Philippians — Introduction — Joy in Chains

A letter that sings in a cell

Philippians is the warmest letter Paul ever wrote, and he wrote it in chains. Somewhere in a guardroom, uncertain whether his trial will end in release or execution, the apostle takes up his pen to a little congregation he loves — and the word that keeps breaking out is joy. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice." Sixteen times some form of joy or rejoicing rings through four short chapters. This is not the giddy cheer of a man whose circumstances are good; his circumstances are terrible. It is the settled gladness of a man whose life is hidden somewhere his circumstances cannot reach. Philippians answers the question: where do you go to find a joy the world cannot give and cannot take away?

Who wrote it, and from where

On this book there is no real dispute: Philippians is Paul's, one of the handful of letters that even the most skeptical scholars grant him without argument. Its warmth, its personal news, its unmistakable voice are Paul through and through. He writes as a prisoner (1:7, 13) — but a prisoner where? The traditional answer is Rome, around AD 60–62, during the two years of house arrest with which Acts closes; the letter's references to "the whole imperial guard" (1:13) and greetings from "Caesar's household" (4:22) fit the capital well. A number of scholars propose instead an earlier imprisonment in Ephesus around the mid-50s, which would shorten the distance between Paul and Philippi that the letter's back-and-forth seems to assume. The question turns on how we read those few phrases, and it is not finally settled; either way we are hearing a chained apostle who may not live to be freed. We will lean, with the older tradition, toward Rome, while holding it loosely.

Philippi — a little Rome

The church at Philippi was Paul's first on European soil (Acts 16), born from a riverside prayer meeting, a businesswoman named Lydia, a delivered slave girl, and a midnight jailbreak in which Paul and Silas sang hymns in the stocks. The city was a proud Roman colony — settled with army veterans, governed as a Rome in miniature, fiercely attached to its Roman citizenship. That civic pride is the very thing Paul plays upon: he tells these colonists to live as citizens worthy of the gospel (1:27) and reminds them their truest "citizenship is in heaven" (3:20). The whole letter is written to people who knew exactly what it meant to belong to a greater empire than the one around them.

Why he wrote

Philippians is warm, but it has errands. The Philippians had sent Paul a financial gift by the hand of Epaphroditus — who then fell dangerously ill — and Paul writes, in part, a thank-you note and a report that Epaphroditus is well and returning (2:25–30; 4:10–20). He wants to update them on his imprisonment and reassure them that it has, of all things, advanced the gospel (1:12–18). And he writes to steady them: against the strain of disunity (he names two women, Euodia and Syntyche, and pleads with them to agree, 4:2–3), and against opponents who would burden these Gentile believers with the law and with confidence in the flesh (chapter 3). Underneath every errand runs one aim — to press this church toward a single thing: a life shaped like Jesus.

The great themes to watch for

For all its warmth, Philippians has a spine, and a few themes carry its weight.

Joy that does not depend on circumstance. The keynote sounds sixteen times, and always with the same anchor — "in the Lord." Paul's gladness is not propped up by his conditions, which are dire; it is fastened to a Person his conditions cannot reach, and that is why a man in a cell can keep telling a free church to rejoice.

The mind of Christ. At the letter's center stands the great hymn of 2:6–11 — the One who was "in the form of God" emptying himself down to a servant, a man, a criminal's cross, and therefore exalted to the Name above every name. Humility, unity, obedience: Paul asks the Philippians for nothing he has not first shown them in Jesus. Every other theme is lit by this poem.

Partnership in the gospel. Paul's word for the church is koinonia — fellowship, a shared venture. The Philippians are not his audience but his co-investors, bound to him "from the first day until now" in the one great enterprise of the gospel, and their gift is part of that partnership, not charity.

A righteousness not our own. Against those who trust in circumcision and pedigree, Paul counts all his credentials as loss "for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus" (3:8), longing to be found in him "not having a righteousness of my own… but that which comes through faith in Christ." The letter's deepest polemic is against every confidence in the flesh.

The peace that guards, and the secret of contentment. By the last chapter the themes come home to the anxious heart: a peace "which surpasses all understanding" posted like a sentry over the mind (4:7), and a contentment "learned" in plenty and hunger alike, held up not by Paul's resolve but by Christ's strength (4:11–13).

The heart of it

At the very middle of the letter stands what may be the oldest Christian hymn we possess — the poem of 2:6–11. Many scholars think Paul is quoting an existing song of the early church, older than the letter itself, which he sets like a jewel into his appeal for humility; whether composed by Paul or received by him, it traces the steepest descent and the highest ascent ever told. The One who did not clutch his equality with God "emptied himself," down and down to the cross — and therefore God "highly exalted him" and gave him the Name at which every knee will bow. Paul's joy in prison, his call to humility, his counting all things loss — each is simply the mind of that self-emptying Christ worked out in an ordinary church and an ordinary life.

How to read it

Read it as what it is: a personal letter from a friend in chains, not a treatise. Let its joy surprise you, and let its center stop you. We will walk it slowly, work its Greek, and keep our eyes where Paul keeps his — on the Christ who went all the way down to lift us all the way up. This is where the joy comes from, and it is the only place it can be found.