It's good to see you tonight. You see from the plan that we have, I have a little bit of a raspy voice but I'm not yet in tears, that we are going to look at Philippians tonight in three different lessons. And there's a little bit of a lead question to that. Why does Paul like the Philippians so much? What is going on there? Obviously, we are going to look again at the contact between Paul and the Philippians, how this church came to be, and what caused Paul to write to the Philippians in particularly to get at the message of the letter. And we will focus on one aspect of that message towards the end of this evening, namely Philippians 2, 5, to 11, one of the most wonderful descriptions of the great deeds of Christ and the work between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father on our behalf. So let's begin with prayer together and then delve into this wonderful topic this evening. Oh, Heavenly Father, we thank you again that you give us in the midst of busyness, in the midst of challenges and difficulties, and opportunities the time to become quiet before you. The opportunity to listen to your word, to understand how you have made yourself known, throughout the ages and in the particular time of the first century. Lord, we praise you for giving us your eternal and lasting word. We praise you that there is a historical setting for it, and yet we know from your word that it is enduring truth, inserting you and your work. Lord, we thank you that our lives this evening are dependent and encapsled by you, that your faithful hand in our lives is noticeable and is true this evening. We thank you, Lord, that while we are yet weak, while we stumble and fall in many different ways, you are faithful to us, you hold us and you seek to produce in our lives that godliness which we cannot produce ourselves, that life in accord with your word, in accord with your will, in accord with your law. That was the life of Jesus on this earth and is becoming our life through your work. Lord, we pray that our speaking and our acting and our desires in our hearts would be conformed to your purposes, to your glory, so that you would be magnified and not hindered by our lives. Lord, we praise you, we ask for your blessing for this evening in Jesus' name. You are already fairly acquainted with the sequence of events for the evening. Where do we look before we get into Philippians, we look into the smart outline of the life, the chronological outline of the life of Paul, to orientate ourselves concerning the relationship between Philippians and the book of Acts, and we have to go back a little bit. We cannot just begin with a question of Paul writing to the Philippians which we will focus on tonight, but we really need to go back briefly to the book of Acts and reflect on the occasion of Paul's founding of that church. What missionary journey do we find ourselves in when Philippi arises for the first time on the map of the book of Acts? Does anybody remember? Pardon? Yes, very good. I wasn't really thinking really fast here. Second missionary journey. So we need to look in the vicinity of Acts 16 and that is indeed where we find the beginning of the Philippian church. Acts 16 and I want to draw your attention to this unusual circumstance in which a church is being planted in Philippi. Subsequent to the vision that Paul has to go to Macedonia, to go to Europe, he finds the city of Philippi, Philippi in verse 12, recounted in chapter 16 of the book of Acts. And there it says, from there we traveled to Philippi, this is where this town arises for the first time, a Roman colony and the leading city in that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. Did you hear? We stayed there several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. I will explain that in just a minute. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Fiatira who was a worshiper of God, the Lord, the Lord. Opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. When she and the members of her household were baptized she invited us to her home saying, if you consider me a believer in the Lord come and stay at my house and she persuaded us. And then there is a further description here of a girl that followed Paul shouting, these men are servants of the most high god who are telling you the way to be saved as sounds really flattering, doesn't it? She kept this up for many days and finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, notice that. In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her at that moment the spirit left her saw a face of evangelism and presenting the gospel expulsion of a evil spirit and then the third is an account of a prison guard towards the end of this chapter. This is a lengthy miraculous account of what happened to Paul and how the prison guard and his family came to the Lord 1622 to 40. So this is the cradle of the life of the Messianic Church in Philippine. A few days we don't know maybe several weeks. We do have different references here a few days in the beginning and then a little later on she kept that up for many days so we have some time frame here but all in all hopelessly short time to plan the church. If you have the plan of planting a church you may have a initial phase of exploring the city and the demographics and maybe two years of just settling in and then you begin slowly to have public worship services etc. Paul comes in and there is a church started here well this is in the past what date would this roughly be for Paul to be in. Do you find the reference here? It's on page 16 the description of the second missionary journey and there we have references to his sojourn in Philippi so 50-51 AD. Following that Paul journeys further and we do have various references again in Philippians in the letter itself to the fact that when Paul writes to the Philippians he finds himself in chains. Perhaps the most conspicuous place is Philippians 1-13 where he says as a result as they find out what has happened to Paul it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. So again for us to locate now where Paul is from where he writes this letter to this young church in Philippi we have basically two options as far as I can see it. It says Arrea Philippi between 57 and 59 as a possible time of writing composition for Philippians or then when Paul is in Rome under house arrest 61-62 AD from where he would write Philippians. The reference to palace guard as far as I can see it if you explore that while it may be possible to refer to a place in says Arrea Philippi more likely eludes to the palace guard in Rome and therefore I would prefer and tend to favor the later date so we have at least a time frame of 10 years after the birth of that young church in Philippi that Paul writes to the Philippians. Let's go a little bit into that city. It is interesting to take a few of the references we read in the book of Acts and to get a feel for that city as over against other places that Paul visited and ministered in. What did we read? We read that this was a Roman colony and we need to stop a little bit and think about what that really means. The contrast here is between colony and province. What is the difference between a Roman colony and a Roman province? It is important for us to understand the makeup of the church, the mentality of the church and what may perhaps challenge them in the future as Paul writes Philippians to them. Does anybody know difference in Roman governance in a way the Roman empire is administered between a Roman colony and a Roman province? Good. The connection between a colony and the Roman government was much more direct. In fact you could say a citizen in the city of Philippi was like a citizen of Rome. It was an extended part of Italy where Rome had begun to express and have its power. A province is a nation that has been taken over through war, through capture and such would be the area of Judea or the area of Palestine. Within Palestine you would have, for instance, a puppet king in Galilee or you would have a king for Judea and Galilee or you would have a governor for Judea such as Pilate. We are basically distinguishing between two forms of governance of provinces. There was the procurator and the procinator or procinator, which kind, which type of governor was Pilate? Just for us to understand a little bit, was he a procurator or a procinator? Procurator, very good. Pilate was obviously a governor of Judea. He was to administer that part on behalf of the Roman government, but he was a procurator and not a procinator. Or you can also use the word proconsule. These are usable fairly synonymously although there are some distinctions. What does that tell you that Pilate was a procurator in the province of Judea and not a procinator? It tells you something about the assessment from Rome's perspective of that area. The answer is that the procurator is directly answerable to whom? To Caesar. He is directly answerable to Caesar to the emperor, whereas a procinator or a procinator was answerable to the Senate as this word here. That's why I've used these particular terms. Curia, the emperor's house, the senatorial group was concerned. So a procinator was answerable to the Senate, Roman Senate, a procurator was answerable to Caesar. If you look at the map of the Roman Empire and seek to find out where are provinces that are run by a procurator and where are provinces that are run by a procinator? You find out that the problem areas were run by procurators and the relatively manageable areas that did not have a lot of internal conflict were run by procinators. Why? Because Caesar wanted to have his hand on the problem areas, obviously. And he delegated quote unquote authority over provinces that were relatively easy to handle to the Senate. It was a division of power, quote unquote. But he kept his finger on those areas that were problematic. So that pilot as a procurator tells you that from the point of Rome, Judea was a problem area. And that also tells you a little bit about the difficult place, pilot is in, because he knows that Caesar is going to breathe down his neck, not just a Senate where there are all kinds of people and committees don't get a lot of things done. But to be answerable to Caesar, that was a big pressure, so that explains something about pilot. This was the governance of a province. Here we hear that when Paul comes to Philippi, that it is a colony, much more Roman, much more connected to Rome, no intermediary, not a puppet king or a governor, it is an extension of Rome. We have still, and now after Second World War and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kaliningrad, a part of Russia completely unconnected to mainland Russia. It is a left over part of what was formerly east pressure. This is how you need to think about the colony in Philippi. It's a little bit of Rome, just not on the Italian shoe or whatever you call that, the boot, which you call it the boot. It's not on there, but it's virtually Rome. So the citizens there are Roman citizens. It is very prosperous. There would be a sense of pride there to belong to the in-group, not just some adapted and amalgamated area, we belong to the inside group. Roman dress important, the pride of being Roman citizens, and perhaps therefore Paul's reference in Philippians 320 to 21, that our citizenship is in heaven. To make a point, obviously, that while we benefit and enjoy the protection of godly governments, we do not base our trust. We do not base our weight on that our citizenship, our sense of identity, our place of belonging is not this place, it is the citizenship in heaven. The heavenly Jerusalem, as it is mentioned in Hebrews, much military would be found in Philippi, strong sense of fortification, and certainly too many Romans for comfort. My Latin teacher again would certainly be very much against such statements. What you find in Philippi or what you do not find is what? In terms of Jewish presence, you do not have a synagogue there. That's a telling thing, perhaps it's just per by omission, but it is a Roman colony and there's no synagogue here. Perhaps it is a small place, but we have read an ax that Philippi had a significant place in Macedonia, so it is a little bit of a hint, at least, a little bit speculative to go beyond that, but it may be a hint that the Jewish presence there was not welcome, as it was in other cities where the synagogues were established, as safe havens of listening to the word of God, of praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of educating the children according to the ways of God, of fellowship around God in those various synagogues places, you do not have that in Philippi. I think another important point is being made here. Paul continues in his basic pattern of to the Jews first. He looks for a synagogue, he does not find a synagogue then he looks for a place of prayer. This was the only mode of expression, of Jews and God fearing people outside of a synagogue congregation to still practice their faith. Outside of the gates maybe another indication that they could not really find a place in the city, accepted as a place of worship, so certainly those who are of Jewish conviction and belong to the Jewish people are being marginalized in Philippi. Another thing is wonderful to read here as we just looked at the passage in Acts. Paul does not move on simply because he doesn't find a synagogue. He does not move on simply because he just finds a group of women praying. You see he does not discriminate in that sense of who should and should not hear the gospel. He goes and looks for a Jewish place of prayer and because there are not at least ten men according to Jewish law to make a congregation of worship official, here are women congregated to pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Lydia, the most conspicuous one of that group is the one that hears the gospel and as we have read God prepares her heart, God regenerates her heart and she is receptive to the gospel message. Lydia is a wonderful person, an interesting study in the first century. She is dealing in cloth from the city of Fiatira in Asia Minor, about 150 kilometers north of Ephesus, and it is perhaps a good guess that she would have dealt with the purple cloth produced in Colosse. We will come to Colossians a little later and perhaps she was engaged in this kind of a cross cultural trade from Asia Minor to Macedonia in back being based for her business in Philippi but having her home in Fiatira. She would be crossing two worlds, this highly romanized, legalized, militarized city in Philippi versus the more pagan religious, the orientated Asia Minor, remember Ephesus and the Artemis temple. There are all kinds of religious movements and developments in Asia Minor from which Lydia may have come. The slave girl gives you an understanding of the demonic powers, the evil powers that are also present in Philippi and the jailer perhaps represents the establishment, law and order, the authority, the present power and the gospel affects all three. A woman who is willing to receive and opened by God to receive the gospel, a woman who is depressed and suppressed by evil spirits and a man who is certainly exercising authority coming under the authority of Christ. So this is what the situation is, this is the setting that Paul comes into as he also evangelizes in a Roman colony. As I have said, I would tend to the date 61, so Paul is already in the center of the Roman Empire as he relates to the Philippians and as he sends the letter to them. This is perhaps efficient to give you a setting and a feel for the situation. The name Philippi stems from King Philipp, the second of Macedonia, named after the father of Alexander the Great. King Philipp the second of Macedonia and Philippi then is derived from that. So Paul has ministered for a relatively short time there and it becomes one of his most beloved, most dear churches that he has been involved with and that he continues to have contact with through various exchange of information and now through sending the letter. The challenge in interpretation of Philippians and that's what we will devote ourselves to to explore that a little bit is what is the purpose of the Philippian letter? What is Paul conveying to the Philippians as they are encouraged to grow in Christ? Well some have said just count words. Flip, for instance, how often the word joy is used in Philippians 16 times, I believe. There must be something about joy in Philippians. Others find that there may be some disunity there. There are some references in the beginning and the end of Philippians to the issue of unity. And you will find many other interpretations and approaches to Philippians. Perhaps you yourself are remember the conclusion of Philippians and just associate with Philippians this wonderful concluding statement which is so encouraging to so many Christians. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus. Perhaps that's what you think is the climax and the center of what Philippians convey. Well I want to take you a little bit on an excursion. Excursion of the question of how do we find the purpose of a book? I think that can be illustrated particularly with Philippians and so I'm going to pursue a little bit of a methodology approach of what do we look for? To listen to the message of Philippians that is being brought to us the message of the word of God in Philippians rather than to find our particular as we would say in Germany hobby horse that we would like to ride with Philippians. I'm sure you have favorite passages in Philippians and you enjoy certain aspects of it perhaps you are as I am impressed with the reference to the humiliation and humility of Christ and his exaltation and we will certainly come to that tonight. I hope Lord willing and so how do we find out what the purpose of Philippians is and so I want to move in that direction a little bit. Let me just look at what I have stated here in my plans so that I can take you along. This would relate to outline and really what we can add here is not just outline but a search for the purpose of Philippians. Let me start with giving you an outline a very simple outline of Philippians and then we will try and work on the question of how do we find the purpose of Philippians. The outline is not very complicated it has the common points of greetings and thanksgiving and prayer if Philippians 1,1,2,11 so it is an introduction of thanksgiving greetings, thanksgiving and prayer. And then comes the first major section the first major point that Paul drives home and I will reflect on that a little more later and that is Paul's circumstance. There is a very deep purpose here in the description of the circumstance of Paul and I will get to that in a little while. Then the second major section is exhortation. Exortation a major section from 127 to 218. 127 to 218 exhortations looking at the Philippians and their situation. And there are two subsections here for these exhortations and those are the two main concerns that Paul has for the Philippians. One is to live worthy of the gospel in suffering, interesting that this is coming out again in suffering and the second exhortation is to serve in the attitude of Christ. These are the two admonitions, the two concerns that Paul brings to the Philippian church and I will try and give that a little more substance. So that is living worthy of the gospel 127 to 130 and then serving in the attitude of Christ to 1 till 218. And then there is something surprising that for our question of what is the purpose of Philippians should make us awake, should make us alert that there is something going on here. Namely that Paul seems to break out of that kind of an outline of concerns that he brings to the Philippian church by speaking about his fellow workers, Timothy and Apophroditis. That would be in the section 219 to 30 and that should make us stop and think why does Paul speak after the exordation about Timothy and Apophroditis. Only to go on with a further major section for namely warnings, warnings references to dangers of growth. True to Paul's form there are two areas of warnings that we can discern in Philippians 3, 1, 2, 4, 1. The one warning pertains to legalism. The other one pertains to antinomianism. What is antinomianism? Pardon? Lawlessness, yes, so we could say lawlessness. There are two dangers out there, Philippians. I'm encouraging you and exhorting you to live worthy of the gospel and to serve in the attitude of Christ and watch out for two dangers. One of the dangers is that you would seek to live a godly life by your own strength on the basis of your own energies based on your own standards and the other one is that you would please yourself and follow your evil and wicked desires. Well, we'll work our way a little bit to that. There's a conclusion here. Obviously an introduction that I have mentioned but not noted here. And then conclusion and the conclusion to Philippians contains exhortations to a Christ-centered life, part of what I've read to you just a minute ago. Testimony and thanks and greetings and benediction from 4 to 423. A relatively lengthy conclusion with exhortation, thanksgiving and benediction. So this is a very simple outline of this main concerns that we find in Philippians but now I need to take you a little further into the question of the purpose. This is kind of scratching the surface. We find out a few points that we can identify but what is the purpose. And better yet, how do these various elements actually hang together? How do they relate? Now there are just a few things that Paul wants to bring to the Philippian Church or is there a particular connection and the question of purpose will lead us in this direction. Now one thing I have not emphasized a lot and that is why I want to take a little time tonight to take you on that route is it is very good to observe the literary form and structure. You see God has seen fit to make himself known through the word, through written word and that has a particular form. We do find even different literary genres in the Old and New Testament such as narrative and discourse. But within those literary genres there are also more particular forms in which the word is presented to us. And I am convinced that Paul and other writers of the New Testament had a sense for literary form and that God in his wisdom utilized these literary forms for us to be able to listen and to observe. To get at the purpose, at the main aim of what God wishes to communicate to us. We did that a little bit with the book of Acts remember long time ago, several years ago, when we looked at the summary statements in Acts and where we asked the question of purpose there with narrative. I did that a little bit there to illustrate narrative analysis, description of events. Now we are looking at one letter, one discourse and we are asking that same question of what can we observe in the outside form, the shape. That this word is presented to us in and how does that help us to actually interpret, to get at the message, to get at the purpose, to follow the emphasis that Paul emphasizes and then in the end to follow the emphasis of God to the Philippians and to us with that part of God's word. I am assuming one basic tenet and I may be wrong, I stand corrected if I am wrong, but I am assuming that for the ancient world the basic principle did apply which I have mentioned perhaps before and that is that form is the servant of content. Therefore if we find form, if we find structure, if we find indicators that there is something going on in the Philippians on a literary level that therefore we can imply that this literary level is to support, is to help, is to aid the message. Now perhaps in a modern art, in the twentieth century, you will find conscious and direct objectives to have a dissonance between form and content to make a statement of this world does not hang together. There are too many problems, there are too many contradictions, I cannot hold this world together. So as an art form according to Francis Schaeffer, to mirror the mentality of the time I am going to make a clear dissonance between form and content. That is certainly possible and I have seen some of these forms of expression and literary works of the modern day, but in the ancient world I do not see such a reflection. I see when there is a literary sense, when there are indicators on the literary level that they are to help our understanding in the content. And that is what I am, is my basic assumption as we would explore, what do we find in Philippians that in terms of form that would guide our thoughts along the lines of what God is intending to say. Rather than to come to Philippians and say 16 times joy must be a book about joy. Disunity in the beginning, disunity at the end must be something about disunity. Those things are not wrong that you see we come and we get an impression and we go with the impression. It is just like a relationship, isn't it? When we look at somebody and we get a good or a bad impression and we jump at that. We are not careful to say let me get to know this person. And it is happening more and more to me actually in the recent months and years that I size up a person in a wrong way. And I am deeply ashamed or surprised or whatever my predisposition was in the beginning to find out this is a jewel. This is amazing what is wrapped up in perhaps a little bit of an awkward person, a person that is not very extroverted, where words kind of stumble out by default. And you have your little idea but you don't see the jewel. And so that is really what I feel is good for Bible interpretation. For understanding what is the message that we step back as we did with acts and say what do we find? What do we find in Philippians that would help us to get at what is being emphasized here? And I believe there is a wonderful structure, relatively simple in Philippians that kind of makes sense of these relatively separate pieces that are good in themselves. They are helpful and to string them together into a very powerful message and exhortation to the Philippians, encouraging exhortation not in the exhortation in the sense of Galatians. What have you done with the gospel Galatians? I believe Philippians is in the context of this is a nicely humming Daimler Ben's engine. And it just needs a little oil here, a little more air here, tightening that screw and let's keep that thing really growing towards various aspects. So I think there is a certain piece that Paul brings to the encouragement and exhortation of the Philippians as I have the impression from Ephesians. More so than the parallel send letter to the Colossians. There is more trouble in Colossae that you get from the letter. So Ephesians and Philippians, there is a certain rest there. How can we get to the understanding of the purpose? That's what we are going to do in the next minutes, just a little bit. When you look at the structure of Philippians, various interpreters have observed different things. Some interpreters have looked at Philippians along the lines of rhetorical structures and I'm not going to bore you too long with that rhetorical structures means other elements in Philippians that correspond to documented rules of verbal but perhaps written down verbal elements of the ancient world. Rhetorical structures, particularly the German interpreter Schenk, have done a lot of work particularly with regard to Philippians 3 and 4 to try and present that. I am not so impressed with that approach, but it is worthy of exploration, just to see what forms may we find here are their patterns of form that would give us indication as to how Paul is presenting the word. It's basically looking at other presentations in the ancient world that have certain rules, certain sequence of argumentation, basically aligned in Latin words of what comes where in a particular argument to say maybe there's a particular purpose behind what Paul is saying in Philippians. Another approach that has been taken is the epistolary approach and certainly a lot has been written in the recent years on these written forms and to see whether Philippians is particularly following some further detailed rules besides what I have told you about a basic epistolary structure that has an introduction, some main parts and a conclusion. In the introduction there's normally some kind of salutation, some Thanksgiving and prayer, certainly that would apply here in Philippians, but the epistolary approach looks at more details to get at what form the letter takes. Well, I'm going to move fast and come to an area that I believe is a little older, but it holds great promise as far as I can see the structure of Philippians and the content of Philippians and that is what is called the Chiaspic approach. The word Chiaspic is drawn from the Greek letter Chai and it actually in a basic structure says something is stated in A, something else is stated in B, this statement B is buried in B dash and it is again echoed in A dash so there's a cross connection so that you could also write it in A line, A, B, B, A. So that there is an inclusio of the first member and the last member and the central members are connected sometime with the interpretation conclusion that the central element is particularly emphasized and the book covers, so to speak, the outside elements are more to keep things together. So there is a difference among interpreters of literary forms as to what you should make of a discovery of Chiasm. Most of the time Chiasm is found on a smaller scale of literary forms, for instance in Colossians 1, 15 to 20, I think I've counted 4, 5, Chiasm, Chiasdic structures. In heaven and on earth visible and invisible is a Chiasm. Heaven, earth, visible, invisible. You see heaven and invisible are the bookmarks and earth and visible are the B, B, dash elements. That's a Chiasm, a simple Chiasm that is most conspicuous. Some interpreters however have also said there may be Chiasdic structures on the macro text as they call it on the largest scale of an entire letter. And that is really what I would like to explore with you. I'm not going to present it here ex-Cathedra, I'm not going to shout, I'm not going to pound on the podium to see that you definitely believe it. It is a suggestion. It makes a lot of sense after the break, I will present that to you. That perhaps the entire letter of Philippians is a simple tripartite, three-part Chiasm. This is a bipartite, two sections, there's one more section in Philippians and it makes a lot of sense. It brings the various aspects thematically together and I think that it makes a good bit of sense. And also that the people of the ancient world had a certain level of literary and aesthetic feeling. I think we are very unliterary at our current time and therefore we think that's just kind of foreign and that's kind of strange and who would have ever thought of such forms. Well, if you have a sense for that, if you like what the Beatles said, all I need is love, love is all I need. That's the most simple Chiasm imaginable and they use it for the purpose of pounding something into your head. You know, all I need is love, love is all I need. You have certainly have the central part emphasized. There is something to that. And I feel we are perhaps on the end of least appreciation. Well, I am not suggesting that in the ancient world as listeners of the Philippian letters, they would just kind of search for Chiasm in every little phrase. That's exaggerated as well. I am advocating a simple level of literary awareness that helps them to read the underlining that you can see, but you can hear. So if you hear the entire letter of Philippians and you see that there is a complementariness between one section and another and that they kind of hang together and emphasize each other that you can actually get there. So when you see a complex 20-part type Chiasm somewhere and you can't remember anymore which members were mentioned before they are all unraveled again to get to the end, I think that's exaggerated. I've seen some studies on Acts 1 to 7 that make that kind of a thing, a mega Chiasm from Acts 1 to 7. I think that's exaggerated, but we need to remember Philippians was read. The letter arrived I believe it was received as the word of God and the people listened and if they were somewhat trained with their ears rhetorically, they would have gotten a simple Chiasm. So let's take a little break and five minutes maybe and then we'll look at this approach of Chiasm in Philippians. Thank you.