Philippians 2:1-3
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
To begin, Paul seems to be building off of what he left off in the first chapter by exhorting Christian virtues/traits. He says "to complete my joy" we must be of the same mind, love, and be in accord. To do this, it seems we must look to Christ for all things. In order to think the same about various ideas, to have the same love for each other, and to be in the same accord (be of one soul/spirit), we must be "communicating together" somehow, and in this case, looking to God for all things. And, as Paul says, this will bring joy.
Paul continues to exhort as he says "do nothing from rivalry or conceit". Clearly, when we do ALL things we should do them in the right mindset - not to put down others or to only build ourselves up. Additionally, Paul asserts we should do all things in humility, counting others as more important than ourselves. Applying this to today's work can be so difficult. Living in a country where so much is based on competition this can be hard to do. However, if we were all of the same mindset (mentioned in verse 2:2), we wouldn't have this problem of competition as everyone would look at each other equally. This seems to point to the idea that these conflicts of arrogance or rivalry come from the fact that not everyone looks to Christ for all things. However, if we did do this, true joy could be experienced through Christ.
posted by Jake at 8:18 PM
3 Comments:
Right on. Think of this, lets say you have 100 pianos and you tune the second off of the first one, and then the third one off of the second one, until you tune them all, there will still be disharmony, it won't sound perfect. But if you tune all of the pianos to the same tuning fork, then they will be perfect and in harmony. So for us we don't tune ourselves to other people but to Christ, so that when we all are tuned in on Christ, then we are all tuned in on each other as well.
Along the same lines, Christ is the vine and we all grow out of that vine as branches.
Just an illustration of what you were saying Jake, I think.
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant...I really like the piano explanation
Verse 1 confused me at first because it says "IF there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy." This IF statement starts an If/Then clause. If this is true then do this. So Paul is saying, IF you believers have experienced any of these wonderful aspects of the faith, then do this. What does Paul want them to do? Jake said it well, "must be of the same mind, love, and be in accord." And to put even more empahis on what Paul wants them to do, he says, "complete my joy." Wow! Paul REALLY is laying it on thick. Paul is saying, I really really want you believers to be unified. I look at these verses and see a progression: If you have done these things, then it would be awesome if you would work on this. Paul is challenging these believers to be unified.
Ricky, great analogy. Going off of what Jake was saying, "To do this, it seems we must look to Christ for all things. In order to think the same about various ideas, to have the same love for each other, and to be in the same accord (be of one soul/spirit), we must be 'communicating together' somehow, and in this case, looking to God for all things." Paul pins down this doctrine of looking to Christ in verse 5 where he says, look to Christ as your example "which is yours in Christ Jesus." So we must look to Christ as our example as to how we do this.
Post a Comment
<< Home