{"id":7372,"date":"2021-07-11T00:00:10","date_gmt":"2021-07-10T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=7372"},"modified":"2021-07-12T07:49:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T21:49:28","slug":"greetings-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2021\/07\/11\/greetings-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Greetings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philippians 1:1-2\u00a01<\/sup>Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,\u00a0<\/span>To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:\u00a0<\/span>2<\/sup>Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The letter to the Philippians is a treasure of deep reflections from Paul the Apostle as he sat in prison probably in Rome. The letter begins with the typical statement of the author. In this case, Paul is the primary author but Timothy was there with him. We do not know how much input Timothy had in the letter. Timothy is mentioned as the co-author in a number of Paul\u2019s letters: 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Philippians is known as one of the \u201cPrison Epistles.\u201d It is possible that Timothy came to Rome in response to Paul’s letter to him known as 2 Timothy, making Philippians one of the last letters we have from Paul. Much of the history behind this and other letters is obscure and uncertain. Timothy was Paul\u2019s closest missionary companion and traveled extensively with Paul.<\/p>\n

Paul identifies both of them as\u00a0<\/em>servants of Christ Jesus<\/em>. The word\u00a0servants<\/em> (douloi) can be translated also as “slaves.” Modern people may miss the significant of the power of this self-description. This is more than “maid service” but was all life-consuming. Paul and Timothy had been captured and bought by Christ. They were owned by Christ. They owed their existence to Christ and were totally dependent upon Christ. They took all their directions from Christ and did not act on their own understanding or strength.<\/span><\/p>\n

The letter is written to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi.\u00a0<\/em>There are two noteworthy descriptions used here. Saints\u00a0<\/em>(hagiois)<\/em>\u00a0is a broad term Paul uses for all believers. The word could also be translated as “holy ones.” It describes the new creation resulting in transformation that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Holiness is a refocus of our worship, from created objects (including ourselves) to God. This results in the filling of the Holy Spirit and the cleansing from sin. This is made possible for those who are\u00a0in Christ Jesus<\/em>. This important phrase occurs many times in Paul’s letters and signifies the life that has been full submitted to the lordship and sovereignty of Jesus Christ. It is the life being “sanctified” (same root as “saints”) because a person has refocused his or her faith to embrace God’s promises about eternal life through Jesus. This new life is marked by a change of allegiance, from self and sin to Christ and righteousness (see Romans 6). God created us to experience this life; it is why we exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two sub-groups among the saints who serve in leadership and ministry. Overseers<\/em>\u00a0(episkopois)<\/em> can be thought of as the leaders who had overall responsibility for the mission of the church. The word itself means to give “over sight.”\u00a0<\/span>Deacons (diakonois)<\/em> were those who served in some ministry within the church body. This group developed in early churches after Acts 6 when the work within the church needed to be divided. Basically and broadly speaking, deacons helped in various ministries of compassion, service, and welfare of church. Paul gave key character qualities of these two groups of leaders in 1 Timothy 3. Depending on the dating of these letters, it is apparent that the early church was starting to develop clear ideas about how churches should be led.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul gives his typical greeting in verse 2. He combines the common Greek and Jewish greetings with a theological twist. The Greeks had a simple greeting of something like, “Be glad, rejoice, happy day, I hope things are going well” (charein<\/em>). The word shares the same root as\u00a0grace <\/em>(charis<\/i>).<\/i> The Jews used the greeting of\u00a0peace<\/em> (Hebrew\u00a0shalom<\/em>). Grace and peace are two key gifts of God our Father<\/em> through what\u00a0the Lord Jesus Christ<\/em> has done through his death and resurrection. Grace is our desperate need for it resolves our problem of sin and provides us eternal life. Peace is what people so desperately look for in this life but only get temporary experiences of it. Peace is the result of experiencing God’s grace. Grace brings peace to humanity, but grace must be received in faith, otherwise the peace is only partial and fleeting. Paul and Timothy were agents of grace and peace and devoted their lives to sharing the good news of God’s gifts to people.<\/p>\n

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Philippians 1:1-2\u00a01Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,\u00a0To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:\u00a02Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 The letter to the Philippians is a treasure of deep reflections from Paul the Apostle as he sat in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7372"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7386,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7372\/revisions\/7386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}