Occasion and contents of the epistle.—Godet remarks that, as Philemon shows us the apostle’s way of requesting a favour; Philippians is a specimen of how he returned thanks. The Church which was the “crown and joy” of the apostle had sent into his captivity a token of their loving remembrance by the hand of Epaphroditus. The messenger had been overtaken by alarming illness, and after hearing that his friends in Philippi were anxious about him, he was despatched homewards bearing the apostle’s expressions of gratitude—not so much for the money gift as the genuine attachment which prompted it.
No epistle is so truly a letter, of all we have from St. Paul’s pen, as this to the Philippians. The arrangement is less formal; we miss the chains of reasoning and quotation from the Old Testament. As Meyer says: “Not one [of his epistles] is so eminently an epistle of the feelings, an outburst of the moment, springing from the deepest inward need of loving fellowship amidst outward abandonment and tribulation; a model, withal, of the union of tender love and at times an almost elegiac impress of courageous resignation in the prospect of death, with high apostolic dignity and unbroken holy joy, hope, and victory over the world.”
A brief synopsis of the letter may be shown thus:—
| i. | 1–11. | Greeting of, thanksgiving, and prayer for the Philippians. |
| 12–26. | Personal affairs of the apostle (so ch. ii. 19–30). | |
| i. 27—ii. 1–11. | Exhortation to humility after the supreme Example. | |
| ii. | 12–18. | Omitted. |
| iii. | 1–21. | Warning against the vain work-righteousness of Judaism. |
| iv. | 1–9. | Exhortations to unity, to Christian joy, and Christian graces. |
| 10–19. | Renewed thanksgiving for the generosity shown. | |
| 20–23. | Doxology and salutations. | |
CHAPTER I.
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
Ver. 1. Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ.—There is no necessity for Paul to mention his apostolate, inasmuch as the Philippians had never even thought of calling it in question. “Paul an apostle and Timothy a servant” was a distinction too invidious for Paul to make. There is a fine aroma of courtesy in what is not said as well as in what is said here. Bishops and deacons.—“It is incredible that St. Paul should recognise only the bishops and deacons (if ‘presbyters’ were a different order from ‘bishops’). It seems therefore to follow of necessity that the ‘bishops’ were identical with the ‘presbyters’ ” (Lightfoot).
Ver. 3. I thank my God.—The keynote of the whole epistle. As the apostle’s strains of praise had been heard by the prisoners in the Philippian gaol, so now from another captivity the Church hears a song of sweet contentment. “My God.” The personal appropriation and the quiet contentment of the apostle both speak in this emphatic phrase.
Ver. 4. Always in every prayer of mine for you all.—Notice the comprehensive “always,” “every,” “all,” indicating special attachment to the Philippians. With joy.—The sum of the epistle is, “I rejoice. . . . Rejoice ye.” “He recalls to our minds the runner who at the supreme moment of Grecian history brought to Athens the news of Marathon. Worn, panting, exhausted with the effort to be the herald of deliverance, he sank in death on the threshold of the first house which he reached with the tidings of victory, and sighed forth his gallant soul in one great sob, almost in the very same words as those used by the apostle, ‘Rejoice ye; we rejoice’ ” (Farrar, after Lightfoot).
Ver. 5. “Fellowship here denotes co-operation in the widest sense, their participation with the apostle, whether in sympathy or in suffering, or in active labour, or in any other way. At the same time, their almsgiving was a signal instance of this co-operation and seems to have been foremost in the apostle’s mind” (Lightfoot). He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it.—“The observation of the ebb and flow of the tide for so many days and months and ages together, as it has been observed by mankind, gives us a full assurance that it will ebb and flow again to-morrow” (Bishop Butler). Another sort of assurance comes in here. It is an offence to every worthy thought of God that He should begin and not be able to finish (Isa. xxvi. 12).