I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 2:19-21
I wonder if anyone in the church at Rome read St Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. If they did, I wonder what they thought of the above passage. ‘For they all seek their own interests....’! How would you feel if your own church leader wrote that about you and your church?
I doubt the Christians in Rome neglected Paul. He had previously written to them and I expect they treasured his letter. In the final paragraphs of Acts 28, we read how they went to welcome Paul as he approached the city and of his ministry there continuing for at least two years, ‘proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance’. At the end of his letter to Philippi, he adds, ‘All the saints greet you, especially those who are of Caesar’s household’. And yet it was a church about 700 miles away that sent him the money he needed to support himself in his ministry.
‘For they seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ’! That’s was terrible comment on the church at Rome, especially the Christians who served Caesar personally. So the only person that Paul could send to Philippi with good news was Timothy.
At the start of this section of his letter to Philippi, Paul has described how Jesus gave up his rights and privileges as God to serve and save people. Jesus took a downward path that ended with a cross and a borrowed tomb. Paul had begun that description with the words, ‘Have this mind among yourselves...’
The story of Paul’s life in Acts and in his own letters demonstrates that he developed this sort of mind. He explained to the Philippians how he, himself, was being ‘poured out as a drink offering’ in the service of others. The mind of Jesus Christ was in Timothy, also.
After commending Timothy, Paul commends the man the Philippians had sent with their gift, Epaphroditus. He was excluded from Paul’s view of the other Christians in Rome because Epaphroditus was a visitor. Moreover, Epaphroditus had suffered a great deal to reach Paul with the Philippians’ gift. ‘For he nearly died for the work of Christ’, Paul explained, ‘risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me’. That wasn’t meant as a criticism of the Christians back in Philippi but only acknowledged that Epaphroditus completed their intention by delivering the gift.
This passage leaves us with a lot to think about. First, anyone in Christian ministry can learn to be content with very few likeminded Christians around them who truly seek to serve Christ. More generally, we all ought to think about whether we might be more like the Christians in Rome than we care to admit, especially if we’re in jobs where we need to be careful, like the Christians who served Caesar. Do we seek our own interests, not those of Jesus Christ? If we do, might that explain why we cannot experience the same sort of contentment as Paul enjoyed?
© Copyright Philip Evans 2015.
What is freely received should be freely shared and not sold for profit, so please feel free to copy these Reflections freely and without cost to others. Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations in these Reflections are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
