Notes on Philippians 4

            First, I would like to provide a little explanation about my notes on various chapters of the Bible.  At the church I am a part of, I, and everyone there, usually knows what the chapter for study will be.  In this aspect, a participatory Bible study takes the place of a sermon in an institutional church.  As such, anyone can ask a question, and there is the great possibility that the actual topic taught is not the one that those who prepared for the study prepared for.  One might say that this method would not work in most settings, but I would maintain that, if something came up that no one knew the answer to, the proper response is (and would also be in a witnessing discussion), “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”  Over the past three years, this has actually happened a couple of times, even though my church has a few people who have been believers for decades.  I think of this, as such a point comes up in these notes on Philippians 4.

 

            Usually, I put footnotes at the bottom, but just to highlight the works I looked at, I wish to mention them right up front.  One reference work I find invaluable is:

Craig Keener, ed., “The IVP Bible Background Commentary—New Testament”.

            Two other works I used, which I have not in previous chapters:

Luke Timothy Johnson, “The Writings of the New Testament”

IVP New Testament Commentaries, Phil. 4, online, www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT   I have been using a commentary that was printed in about 1928, but this online one I find to be more thorough, and deals with issues current to our world culture.

 

Verse 1:  I covered verse 1 back with Phil. 3, because it belongs with the previous paragraph.  We need to remember that chapter and verse divisions were added centuries later and are not part of the inspiration of the Bible, along with any notes and even the book names, i.e. the book we call Genesis, if one translates the name of the book in Hebrew, would be In the Beginning.  Both were added later.

Verse 2: “Euodia, Syntyche” are Greek names.  It may have been more acceptable in Philippi than in some other cities to refer to these women as co-workers. 

Verse 3: “Clement” was a common Roman name, so this person may or may not have been the author of the New Testament Apocrypha book 1 Clement.  “Book of Life” is an idea that appears in the Old Testament (Ex. 32:32-33, Dan. 12:1, Mal. 3:16, other non-scripture writings) and would be further developed in Revelation.

Verse 4:  The threefold expression of Jewish piety was a) rejoicing in the Lord, b) prayer, and c) thanksgiving. (Ps. 61, 64, 84, 95, 97, 100)  From Old Testament days, devotion and ethics were considered responses to grace.  Gratitude begets generosity, which is the opposite to anxiety.

Verse 5:  “Gentleness” was a trait then and now of how a believer cares for those around him/her, and differentiates one from the average person pushing for their own wants. In Hellenistic culture, gentleness was an attribute of the gods and the nobles.  This is similar to 1 Pt. 2:23.

“The Lord is near” could be referring to the Second Coming, that the Holy Spirit indwells, it could be referring that He is close to us and knows our needs and troubles, or all at the same time. The believer was to live without care, but not uncaring or careless.  Since this mentioned wants and needs, in that day “needs” were thought of very narrowly, as those things one needed, like food, health, clothing—the extreme basics. 

“…be evident to all” includes those to opposed the believers.

Verse 6:  “Peace” could mean inner or outer tranquility, or peace with another (person or nation).  The latter was a common theme in Roman oratories on this subject, and Paul often either quoted or parodized common cultural ideas, as comes up again and again in this chapter.

“…be anxious for nothing” there was opposition and suffering at the time.

Verses 6 through 8:  Paul recites a list of virtues, similar to what Roman moral speakers might, and he uses their phrasing, although what he says here would not be objectionable to Jews or Christians, as it is Jewish wisdom in the terms of Hellenistic morality.  Notable is that the Roman moralists would have included “beauty” in their lists of virtues, and it is notable by its absence.  Beauty, then and now, was less a virtue, from a Jewish/Christian perspective, as an open door to the opposite.

“Meditate” meant to think upon what believers  had been taught about following Jesus, and is nothing like the modern western culture’s acceptance of blank-minded eastern meditation.

Verses 8 and 9: “Praiseworthy/excellent” (arête) was a word used by Greek moralists; “learned and received and heard” reflects Paul’s Jewish background. This is an example of how Paul wove different cultures phrases together to communicate.

Verse 9:  Paul uses himself as an example on how to live.  It is notable how rarely we hear this from Christian leaders today, in part because they are separated from average believers and the rest of society in a way that those not on a salary cannot possibly be.

“God of peace” is a rough equivalent to “Wisdom” in Proverbs.  Peace guards the hearts and thoughts, not just of individuals, but of the community.  “Lovely, admirable” relate to the concept of common grace (God has given gifts and/or abilities to all men).

Verse 10 and 15:  The Roman writer Seneca indicates that a person from Macedonia, where Philippi was, was prosecuted for being ungrateful.  In the section beginning with verse 10, Paul indicates gratitude without directly saying “thank you”, which in that culture might have implied being subordinate to the giver, which was connected to the Greek-Roman concept of friendship.  At Jesus’ death, it was understood that the Law of the Old Covenant held had been completed in Jesus, but the New Covenant’s Law of the Spirit was that the believer desired to give all of oneself to honor Jesus, so such generosity was only reasonable, if it was possible to do so.

“At last” might, in our culture, sound like a subtle complaint, but Paul is indicating that he means that they had the “opportunity” to help.  “…flourished again” is literally “blossomed again” as in perennials or flowering trees.

Verse 12:  “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound.”  Stoics and Cynics held similar statements, although the Cynics made certain that they were always in the abased situation.  Paul’s statement differs, in that he makes it clear that it isn’t just a matter of self-control, but to honor Jesus.  We should note that Paul’s “abundance” would still be considered basic by our modern standards.

Verse 15: “Philippians” was bad Greek, but it was what Roman citizens of Philippi called themselves.  It indicates Paul was being sensitive to local traditions and culture.

Verse 16:  “…for my necessities” comes from the language of that day’s business documents, such as if a special account was set up for when he was in need.  We need to remember that Paul was under house arrest, and prisoners received extremely little unless others helped them while in prison.

Verse 17: “I seek the fruit that abounds to your account.”  Paul’s joy is more in their growing maturity in Jesus than in the items received.  This phrase also comes from commerce, as many transactions of the day involved crops.

Verse 18: The church (group of believers) in Philippi gave money to help Paul.  We see in the New Testament that the church spent money on two things—helping the poor and helping mature believers communicate the message of Jesus out to the world, of which this help fits both categories.  “I have all and abound” is a specifically Stoic phrase.

Verse 19:  Unlike how this verse is quoted among prosperity teachers, Paul’s prayer here is for their most basic needs, which was a matter of constant struggle for most people of that day.

Verses 21 to 23: This is a specifically Greco-Roman way of ending a letter, with concluding greetings, and a grace-benediction.

Verse 21:  Unlike the Romans, Paul is general in his greetings. “Saint” refers to individuals, “church” to the group.

Verse 22:  “…those of Caesar’s household” tells us that even at this early time there was at least one, and since “those” is plural, probably more, believers in Caesar’s household, which could refer to civil servants working directly for Caesar, slaves, and freedmen, and probably refers to the Praetorian Guard.  A slave working for Caesar held more prestige than most free persons.  Like Acts 17:6 “turned the world upside down”, this implies that faith is seditious to the world’s status quo.

Notes on Philippians 3

On Phillipians 3:1-4:1

            As I may have mentioned in one of the Simple Church Minute commentaries (and I say may in that this is really a minor point), verses were added to the New Testament by a printer named Robert Stephanaus in 1551 (a).  This chapter shows the randomness of how chapters were made, as 4:1 belongs in chapter 3, and these notes treat it as such.

            This chapter is referred to as a digression; Paul, before and afterword, is writing on another theme, but inserts this extended idea.  This was not an uncommon way of writing in Paul’s time.  Some unbelieving scholars build all kinds of ideas off this structure, but it is not an example of anyone playing with the text over the centuries.

            In verse 1, Paul states that he is repeating himself.  This is a principle of all education—we learn by repetition.  “Finally” while normally used a synonym for “in conclusion” as in TEV, can also, and here is, marking the beginning of a digression (b).

            In verse 2, “dogs, evil doers, mutilation”.  Cynic philosophers, of whom there were many, particularly in Tarsus, where Paul grew up, were called dogs.  Here, Paul uses it as a general derisive word.  There were “Beware of Dog” signs in Rome in his day.  “Mutilation (or “amputation”)” can refer to circumcision or castration, and in the Greek the word is a word that sound similar to the word for circumcision, thereby being a parody in sound (d).  “Cutting oneself off”, as appears in Galatians 5:12, can refer to castration or cutting oneself off of community.

            In verse 3, Paul builds on this point: “We are the circumcision” refers to being God’s Chosen People, and ties to OT verses Dt. 10:16, 30:6, Lev. 26:41, Jer. 4:4, 9:25,26. Worshipping God in the Spirit, in the Old Covenant, was connected to prophesying with musical instruments, 1 Chron. 25:1-6.  Jews of that day would have maintained that didn’t happen anymore (an ironic comparison to what many of the 20^th century said about spiritual gifts).  Paul elsewhere compares worshipping in the Spirit to spiritual gifts.  We must remember that the people of surrounding beliefs thought of worship as a ritual in a building, but Jesus and the apostles taught that worship was how a believer lived one’s life.

            Verses 4-11 are biographical of Paul’s journey from Jewish zealot against believers in Jesus to apostle of Jesus.

            Verses 5 and 6 tells of Paul’s qualifications (before Jesus) as far as obeying the Law.  What we might miss is that this was the Diaspora Jew’s confession of faith.  “Zeal” in that day did not imply violence, but the main examples in Jewish history, Phineas in Num. 25:7-13, the Maccabees in the 160’s B.C., and the Zealots contemporary to Paul’s time all exhibited violence as part of the story.

            In Verse 7, Paul differentiates between what a person holding to the Law counted as important verses a person of the Spirit.  Watchman Nee, in Release of the Spirit, notes that, as, in the Greek, “pneuma” is always lower case, it is oftentimes unclear whether a statement in the New Testament is referring to a believer’s spirit or the Holy Spirit, and as we grow in faith, it should be unclear as a practical manner. (c)  “Gain” and “loss” were marketplace, not spiritual, terms.

            In verse 8, Paul mentions “rubbish” or “dung” (KJV), which is something dogs eat, referring back to the “dogs” comment in verse 2. “My” is a confession of faith—Jesus Christ my Lord. (d)

            In 9, the conclusion is that the righteousness of Jesus is sufficient, the righteousness of the Law is not.

            In 10, “know” implies intimacy, although obviously not sexually, as the word is sometimes used in the Old Testament, and that spiritual intimacy is prerequisite to accepting the “fellowship” of his sufferings.  This is not a stretch, as Ex. 33:13 shows that the desire of the Old Covenant believer was “to know Him”.  That reflected both the corporate covenant and personal longing, which is analogous to the relationship to Jesus being both personal salvation and to the spiritual group, the Bride of Christ.

            11:  Suffering preceding resurrection was part of Old Covenant belief, and was an analogy to Jesus’ completion of that covenant.

            13-14:  “prize of the upward call”.  In the ancient Olympics, the winner received a palm branch, a symbolic prize of minimal earthly value.  We are called to salvation, striving for the goal, which he phrased previously as a) that I might win Christ (v. 8), be found in Him (v. 9),  that I may know Him (v. 10), and I might attain the resurrection of the dead (v. 11).  Athletic competition terms were often used as an analogy by ancient moralists.  “Reaching forward to those things which are ahead” is analogous to growing in faith and spiritual maturity, which is what the believer is called to once one answers the call to faith in Jesus.

            15: Corollary A:  If we are wrong, the Spirit will reveal this to you.

            17: Corollary B: Mature believers live as an example to younger believers.  Paul probably was dealing with the idea that some were prematurely thinking they were perfect/mature already.

            18-19:  Many who would distract a believer walk in the opposite of God’s way.  Paul wrote that their glory is their shame (an opposite).  “God is their belly” is a reference to “dogs” in verse 2, and then “rubbish/dung” in verse 8.  “Mind is on earthly things”—Paul throughout this chapter uses words that to some degree relate to each other, but also are different, to tie thoughts together.  This is interesting when we note how Paul discusses in _ how some in _ complained that he wasn’t a good speaker.  “Weeping” shows love, but the description shows outrage.

            20: “Our citizenship is in heaven”—that’s now, not, as Marx wrote in our age, “pie in the sky by and by.”  Unbelievers think we are hoping in the future or have been socially persuaded, but the believer knows how God changed things in out spirit at salvation.  “Citizenship” is a correct translation, and “conversation” (KJV) is not.  Keener notes that, unlike in Israel, most persons in the church in Philippi were Roman citizens, and assuredly those who were the homeowners of where the church met, and, therefore, had a greater degree of social acceptance than did the church in many other places.  “Savior”—in Phillipi, the deities and the emperor were referred to by this term.  Paul is making the contrast by stating what Jesus will do.

            21:  The Greeks considered the bodily resurrection of the dead to be vulgar.

            4:1: “Crown”:  to the Greeks, a reward for athletes (Paul is making a tie in to what he said previously, again) and heroes; in Jewish culture, a reward in heaven. 

(a)    Barna and Viola, Pagan Christianity, 228-229, referring to Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction to the Bible: Revised and Expanded, 340-341, 451,  Metzger and Coogan, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, 79.

(b)   Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary—New Testament.  This work contributes to a comment on almost every verse in this writing.

(c)    Watchman Nee, Release of the Spirit, 20. 

(d)   Davidson, Stibbs, and Nevan, The New Bible Commentary, 1039.  I am not quoting this because I believe this to be an exceptional commentary, but because it is one I happen to own.

2099--three tithes (revised)

On Sunday, September 11^th, during the Bible discussion/teaching at church, we were discussing Matthew 17.  I was not the leader of this discussion, so I wasn’t specifically prepared for the content.  Near the end of the chapter, when we came to verse 24, the person who was leading the discussion came to the word “tax”, and was thinking that this was referring to a poll tax instituted by Josiah; he was reading from Young’s Literal Translation (released 1898).  I, reading from NKJV, had the word “temple” in italics, in front of the word tax.  In that version, a word in italics means that the word doesn’t appear in the original text, but its meaning is there from the context.  For anyone who doesn’t know, when the Bible is translated from one of the original languages to English, there are times when whole phrases are implicit in the context, and other times when one word in the original language means a whole phrase, or a whole phrase in the original language means one English word.  That’s one of the weird things about the original King James Version.  Those translators had five texts to work with; our modern versions come from over 15,000 fragments to books.

            Anyway, he had poll tax, and I had temple tax, so we went and worked on it in our free time this week.  I should also say that he was thinking of a Jewish poll tax, and I was thinking of a Roman one, with it only hitting me later that virtually none of the Jews in Israel had Roman citizenship, as Paul would later need to use on his missionary journeys, but that’s another question. That would have been totally weird to ask Jesus, a poor, Jewish man of the lowest class about something only a few wealthy non-Roman persons could afford to have, that is, citizenship, which would have been necessary for voting, which would bring up a poll tax discussion.

            That’s the background of a total re-write of this commentary.

            Note that no one but I would probably notice: In a previous form, I numbered this topic 2110.  I changed the number because all the other 21XX commentaries are quotations from other persons.  Also, yes, I have some 20XX commentaries which are quotations of others’ writings, but those are, in my opinion, exact topical fits of subjects which have the same last two digits as the two minute commentaries I posted in December, 2010. 

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2099-three tithes

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  One day, at my church, the discussion came to Matthew 17 verse 24, which in the NKJV reads, “When they (Jesus and the disciples) came to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?”  In some versions of the Bible, the word “temple” does not appear, as it is not there in the Greek, but to the original receivers of the book of Matthew, they would have understood that the word “tax” referred to the temple tax.  The temple tax was the first of the three Old Covenant tithes, which is referred to in Numbers 18, Joshua 14, Leviticus 27,  Nehemiah 10, 12, and 13, First Samuel 8,  and Malachi 3. That was to pay for the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, the Levites, and the priests, of whom God did not give land to.  The second tithe is the festival tithe, to pay for Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of Weeks, which is what is being spoken of in Deuteronomy chapters 12, 14, and 16, Leviticus 5, 7, and 25.  There is a third tithe in Deuteronomy chapter 14 verses 27 and 28.  This was a tithe every third year, was voluntary, and was for the poor, of whom the Levites were included.  Some would argue that this third tithe was just a special commitment of the second tithe every third year, but outside the Bible, we can see the apocryphal Book of Tobit, the historian Josephus, and the early church leaders Jerome and Chrysostom all left writings that showed that they understood that there were three separate tithes for the Chosen People. 

            Additionally, Leviticus 19 verses 9 and 10, and chapter 23 verse 22 places a direction upon the Jewish landowners to leave some crops in the field to be gleaned by the poor.  This is not a tithe as such, but is an economic part of the Law which is behind Ruth going to the fields to glean in Ruth 2, and Jesus and the disciples in Matthew 12 verse 1. 

            Who paid the tithes and left the gleanings?  Jewish male landowners, as the instruction was tied to God’s gift to the chosen people of the promised land.  The tithe was not connected to businessmen, nor single mothers, widows, those crippled, ill, and the poor, which, as I said before, the teachers of Israel were seen as part of.  Therefore, in the passage I started with, Matthew 17 verse 24, why were the tax collectors asking about Jesus paying the tithe?  He didn’t own land, and walking around as a teacher, would have appeared to be an exempt person.

            First, Matthew, until being called by Jesus to follow Him, was a tax collector.  There were two types in Israel, both were considered traitors to Israel for working for the Empire, but Matthew was from the more hated group.  Matthew almost assuredly wrote this a short period of time after the Romans destroyed the temple and started confiscating the temple tax to be given to the pagan temples, which caused the Jews to stop paying that tithe.  Matthew was writing to clarify that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, and was reminding his readers that paying the temple tax was throughout the Jewish people a sign of solidarity with Israel when Jesus was ministering. 

            Why did the tax collectors ask Peter whether Jesus paid the tax?  Maybe they heard that Jesus had said something against the temple.  Later, in Matthew 24, Jesus would prophesy about the destruction of the temple, but maybe they thought that they had heard something like that already.  Also, Jesus prophesied that He would rebuild it in three days, referring to his rising from the dead, but unbelievers who heard that might have associated that with his earthly father Joseph and his trade as a teknon, which is closer to our modern trade stonemason than the commonly said nowdays carpenter. 

Maybe the tax collectors were attempting to find out whether he paid the tax in a different area.  Be that as it may, Peter, consistent with his impetuous ways while he was with Jesus, told the tax collectors that Jesus did pay the tax.

            There was a third reason for Jesus to not pay the tax.  We today know that Jesus was and is the King of Kings, and kings and their children do not pay tax.  Matthew tells us immediately after that Jesus teaches exactly that to the disciples, but, so as not to offend the tax collectors, who would not have understood that third reason any more than it doesn’t make sense why they didn’t recognize the first two, Jesus commands the disciples to go catch a fish, and that there would be a coin in the mouth of the fish to pay the tax. 

            What were Jewish non-landowners to do?  As with the story of the widow’s mite, they were to give generously.  Second Corinthians chapters 8 through 10 instruct us to do the same.  What happened to the tithes of the Law?  Jesus, in dying on the cross for the sins of mankind, fulfilled the Old Covenant.  The stories we have from the New Covenant church show us that we are to be generous, and that the early believers spent money on helping the poor, within and outside the church, and to send mature believers to places where the message of Jesus had not been heard, and that is the only things they spent money on.

            If you would like to see references to back up the statements I made, they are with a transcript of this commentary on my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com, on the entry for September 25, 2011. You can contact me at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or call 757-735-xxxx.  For more info on organic church in this area, visit www.hrscn.org.

            Where did I get some of these statements that run counter to what is openly taught in some churches in the West? 

            Craig Keener, ed., IVP New Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1993), on Matthew 17:24-27, 92-93.

            Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1993), 745.

            www.artbible.info, on gleaning.

            www.gregboyd.org, on temple tax

            www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/tithe-in-bible/three-tithes-of-israel.htm, for one of the breakdowns of which OT scriptures refer to which tithe that I used

            www.bible-history.com, on Matthew’s personal connection to the temple tax collectors how he would have related to recent events in his writing this passage.

            www.biblebb.com/files/tithing.htm, on the connection to the law about gleaning and the tithes, although in this, it indicates that John MacArthur sees it as a tithe, which I cannot find agreement with by anyone else, sofar.

            As best as I can find, scripture references to:

First tithe/temple tax: Lev. 27:30-33, Num. 18:21-32, Josh. 14:3-4, 2 Chron. 31:5-6,  1 Sam. 8:15, Amos 4:4-5, Neh. 10:37-39, 12:44-47, 13:10, Dt. 12:6, Mal. 3:8, 10, Mt. 23:23, Lk. 18:12.

            Second tithe/festival tithe: Lev. 5:2-10, 7:6-10, 25:20-22, Dt. 12:6-7, 17-19, 14:22-27, 30, 16:1-16, 26:1-15, Lk. 11:41-42.

            Third/tithe for the poor:  Dt. 14:28-29.  Extra scriptural evidence: Tobit 1:6-8, Josephus, Antiquities

            Gleaning: Lev. 19:9-10, Lev. 23:22, Ruth 2, Mt. 12:1.  

            Note:  If anyone, after studying this, has a quibble that one certain passage belongs with, say, second tithe instead of first, I leave all of this to make the general point of three tithes, all of which belong in the Old Covenant, and generosity and no tithes in the New.  The quibble is with one (or more) of the writers cited above.