To the Saints in Philippi - 1

Today we begin a new expository series through the book of Philippians, one of the best known and most beloved of all Paul's 13 New Testament epistles. It is a short book of four chapters. It resounds with the theme of joy. Joy as a noun or rejoice, the verb is found 16 times in these four chapters, which averages about four times per chapter.

Doesn't it? It is a prison epistle, written by Paul from his Roman imprisonment around AD 62. In contrast with the Thessalonian epistles that we have just completed, which were written early in his ministry, probably around AD 51, 52. And so there's a good 10-year gap between the epistles that we have just completed and the one that we are about to engage in at this time. There are many beloved texts in the book of Philippians, maybe more than any other book of this size in the New Testament.

We've all heard many of these. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. What a wonderful, wonderful statement of truth. But made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. One of the most profound passages in all the word of God. And this one in chapter 3, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death, what thoughts to hang our minds upon? And this one, rejoice in the Lord always.

And again, I say, rejoice, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God shall that passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate upon these things and perhaps one of the best known and misapplied texts in all the Bible, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. All these are found in the book of Philippians and we'll be taking them up one by one at the proper time. Now my file where I keep the notes of my sermons that I preach over the years is filled, filled with sermons from the book of Philippians and yet in all these years I have never preached all the way through it from beginning to end. I started to do that about three years ago, made preparation in that direction and then felt directed of the Lord to go in another direction, but at that time I began to accumulate commentaries on the book of Philippians with the thought in mind that we would be expounding that one of these days. And so when I felt like the time had come and I went to my bookshelf to see what other books I might need for this study and I counted and found I have 25 commentaries on Philippians, I decided I wouldn't buy anymore.

I'll have trouble using all the ones that I have. What a wonderful wealth of riches I have to help me study this book of Philippians. Well today we're going to take up the salutation.

You say that's pretty mundane. All of Paul's epistles have salutations and they all sound pretty much alike and that is true with emphasis upon that phrase pretty much alike, but they are all different. They all have details that are important and they all need to be studied in their own context and with their own application and so we begin at the beginning with a salutation. The standard salutation of that day had three elements. It identified the author, it identified the recipients, and it had a word of greeting and that's how they all begin. And Philippians says Paul and Timothy bond servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons.

Grace to you and peace from our God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The author, the recipients, and the greeting. The author. We already know that the author is none other than the apostle Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Having been called and assigned the office of apostle, Paul had great responsibility that had been laid upon his shoulders by the Lord. The responsibility to preach the Word of God, the responsibility to receive divine revelation from God, and to commit it to writing. The responsibility to plant churches in various places across the world and to supervise those churches for a while until they could get well grounded in the Word of God.

His apostleship gave him great authority in the work of the gospel, greater authority than anyone else except Christ himself. The apostles really were in many ways Christ's replacement when Christ went back to heaven. In fact, the Bible tells us that the church is founded upon Christ, who is the cornerstone, and then upon what? The apostles and the prophets who are in the foundation of the church.

And of course the foundation was laid many years ago, therefore the foundation is not continuing to be laid. And we're not surprised in that regard that Jesus Christ is no longer upon the earth. And we're not surprised that we don't have apostles or prophets today. So what an important place they had in the early days of the church and the foundation of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ according to his design. But Paul was an apostle, an apostle with responsibility, authority, and power.

He had been given special miraculous power to be able to heal people and perform other miracles. Again, these are the signs of an apostle, as he tells us in 2 Corinthians. If they are the signs of an apostle, but there are lots of people who can do them, then what does that phrase mean? Signs of an apostle?

It really would mean nothing, would it? Unless there's a unique sense in which these miracles are assigned to apostles and are confirmation that they are indeed apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul had that kind of power. He had responsibility and authority and a power, but more than anything else, he had a great measure of God's grace. And he never got over the amazement that he, an enemy of Christ, a vehement enemy of Christ, who had created so much opposition and wreaked so much havoc in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, should, by the grace of God, the unmerited favor of God, be called into union with Jesus Christ and be placed into the office of apostle.

He never got over that. He was amazed by that. He was amazed by that on the Damascus road.

He was amazed by that when he drew his last breath upon the earth. Paul. Paul doesn't mention in this particular salutation that he is an apostle. We know that, of course, to be true. And we also know that in a great many of his salutations, he does say, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, but not in all of his epistles do we find that.

And in this case, it is not there. It says Paul and Timothy bond servants of Jesus Christ, but it does not mention that he is an apostle of Christ. And the question, of course, is why? And the answer is we can't be sure because the Bible doesn't tell us why, but we can guess. And from what I understand of the situation, my opinion is that Paul didn't mention that he was an apostle of Christ in this case for two reasons. Number one, because he didn't need to. Number two, because he didn't want to.

The two go together. I think when Paul mentions that he's an apostle of Jesus Christ, you usually find in that epistle some reference to people who are challenging him in his apostleship. They are questioning it. They are trying to degrade him. They are trying to tear him down in the esteem of others who are looking to him as an apostle of Jesus Christ.

And there are those who would like to replace him and put themselves in his place. There are those who would like to divert people's attention away from his message and to replace it with a false message. And so when that is going on, I think those are the times when Paul says subtly in passing, but a very important reminder, I am an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have a special place, a special authority, a special position in the work of Christ.

I am an apostle of Jesus Christ. Don't let the enemies of the gospel persuade you otherwise. He mentions it when it is being challenged, because that's important for the spiritual health of people. But he would prefer not to have to.

He doesn't mention it here, number one, because he doesn't need to. There's no reference to any challenge to his apostleship in the Philippian church. And number two, therefore, he would prefer not to, though he is an apostle and needs to mention that when it's important for people to not be misled by others who would denigrate his apostleship, Paul would much prefer that people would know that and would respond appropriately so that he can relate to them in other ways, should we say in softer ways. Paul, a fellow Christian, Paul, one of the saints, Paul, a fellow servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Think of me that way. That's what Paul preferred. And so he didn't lord his apostleship over them, but he didn't run away from it either. It's an interesting balance.

It's an instructive balance. We can learn a lot from the way Paul used or did not use that term apostle in various situations. But Paul is an apostle, and Paul is the founder of the church at Philippi, and he's writing to that church that had been very special to him over the years. In fact, I've called this Paul's opening words to one of his favorite churches, and I would probably not be amiss to say to his very favorite church, because it seems to be that way as this epistle unfolds.

But Paul is now imprisoned in Rome, an imprisonment from which he will eventually be released for a while and then imprisoned again, at which time he will be executed. But it is during his first Roman imprisonment that he writes a number of epistles, and one of them is to the beloved saints of God at Philippi. Paul is the author. But then we notice that Timothy is also placed, his name is placed in the position that normally would be the position that identifies the author. It doesn't just say Paul to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, but Paul and Timothy.

Now that, of course, is not unique. A number of the epistles include other names. Sometimes it's Paul and Silvanus or someone else who Paul includes in the location of authorship for epistles.

But then we wonder what exactly is intended by that. Is Paul telling us that he is not the sole author or is not the primary author, that this is a collaboration? Sometimes we read books that are written by more than one author, two or more. Sometimes we read books that are written by a whole list of authors, every chapter by a different author.

You've probably read books like that perhaps when you were in school. Is that what Paul is communicating? That this epistle is not simply authored by him from a human standpoint, but that Timothy is a co-author and has collaborated with him in some way? Well, all I can say to you at this point is that as we study the various places where you find the multiple names in the place of authorship and then study through the epistle to see how Paul uses pronouns, either plural or singular, and I'm saying we did this, we said that, and others I'm saying I said this, I say this, I instruct you in this way. We eventually come to the conclusion that Paul is not putting those other people in the place of authorship or co-authorship, but he is honoring them by this position.

He's calling attention to them and their faithful service by this position. He is affirming to the church at Philippi that Timothy no doubt has read every word of this epistle and is in wholehearted agreement with it so that when it comes to them, probably carried by Timothy himself to them, so that when it comes to them they will know that everything that is said here is said by the apostle Paul in full agreement to their friend Timothy. But no, Timothy is not a co-author. Paul is the author. Paul is the inspired author. Paul is the inspired apostle.

And Paul is writing as directed by the Holy Spirit of God. But Timothy is his closest and most trusted ministry partner. He loved Timothy. He honored Timothy. He depended upon Timothy. And Timothy is now with Paul in Rome in his imprisonment. And Timothy had been involved with the team that had planted the church at Philippi and therefore is known and loved and respected by the church there. And so it's not surprising that Paul mentions him in the opening. And Timothy may very well have been Paul's, I like this word so I say it from time to time, a menunensis in writing this epistle.

I've said it enough, I think you know what I mean. Our word is secretary, but in that day it was a menunensis. And Paul dictated his epistles and he had to dictate it to somebody. And it could have been somebody else. We don't know that it was Timothy. But we know Timothy was there and we know that Timothy was a faithful companion and did whatever he could to help Paul in any way. And therefore it would not be unlikely that Timothy served as the one who took Paul's dictation. That would give you another reason for Paul to say Paul and Timothy. Though Timothy is not the author of the words, the contents of the epistle, he may in a very real sense be the one who wrote the words on the page. Paul and Timothy. But how does Paul identify himself and Timothy?

Not as an apostle, but what? Bond servants of Jesus Christ. Or literally bond slaves of Jesus Christ.

In a day when up to half of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves, not free people, free men. And Paul calls himself a bond slave. Emphasizing not his high position as an apostle, but his lowly position as a servant.

And no doubt emphasizes it here as an example to others. If Paul, the apostle, sees himself primarily as a servant, then what should the Christians who came to Christ through his ministry think of themselves as primarily? In a small way, Paul may be doing what Christ did in the upper room as recorded in John chapter 13 before his betrayal when the apostles were gathered together around the table and Christ was at the head of the table and Christ presided in the eating of the meal. And then it tells us when supper was over, Christ stood up from the table and he girded himself with a towel and he went around and did what? He washed the apostles' feet. Those dirty, stinky, smelly feet. He washed the apostles' feet. And as you know, when he came to Peter, Peter said, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not appropriate. You don't wash my feet. I should be washing your feet. Don't you wash my feet. And Jesus said, If you don't let me wash your feet, you'll have no part in me.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, said Peter, complete reversal. Wash me all over, head and all of me. Jesus said, No, you've already been bathed. You don't need that again.

That's a one-time thing. But you do need your feet washed. What lessons are there? All kinds of lessons. But as much as anything, it's teaching the very important distinction between justification and sanctification. You've been bathed, justification, but you need to be continually washed on your dusty feet, sanctification. But as much as anything else, what was Jesus doing there? Setting the example. What I have done unto you, I want you to do to one another, is I have taken the servant's place before you, I who am your Lord and Master. You call me that, he said, and so I am. I, who am your Lord and Master, if I'm willing to take the servant's place and wash your feet, do you think you're too good to do that?

This is what I want you to do to one another. And maybe in some small way, that's exactly what Paul is doing in this opening. Paul and Timothy, not an apostle of Jesus Christ, but Paul and Timothy, slaves, servants, willing to serve in any way that we can, but servants of Jesus Christ, and that is important. It identifies who Paul is serving primarily. He's serving others for Christ's sake, but he's serving Christ, and he's serving at Christ's direction, and it tells us what he is doing. He's not just serving aimlessly just to be doing good deeds and demonstrating some kind of ill-defined love, but he's serving the Lord Jesus Christ and the ways that Christ has commanded, and identifying himself as a bond slave is indeed putting himself in the lowly position, but identifying himself as a bond slave of Jesus Christ, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that elevates the bond service a bit, doesn't it? What's the higher position? A free person groveling in poverty or the servant of the king? Which would you rather be?

Maybe the servant of the king would be better than to be a free person who can hardly get it together and get anything done. Paul and Timothy, bond servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the author. Recipients. Who's he writing to? To the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons. The recipients, and he says three things that are important about them. He tells us first what I would call their basic identity, namely saints. He tells us secondly about their earthly location, which is, of course, the city of Philippi, their assigned place of service. And he tells us, thirdly, something about their Christian community, something about the church in Philippi because he mentions not only the saints, the members of the church, but also the bishops and the deacons. To the saints in Christ Jesus. Saint was actually a far more common term for what we call Christian in our day than it was in their day. How many times has the word Christian found in the New Testament?

Does anybody know? Well, I'll tell you three times just in case you've forgotten. I've told you that before, but you've forgotten. Three times, that's all. Not that that's not a good term. I'm not saying because it's only used three times we shouldn't use it, but three times believers in Jesus Christ in the New Testament are called Christians. How many times are they called saints?

Do you know that one, the answer to that question? More than 60 times. More than 60 times they are referred to as saints. In the plural, saints, almost always in the plural.

Saints, hagios is the Greek word. It has the idea of to separate, if you put it in the verb form, to set apart, and there's where we get the idea of holiness. Christians being set apart are set apart from the world, set apart from sin, set apart unto God. There's the idea of holiness, but the word holy and the word separate are the same actually. When we think of holy, we think of sinless, and of course there's that element. God certainly is holy.

He's sinless, but being set apart, is really maybe a better concept to keep in mind, because Christians of course, though having been justified in that sense, are holy before the judgment bar of God, are still struggling with our endemic frailty and remaining sinfulness, and therefore we are not holy, we're far from holy in our everyday lives, but we have been set apart unto God, and that makes us holy. We belong to Him. He claims us. We are holy. We are set apart. We belong to God in that sense, and that's what a saint is, a set apart one.

It is a person of a different order, different from anyone else in all the world, except the others who also have been made saints by the grace of God. We are citizens of a different world. We are people of a different order. We are people of a different nature, of a different makeup, a different race actually.

We're a new race of people made out of, remade out of the old fallen endemic race. We are saints. It's a term for all born-again ones. Every Christian, biblically speaking, is a saint. Anyone who erroneously teaches that saints are super-Christians who have accomplished greater things than anybody else and performed some kind of a miracle along the way, and after their death they are acknowledged and canonized by the church and thereafter called saints doesn't read the Bible very closely, do they? Paul is writing to all the Christians in Philippi, and they're all saints, every one of them. St. Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened in Philippi, that she would receive the gospel. St. Philippian Jailor, who was saved by the grace of God, spared from death and brought into eternal life by the work of Christ in his heart. Saint, demon-possessed slave girl, I think probably came to a saving knowledge of Christ when Paul cast the demon out of her, and that of course is what brought about the persecution that took him into jail, and on and on it goes. Every one of the Christians in Philippi are saints, and Paul is writing to all.

You notice that word all? All the saints who are in Philippi, no exceptions, they are all included in this designation. We do not progress to sainthood, we make progress in our sainthood. We become saints when we are born into the family of God, and from there on out we are working to make progress in our saintliness.

How you doing? You are a saint, you're called a saint, rightfully so. How you doing in your progress towards saintliness?

That's a good question. But we move from their basic identity as saints to their earthly location, which is Philippi, the city where God had saved them and therefore had placed them to serve him. Philippi, a major city in the Roman Empire in the northern part of the peninsula of Greece called Macedonia, located on the Ignatian Way, one of those great Roman roads like the Appian Way and others you have heard of. And Paul came to the city of Philippi around AD 49. You remember seeing the Macedonian vision, left Asia Minor, crossed the Aegean Sea and came to Europe and landed in the port city of Neopolis and then walked, no doubt, the 10 or 12 miles from there to the city of Philippi. And Philippi, by the work of God's grace, became the first European church planted by the apostle Paul.

There were quite a few more to follow. Someone said Philippi was Rome in miniature. It was a very Rome-like city, though much smaller, that had many of the characteristics of the great capital city of Rome, including its architecture and its organization, its well-organized government, and so forth. Philippi had been founded in 356 BC during the days of the Greek Empire and was named for Philip II of Macedon, who was the father of Alexander the Great. But it came into the Roman Empire in 167 BC and rose to fame in 42 BC because there was a famous battle in Philippi between, on the one hand, Antony and Octavian, who defeated Brutus and Cassius. Now I don't expect you to remember all those names, but probably as I said those names, one or more of them flickered a little bit of memory from your school days you said, I think those guys were associated with Julius Caesar, right? In fact, wasn't it Caesar when he was stabbed and realized who had done it said, et tu, Brute?

Do you remember that? Well, he was involved in the battle. He lost. He was on the losing end of the battle in Philippi. And after that great battle, we're told that a lot of Roman army vets settled down in Philippi. It was a city full of retired military men, which also made it a Rome-like city, and was designated a Roman colony, and that gave it special privileges in the Roman Empire.

So it was a very important city. But beyond their earthly location, what do we learn about their Christian community? To the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons. The church in Philippi. You can go back to Acts chapter 16 to read the history of the founding of that church, and I've already alluded to a few details, and I've mentioned others, I think, in a recent message.

So I won't go back to that again. But I simply point out that Paul is writing to all Christians in the city of Philippi, all the saints who are in Philippi, and yet it's clear that all of these saints were members of one community, all were associated with and identified with the same group of what are called bishops and deacons. Now in those days there were not multiple churches in every city. That developed later.

That can be a blessing. Aren't you glad you're not restricted to only one choice for a church where you live that you can shop around a bit and find the best one, but that whole idea of shopping around a bit can itself become problematic? And for better or for worse, and I think most of us would agree that it's good that we have choices in our day, we have to understand that the saints at Philippi didn't have any choice.

In fact, that was true in all the cities in that day. It was the church at Rome, not churches at Rome. It was the church at Ephesus, not churches at Ephesus. In fact, the only place where Paul talks about churches plural in one location is when he writes a Galatian Epistle, and there he writes to the churches of God in Galatia. And sure enough, we read that history and we know he's talking about... He's talking about... let's see, where did he get stoned?

My memory's going a little bit blank right now. Iconium, Lystra, Antioch, Pisidia. There were at least four churches in Galatia that were found at Derbe.

I think that gets me up to four. There were four churches in Galatia that Paul founded, and they're all in different cities in a close proximity, but they're all in different cities. So there Paul writes about the churches plural in Galatia because every town had their own city, and the saints from each of those cities went to the church in their city. But most of the time he writes to the church in Rome, the church in Ephesus, the church in Corinth. And though here he doesn't use the word church, it's clear the same concept is here. He's writing to the saints who are in Christ Jesus in Philippi. All Christians belonged to the same church, and all were involved in the leadership of the bishops and the deacons that belonged to that church.

No exceptions. There weren't any saints that went to a rival church or to a sister church in the city of Philippi. There weren't any saints who didn't go to church. There weren't any saints who weren't associated with the church. All the saints of God were in Philippi with their bishops and deacons.

You can't miss the emphasis upon the local church here. All the saints with their bishops plural and deacons plural. Again, a careful study of the New Testament leads us to the inescapable conclusion that the term bishop, elder, and pastor are synonymous terms for the same office. Sometimes the word bishop is used, which means overseer, and has to do with that overseeing responsibility. When Paul gives the qualifications for pastors in 1 Timothy 3, he uses the term bishop. If a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good thing.

A bishop shall, and he gives the qualifications. More often the term elder is used, and then occasionally the term pastor or shepherd, under shepherd, is used. So these are all terms for the same office, and here Paul chooses to use the term bishop. And along with that, deacons. Now that's a little easier because there aren't different terms for one office of deacon. There's only one term, deacon. Deacon, as you know, is a term that at its base means a servant, as we all are.

We're all bondservants of the Lord Jesus Christ if we are saved. But there was an office of deacon, an office of service, which as you study the description in Acts chapter 6, you come to realize that though in a very real sense these deacons are serving the church, as much as anything what they are doing is serving the, in that case, the apostles who later would become the elders, so that they didn't get bogged down in the kind of work that other people could do, so that they could focus more specifically upon the work of the ministry of God's word and prayer that had been assigned to them uniquely. Public ministry of God's word. And the deacons were there to help them to be able to carry that out without hindrance. Deacons have a very significant role in the New Testament, and yet interestingly, there's only three places in the New Testament where the office of deacon is mentioned. One in Acts 6 where it was inaugurated, the second one in 1 Timothy 3 where the qualifications are given, and the third one here, which is noted in passing, but by noting it in passing, we realize this was a, it was the norm. Churches in the New Testament had pastors and deacons. It's not always mentioned, but we can safely conclude that that is the norm, just as certainly as Paul recognized and appointed, appointed is the word that I'm struggling for, elders in every city where he planted churches, and sent others to do that, sent Titus to Crete to do the same thing, to appoint elders in every city, just as elders were appointed for every church, so deacons were selected for every church, probably not appointed by Paul or someone else, but by the church itself. They were recognized and called into this work of deaking, of serving, but it's an important office. No New Testament church can be as strong and healthy as it ought to be unless it has qualified men who are serving faithfully as pastors and qualified men who are serving faithfully as deacons.

How we thank God for both, how we need both. Paul, to the saints of God who art Philippi with the bishops and the deacons. Also notice that plural is normal in both cases. How many pastors should a church normally have? Many people have thought in terms of one down through the years, but it's clear that the norm is more than one, plural. Bishops, plural. Deacons, plural.

Like every truth, when people stumble upon a new truth sometimes they go a little crazy with it, they go a little too far with it. So you've got people saying today, you can't even have a church, can't even have a New Testament church unless you've got a plurality of elders. And yet I've never heard anybody say, you can't have a New Testament church unless you've got a plurality of deacons. Now we all recognize that deacon is normally plural, but in the case of small churches, I've known a number of times where churches start out with one deacon and pray that the Lord will supply more later. And nobody says, you can't call yourself a church, you've only got one deacon. Deacon's supposed to be plural. Be a little more sensible.

Situations require different arrangements until more ideal circumstances come along. But yes, under ideal normal circumstance, a church should have a plurality of pastors, bishops, and a church should have a plurality of deacons as well as a group of faithful saints, members. So that's the makeup of the church. Churches are made up of what?

Saints, that's everybody. Plus pastors and deacons, and pastors and deacons are saints too, but pastors and deacons that are recognized from among the saints. That's what makes up a church.

And anything beyond that is extra but not required. You can't have a church if you don't have a choir, you will find that in the Bible. You can't have a church if you don't have Sunday school teachers, you can't find that in the Bible. But you do need pastors and deacons, don't you? Isn't it interesting how much we can learn from a short little section of scripture like this in the Salutation to the Philippian Epistle? I should mention that this makes it clear that bishops are not a territorial supervisor who has responsibility for a number of churches. Sorry, those of you who come from a church background with the Episcopalian form of government. I remember opening this passage one time to an Episcopalian friend who was arguing for the superiority of having bishops over multiple churches and territories. And I said, well, let's see, what did they have at Philippi? They had in one city, one church, they had bishops, plural, and deacons, plural.

How does that fit into your system? Well, it doesn't, but church tradition shows us, he tells me. Get in line with scripture, you'll be better off, okay? But now I come to the greeting, and I don't have a lot of time here. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. As I told you, the salutation in the normal letter format, the epistolary format that was used in that day had these three elements. Number one, author.

Number two, recipients. Number three, a greeting. And the greeting was a customary greeting. You'd find it in every epistle.

And Paul, therefore, follows the epistolary format of that day, and he has these elements. He identifies the author and the recipients and has a greeting. But he baptized his greetings. He Christianized his greetings. He tweaked his greetings.

So they were customary in a generalized sort of way. This is the place a greeting goes, and yet he didn't make it the perfunctory greeting that most people expected. He Christianized it for his purposes. You see that by the insertion of grace and by the addition of peace and by the declaration of truth that all go into his salutation. Grace. The Greek form, if they were writing a letter and saying greetings, would be kyrane, which comes from to rejoice and had passed into common usage to mean something like greetings.

Paul said, I'll do better than that. I'll change that to caris, not kyrane, greetings or joy, but caris, grace. Grace to you. Not just greetings to you, not just joy to you. The epistle is full of joy, but I'll do one better than that. Grace to you. That's a whole lot better.

And then the addition of peace. This wouldn't be in a Greek-Roman letter at all. It's not a customary Greek-Roman word. It is a Jewish word. It is shalom and would be a standard Jewish greeting. But of course, there weren't many Jews in Philippi.

How do I know? They didn't have a synagogue, remember? Big city, but Paul got there, and to his surprise, he couldn't find a synagogue. In Thessalonica, he found a synagogue. In Berea, he found a synagogue. In Corinth, he found a synagogue. But in Philippi, a large Roman city, he found no synagogue because it took ten Jewish men to make a synagogue, and they couldn't establish one until there were at least ten Jewish men. So not having one in Philippi means there weren't to be found in that whole populous city, ten Jewish men. There were a few worshippers, remember, who met down by the riverside. That's where Paul found them. So Paul is not adding shalom because there was a sizable Jewish Christian population in the church of Philippi that had been saved out of Judaism and was now part of the church. If there were any, there might have been one or two, but there basically really weren't any Jews in the church, so why did he stick in shalom? And would they even know what that meant, being Greeks and Romans? Yes, they would.

How so? What did they use for a Bible? At this point in time, there was no Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. Philippians is just now being written and sent to them. No Colossians. In other words, they didn't have hardly any New Testament scripture.

What did they have? The Old Testament. That's their Bible. That's what they read.

That's what they studied out of. That's what they preached. And that's how they became familiar with the word shalom. It's found commonly in the Old Testament scriptures. They knew what it was.

They knew what it meant, and so Paul stuck it in there. Grace and peace. Charis and shalom to you. Tying together New Covenant blessings with Old Covenant promises. Reminding them that the peace of God follows peace with God. You can't have peace unless you are rightly related to God through Jesus Christ. But grace leads to peace.

And then he adds a few things about God, truth in his salutation. Grace and peace come from God the Father. True.

Grace and peace come equally from Jesus Christ the Son. True. That means Jesus Christ is God.

True. All that, just in a few words. Foundational Christian truth. Paul turns everything into the gospel. Well, it teaches us about servanthood, the necessary attitude for Christian service, bond slaves. It teaches us about holiness. We must see ourselves as set apart unto God. And it teaches us about the local church, God's primary instrument for his work in this world.

That's why every Christian to be an obedient, useful, fully useful follower and servant of the Lord Jesus Christ needs to be a committed, involved saint in a local church in the community where you live. Shall we pray? Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for what it teaches us. Help us to receive it with humble, childlike faith and live it out in the power of your Spirit. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.