks of joy as a marker of ministry achievement. I just sit with that for a second. What does ministry look like if one's goal is joy? Well, maybe we could say a few things that it's not. If joy in ministry is the goal, then probably the numbers don't matter. Growth often indicates a healthy organism, but the numbers in and of themselves don't matter. What counts is the individual congregation growing and being transformed more into Christlikeness. I think it indicates that the other is in view, whether it's the other within the community, as you continue to look to each other for helping each other, and then also outward in the neighborhood and around the globe.

I think it takes a lot of work, and Paul, I think, is aware of this. It takes a lot of work to be united. When Paul says, "make my joy complete by being united, having the same mind," I don't think he's naive in saying this. Being of the same mind at that level, that deep level of the gospel, would mean that Paul is encouraging the slave owner to serve the slave, his or her own slave, communion, as an example. In other words, it would push against the kind of social and cultural hierarchies that formed the structure of the wider community, not the church community. That's what he's trying to change. I think in the American context, it would mean that the socioeconomic, the racial, or ethnic divides—that the church openly address those, reckon with what they might be assuming in terms of how our own cultures today might stratify people based on non-gospel values, and then work to change that. I think also when Paul says, "make my joy complete," he invites each congregation to take an inventory. And we can also take a personal inventory, of course, but this inventory invites God to challenge us at that everyday level. How are we making joy complete to those who are serving as leaders in the community?

IV. Defining Love & Oneness in the Spirit

So Paul, in talking about making his joy complete by being like-minded—and we've talked about that idea of thinking wisely, practical wisdom that affects attitudes and behaviors—Paul goes on to say that other things will help make his joy complete: "having the same love, being one in spirit," and then again, "one mind." So while we focused on the emphasis of having this singular attitude that shapes one's behaviors, Paul also mentions having the same love and being one in spirit. I think this love, which Paul has alluded to in the first verse, is this love, as I mentioned, of God the Father. And so this love that Paul mentions here is the supernatural love that is that gift we receive from God as we become his beloved children. But this love is not just something that each of us receives in our salvation as we become part of God's family, but it's also a love that shapes the community, that is enjoyed corporately.

The idea of having the same love—I think what Paul is driving at here is that it comes from the same source, that is, it comes from God. Right? So if that's the case, and this love is a love that welcomes God… God welcomes his children with this love, what Paul is also then by implication getting at is that all these believers are brothers and sisters in Christ. He doesn't use that fictive kinship language right here, but that's the logical conclusion to draw if we are all sharing in God's love. So this same love will be the same across any social or cultural boundaries that the wider culture might set up. I think it's important to note when I say "same love," that we recognize that love's expression in the community will take different shapes as each person loves the other in ways that they're best suited to do. This love is, again, God's love, so it is a proactive, self-giving. It is a continual, consistent loving.

Paul talks about being one in spirit, this oneness that reflects the connections that he wants each community member to have with another. And not just at the level of a doctrinal claim that, yes, we all are, let's say, members of this church, but rather that as members of one community, being one in Spirit means that you share your resources; that if someone has more honor, socially speaking, that they would use that honor to help another.

I mentioned when we were looking at the background to Philippians, I mentioned Lydia, who Luke tells us about in Acts chapter 16. She hosted Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas were arrested; they were imprisoned. Through a great miracle earthquake, Paul's chains were broken in this miraculous event. The jailer received…he and his family received salvation. The town realized, "Oh, Paul's a Roman citizen, and we've treated him in a way that we're not allowed to legally. We can't beat a Roman citizen like this. So, Paul, we'd like to just escort you out of the town and be done." But at the end of the story, Luke tells us that Paul stopped at Lydia's. And I think what Paul did there is an example of being one in Spirit that I'm talking about. Paul had, as a Roman citizen, much social honor. I mean, it has nothing to do with being in Christ, but just socially speaking, Paul had honor because he was a Roman citizen. By stopping at Lydia's, he was sharing of his resources, that is, the honor that his society gave him, sharing that with Lydia in a protective way. People knew, "Oh, she has a friend who's a Roman citizen." Paul is encouraging that sort of oneness in the Spirit that's tangible, right? That is useful. And that's what Paul is encouraging the Philippians. That's what gives Paul great joy.

V. Cultivating a Common Vision

So Paul, having talked at the end of chapter 1 about these external threats to the community, by saying to them, "Don't forget your source of strength, right? You have oneness in Christ. You have fellowship with the Holy Spirit. You have access to this wellspring of God's love. Let that just overflow among you." He wants them to come together with a common vision. But I want to talk a little bit about this common vision for just a moment. The same mind that Paul is stressing here so much is achieved, I would say, as each person draws on the mandate that Christ gave to go into all the world, each person draws on the same love and this one Spirit, drawing on the command of Christ, referred to also in the Old Testament, to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself, and then to draw on the power, the strength of the Holy Spirit. But as I thought more about this common life that Paul imagined, I thought it's not enough that it's just a common vision because, you know, for-profit companies can have a common vision and move towards that goal, and everyone is lined up moving in that direction. So it's not about production. Also, this common vision is not about finding your own self-actualization within a wider community.

So I was thinking of a story that a missionary told me where they were in medical missions, they were at a hospital, and she said there were two types of missionaries that were working at this hospital among the nationals. One type really loved the title of missionary, so they could say, "We're committed to the common vision of giving healthcare." But what they really loved was thinking about themselves as a missionary, not so much healthcare and treating people, but just the label of missionary, and that that was so central to their identity. In her mind, it kind of came before even their calling by Christ. What I mean by that is, had God said, "Okay, you're done here, and I want you to go back to your hometown," I think that would have been really hard for them because their identity was as a missionary. So they might have said, "I share this vision of serving in this hospital," but really their identity was in a title. But others saw themselves as gifted clinicians; they were doctors or nurses, and they were assigned to a particular hospital that happened to be in an area that was not…it wasn't their home area, it was in another country. I would say that in this case, that second group shared a common vision that wasn't located in themselves and their own identity, but was located in this larger picture of having the same mind of healthcare in Christ, through Christ, for Christ. So common vision and using the common strength provided by God in Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit—it's so easy, I think, to make it a commodity. But Paul is talking here about losing oneself in Christ for this greater common vision.

And one of the ways Paul does this is by, in the next verse, "do nothing out of selfish ambition." He now gives the flip side. He's spoken positively: "This is what we strive for." And now he speaks negatively: "Don't do this." So he has warned, he warns them here in verse 3 against selfish striving. The same word is found where he saw it in chapter 1, verse 17. This is a descriptor of those who oppose Paul because of their own selfishness, their rivalry against Paul. He also says avoid this kind of selfish striving and conceit or vainglory—an old-fashioned kind of word that tries to get at doing something that elevates oneself. This particular term is only found here in Paul, but in Galatians chapter 5, we have a similar term where Paul is warning the Galatians not to compete against each other. You can kind of see that, you know, when you're competing in a footrace, the winner gets the glory, right? And Paul is saying all of that is vain, to use that in an analogy when you're thinking about serving in the church. So Paul makes a pretty sharp contrast here between the, I'd say, vacuous assertions that accompany self-promotion and then the giving up of one's own preferences to lift up others.

VI. Invention of Christian Humility

This takes us to a really important term in verse three that's often translated as humility. In verse 3, this term, "in humility value others above yourself"—it's actually a term it appears Paul created. It is a term that joins two ideas that were prevalent in his day. There was the notion of humble, which basically meant inferior, and this verb again that we've seen twice in verse 2 and once we will see in verse 5 and then also in chapter 4, verse 2, this idea to think, think with the sense that you're acting on your thought. This term translated as humility here is Paul's way of addressing, actually, two things. One is the attitude coming the whole way from Aristotle up to Paul's time that postured a hierarchical structure within the society. So Paul's addressing that, but also this term that Paul uses here is a term that suggests public behavior, that is, behavior in community, not private behavior. All right, so this phrase of Paul is not a private virtue; it is a virtue that blossoms in community. Maybe you could say this humility, this term that Paul uses that we translate as humility, is the answer to Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes, you are.

In Paul's day, then, humility, this term humility… Well, actually not Paul's term because he's creating it, but the notion of humbleness is really closer to what we would call today humiliation, a meanness of condition, being very low on a social scale. And his wider Greco-Roman culture, the wider culture in Philippi, would despise this idea of humility. It's not honorable; one doesn't get honor from this kind of action. Really, there's no difference in Greek thought between what we call humility and humiliation because they both end in the same place: the reality of low status. So Paul's call for humility, it's actually unprecedented in his day. There's no ethics of humility in Paul's day. What Paul calls for here, rather, "in humility value others"—this is the gospel screaming, right? This is the gospel bringing fresh insight into Paul's Greco-Roman world, because no self-respecting Gentile would concede that humility is a virtue. Deeds are to be done where people could see them and then give praise. Public self-worth, how self-valuing was determined, was in the public sphere, right? So I get my social worth by the community saying, "Oh, she's great." Paul is saying, "No, no, humility serves the other publicly." So this really challenges Paul's claim here. "In humility serve others, value others above yourself" is a 180-degree change from how the Philippians would have been raised to see themselves, to understand what honor is.

However, in the Jewish community, they would have had some idea of humility. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the 1st century, he talks about Moses and humility. He talks about Moses declining every honor that the multitude was ready to bestow upon him; instead, Moses focused exclusively on the veneration of God. So you can see that within Judaism at the time of Paul, there was a sense that it was important to honor God over all things and not receive the honors of the population. Paul will be building on this in light of Christ's work.

Perhaps one of the most important ways that Jesus in his earthly ministry demonstrated this kind of humility is by using a child as an example. So in Matthew chapter 18, he draws a child as an example of proper attitude. Now, when we think of humility today, 2,000 years into church history, it's actually valued positively, right? Like we think it's good to be humble, we want to choose to be humble. We don't like anyone else being humiliated, so we point out, you know, the bully on the playground that humiliates others. We praise people for doing the right thing, whether or not someone notices their actions or not. So I think the church has sought to live into this term, this term humility, as Paul lays it out here. Why is it so important? I think not only do we have Jesus' example, as I just mentioned, but it's also the case that we see this, especially in the New Testament: God shows no favoritism.

VII. Impartiality & Living for Others

So three different apostles—Peter, Paul, and James—all talk about God showing no favoritism, God showing no partiality. For Peter, he comes to this realization in a new and special way in Acts 10, when he encounters Cornelius, a God-fearer similar to Lydia. Cornelius is also a Roman military officer and receives the gospel. And Peter's astonished that the Holy Spirit would come into a Gentile, someone technically unclean. But yet the Holy Spirit is given to Cornelius and those with him, and Peter recognizes God shows no favoritism. God doesn't favor the Jew over the Gentile; all can receive God's Holy Spirit. James talks about God showing no favoritism when he encourages his congregation not to treat a wealthy person with special privilege—treat the poor, maybe with an elevated…let them sit in front and not give special treatment to the one who is wealthy. And then Paul in Ephesians 6, says to a slave owner, "God shows no favoritism." So you have to acknowledge that your slave is, as you, a brother or sister before the one true God, and will inherit—I'll put it this way—will inherit as you, the owner, will inherit. God shows no favoritism. So the Jew-Gentile, the rich-poor, the slave and owner—those social dichotomies are addressed in the New Testament with the claim, "God shows no favoritism." And here to the Philippians, Paul says, "in humility," and he's saying the same thing: God shows no favoritism.

As we dig just a little bit deeper into the notion of humility, it's important to be cautious that humility doesn't become a means to an end of caring for others. That is to say, it's important that we care for others, but merely caring for others doesn't equal humility. There might be other reasons that someone would care for others. Instead, humility starts at a place of self-analysis or recognition of self as being not God's favorite, but rather being a brother and sister in community. We try and say it as Bonhoeffer did in his work called Outline for a Book that he wrote in 1944. Bonhoeffer says the church is the church only when it is there for others. So what he argues for is this: the church should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy should live on free-will offerings, becoming maybe engaged in a secular vocation as a way of supporting the family. The church must participate in the worldly—as he uses…the English translation here is worldly—tasks of life in the community, the broader community, not dominating, but helping and serving. The church must be there for others. "Our church," Bonhoeffer says, "will have to confront the vices of hubris, the worship of power, envy, and illusionism. These are the roots of all evil." And so Bonhoeffer sets out to try and establish this kind of community that will speak of moderation, authenticity, trust, faithfulness, steadfastness, patience, discipline, humility, modesty, contentment. So Bonhoeffer understood this humility starts with service for others, ends with service for others, is a posture of service for others.

C.S. Lewis, in his Screwtape Letters, he shows us sort of the opposite in a humorous way, and the opposite of humility is hubris masquerading as humility. In this story, in this series of letters that narrates a believer and his spiritual growth, the believer has a mother who is also Christian. And Screwtape, the head demon, is trying to encourage Wormwood that both…for both the failure, the spiritual failure of the believer and his mother. And so Screwtape says, "Encourage the mother in her belief of her own humility." She's anything but humble. So, for example, rather than accept the tea and toast at a friend's house, she will humbly state that she can't eat toast, only muffins, but she doesn't want her friend to trouble her, you know, to get muffins. And of course, she doesn't drink tea without having a muffin, so she just won't have anything. Well, of course, the friend then rushes out and gets muffins so that she can actually have tea with this woman. This woman, this humble Christian, ends up making her neighbor do twice as much work for this hospitality. It is a humorous example, but I think it hits the mark so often that we pretend we're humble and it's actually hiding our hubris.

So we are to look out for others' interests, not our own. Now, this raises a question: is Paul saying we should not at all look out for our own interests at all, only to others' interests, or are we to look out not only for our own interests, but also look to other believers' interests? I don't know that that's the right way to frame the question as we look at Paul's material here. His point is that we de-center the self, but obviously the self needs sleep, food, a sense of purpose, relationships. I mean, there are certain needs that every human has. Those are not illegitimate needs. The point is to de-center the self, not be focused on the self as the center. I could say it another way: in becoming a Christian, your family just got bigger and a little bit more different, and so you now have fictive kinship ties. You have brothers and sisters who are now part of your realm of responsibility, and they to you.

Well, I've used the word "need" a couple of times here, and we really should ask the question: what is a need? I think for Paul, as he's writing this, he would have in mind economic and social needs of the community. We've mentioned before the Philippian believers, they probably struggled financially from their claim of being in Christ, which would have caused their pagan family and neighbors to pull back. Their refusal to honor the pagan gods, not participate in the imperial cult—that would have felt like an insult to some of their neighbors and family members, and those people might have taken their social protection and their business elsewhere. So Paul is saying the believers need to forgo public honor in the way that we typically think of it, but it doesn't mean that some believers should be emotionally starved while pouring their heart into others. I think that's really important to say. We all know those people who give and give and give to others and somehow are unable to receive or feel unworthy to receive love and care from others. Paul is not encouraging that kind of attitude or process. Each of us is both completely undeserving of God's great love and God, nevertheless, to everyone showers all of his sons and daughters with love.

So if you see a need, think creatively. I love the story of a young woman growing up in a youth group in her church. Her parents led a ministry for young couples in the church; her whole family was very involved in church. And she noticed as a high schooler that there were marriage crises that happened in her community and also a sense of burnout by some of those who were leading in ministry, and she thought, "Well, what if couples could come away on a regular basis, just the two of them, and reconnect?" So when she started college, she looked around at the various churches and offered free babysitting on a, I don't know, Friday night or Saturday night for staff—pastoral staff, the counselors at the church, church members who, laity who were very involved in ministry—and said, "I'll offer free babysitting for you." That's the kind of creativity that Paul would applaud.

I think also not only thinking creatively, but thinking widely. Here we can go back to the Philippians, their own example. Paul was making a collection, a money collection for churches in Judea who were struggling due to a shortage of food and just financial difficulties there. And Paul was committed to asking his congregations, many of them predominantly Gentile, to gather money and send it to these predominantly Jewish congregations in Judea. And it appears that the Philippians were on the forefront of this effort. If you take a look at 2 Corinthians 8, at the beginning of this chapter, Paul talks about how…he says, "in the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity." So entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in the service to the Lord's people. They were aware of a need, and they urgently wanted to be part of meeting that need. So thinking creatively, thinking widely—this is where…these are two ways in which we can, in humility, value others above ourselves, not looking to our own interests, but to the interests of others.

VIII. Transition to the Christ Hymn

These four verses, this one sentence in Paul, is leading up to a short sentence that is a transition into what we'll talk about as the hymn or the poem of Christ. But this is verse 5of chapter 2. I'll just read a couple of translations for you of this verse: "You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had." "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus." "Have this mind among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus." "Have this mind among you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Why these various translations? Well, the actual words in Greek are this: "think in you [plural, y'all], which also in Christ Jesus." So people are trying to get a sense of what is Paul stressing here. And this verse is leading us into this poem, so it sets up what Paul is wanting us to take from this poem coming up. So it's an important passage to look at and see what Paul is getting at.

So if the poem or the hymn that comes, verses 6 through 11, primarily stresses Christ as the church's example, then "think this in you all" is within each believer. So think like Christ did, the "in you" in each believer, which was also in Christ Jesus. So if you think of the poem as stressing Christ as an example, then you will see thinking this in you, which was or is in Christ Jesus, sort of model Christ—this is what Christ had, this is the mindset you should have. However, if the poem or the hymn primarily speaks doctrinally to the nature, the person of Jesus Christ, then perhaps what Paul… How we could translate this verse is in this way: "think among themselves the way they think as believers united to Christ." So "think among themselves the way they think as believers united to Christ" is emphasizing their salvation in Christ.

Some people try to solve the problem of translating verse 5 by jumping ahead to verse 12. Paul commands the Philippians there to work out their salvation, and so an argument is made that both 5 and 12 are stressing how the believer should model Christ's own actions. They should think not per se as Christ did, but they should think as those who are in Christ to behave as a believer should, as befitting a believer. Now, of course, the hymn actually is going to talk doctrinally about who Christ is, and it also stresses Christ's actions as a model for us. So a final way to think about verse 5 as it leads into the Christ hymn is to think about participation or union with Christ, our Redeemer. Then that language of participation in Christ tries to capture both who Christ is, our Redeemer, and also, as participating in Christ, the natural outworking of our salvation in community and beyond our community. So in the end, "you must have the same attitude as Jesus Christ had" tries to capture that sense that when we read the Christ hymn, we need to be attuned to how Christ acts so that we, too, can follow our Savior in that. Or even more, "in your relationships with one another"—which, of course, is what Paul has been talking about in the first four verses—those relationships, they should reflect or share that same mindset as we see in Christ, and then that is described. That's the direction I think Paul goes here, that is to say, he's wanting the Philippians to act in certain ways and see Jesus that way.

But it can be understood in these two different ways; fortunately, both are actually true in the sense that we can read the hymn emphasizing Jesus as the one true God and the narrative within the hymn as the salvation plan of God worked out. So from a doctrinal standpoint, it's incredibly important, but I don't think Paul wants us to stop there. He wants us to think about, given this wonderful plan, how are we living this out in community? Is it reasonable to ask someone to view other people as better than yourselves when they may or may not be better? I think depending upon the context of how you're using the word, yeah, yeah. So this encouragement that Paul gives us of "in humility value others, consider others, regard others as above yourselves"—I think Paul is working within a culture, as we've talked about, that is so hierarchically structured basically from the cradle. You know where you fit, who's supposed to give you honor, who you're to give honor to. Everybody gives honor to somebody; even the emperor gives honor to the gods. So everyone honors somebody; somebody is above them, though. That's how it's seen. And so, given that framework, Paul's trying to break that framework down. He's trying to change their social perceptions that value people based on social worth.

Not all cultures would be maybe as extreme as what Paul's facing here in the Greco-Roman culture. But I think why he then says, "value people above yourself" is that he recognizes everyone in his congregation, with the exception of the lowest of the low slaves—because, yes, there were orders even within slaves—but just about everyone has someone who they expect to honor them in the social construct. And so Paul believes that then everyone needs to release that social expectation where they would demand that the person who is socially beneath them treat them with the honor that the culture deserves. So if your own society doesn't have that same tight structure of honor, shame, and of the need for public honor to always be given—that was the currency of the day, if you will, the informal currency of the day—if your culture doesn't have that, then this text may seem more extreme. If you come from a more communal, egalitarian, everyone like a kibbutz where everybody does all the work, then maybe this text will be easier to live into. But for Paul's community, it would have been really hard. 

Student: Actually, your comment is really helpful, especially as you think about how to translate this. Something like, "rather than humility, honor others above yourselves" is culturally what Paul's getting at, isn't it? 

Dr. Cohick: That's right. That's absolutely right. Yes.