Bound to Them Profoundly

Justin Taylor post:  What It May Have Been Like to Hear the Letter to the Philippians for the First Time

Ray Ortlund:

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. . . we can reconstruct in our imaginations the key moment in Philippi when this Christ-exalting outlook came home to those who first heard these words.

It is the Lord’s Day in that great Macedonian city sometime in A.D. 62.

During the previous week Epaphroditus has returned from Paul in Rome, with this letter from the apostle in hand. The buzz has gone around the Christian network in town, and everyone is excited to hear the letter read aloud when the church gathers for worship.

They meet in Lydia’s home this Sunday, seated together throughout the inner courtyard.

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Euodia is there, as is Syntyche, but not yet sitting together (cf. Phil. 4:2).

This is a lovely but imperfect church.

As the believers gather, exchanges of greetings and small talk draw each one into the circle of fellowship.

Eventually, an elder stands and welcomes them all, prays, and leads them in a hymn of praise.

Then he asks Epaphroditus to step forward and join him at the front. Everyone claps and cheers, receiving him in the Lord with all joy (2:29). Epaphroditus, after giving a brief account of his journey and of Paul and his situation, relays Paul’s greetings and formally presents the letter to the elders of the church. He resumes his seat.

The presiding elder then reads aloud Paul’s letter, which requires only about fifteen minutes—less than a typical sermon in our churches today.

As the letter is read to everyone, in rapt attention, the Holy Spirit is speaking to their hearts. They start changing, at least a little, under the ministry of this letter. They become more willing than ever before, some of them dramatically more willing, to offer themselves to God by faith as a Christlike sacrificial offering. A hush settles over that courtyard, a solemn happiness, as the Spirit imparts a wonderful sense of the glory of Christ. They are worshiping.

Paul knew this would happen. He meant it to happen. He wanted to share in it.

Back in Rome, Paul is sitting in his prison cell on that same Lord’s Day. He and Epaphroditus have discussed how long the return journey to Philippi may take. Paul figures that Epaphroditus is likely there by now. He goes there himself in memory and joins the meeting of his dear Philippian friends in heart and mind. Their faces—elders, deacons, members, children—pass before his mind’s eye. He longs for them. He prays for them. And his deepest emotion, having years before settled the matter in his own heart that he is himself a living sacrifice—his deepest thought and feeling at this moment constitute a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of their faith. The humility of the poured-out life has taken its rightful place of happy authority at the center of Paul’s soul.

The great apostle does not feel that he is the important figure around which the Philippians ought to rally. They are the important ones. Their sacrifices seem to him greater than his own. He views their daily faith with awe, as they stand firm in one spirit, striving for the gospel, not running from conflict but engaged in it, shining as lights in their world, holding fast to the word of life.

Paul remembers how he first met them—pagans living as pagans must. He has watched the gospel transform them into “the saints of Christ Jesus who are at Philippi” (Phil. 1:1). Though Paul has witnessed these gospel miracles over and over again around the Mediterranean world (Col. 1:6), he is always moved by the saving power of God.

At this moment of quiet thought in his cell, his heart is swallowed up with a sense of privilege that he is being drawn into the only sacred and saving thing on the face of the earth. That he, a former blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent (1 Tim. 1:13), is directly and personally participating in the outspreading grace of God in the world, raising up a bright new church out of the former human devastations of pagan Philippi—his sense of amazement exceeds his powers of utterance. Oh, that he would indeed be a drink offering on such a holy sacrifice!

Sitting there in his prison cell that day, Paul too is worshiping, as only a pastor can. Far from this removing him from his people, he feels bound to them profoundly.

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Ray Ortlund, “The Pastor as Worshipper,” in For the Fame of God’s Name, ed. Sam Storms and Justin Taylor (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), pp. 414-416.