Letters from Paul

A taste of the study room coming with Paul — pull open whatever you'd like to sit with.

The reading — Philippians 2:19-30

¹⁹But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered up when I know how you are doing. ²⁰For I have no one else like-minded, who will truly care about you. ²¹For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ. ²²But you know the proof of him, that, as a child serves a father, so he served with me in furtherance of the Good News. ²³Therefore I hope to send him at once, as soon as I see how it will go with me. ²⁴But I trust in the Lord that I myself also will come shortly. ²⁵But I counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, fellow soldier, and your apostle and servant of my need; ²⁶since he longed for you all, and was very troubled, because you had heard that he was sick. ²⁷For indeed he was sick, nearly to death, but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow on sorrow. ²⁸I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that, when you see him again, you may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. ²⁹Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such in honor, ³⁰because for the work of Christ he came near to death, risking his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me.

World English Bible

The words behind the words

When I write that Timothy is one who will be "genuinely concerned" for your welfare (Philippians 2:20), the word carries the sense of a soul truly anxious over you, caring as for its own — the opposite of a hireling. And when I say Epaphroditus was "distressed" (Philippians 2:26), the word is a heavy one, the same weight of anguish that pressed upon our Lord in Gethsemane. He was not sick over his own sickness — he was in agony because you had heard he was ill, and he grieved your grieving. Mark also the word "risking" (Philippians 2:30): he gambled his very life, staked it like a man throwing down everything he has.

Where else you say this

I speak this same way of Timothy elsewhere, that I have no one like him, a true child in the faith and a fellow worker (1 Corinthians 4:17; 1 Timothy 1:2). And this counting of others above self, this looking to their interests — it is the very mind I had pressed on you just before, the mind of Christ who emptied himself (Philippians 2:3-8). The honoring of those who labor and risk themselves for the gospel, I urge again (1 Corinthians 16:16-18).

The situation

I am in Rome, under guard, chained to a soldier in a rented house, and the Philippians — who have loved me from the first — sent Epaphroditus to me with their gift and to serve me in my need. In serving he fell sick, near to death, and word travelled home that he was ill; then word travelled back to him that you were grieved. So he is heavy for your sakes, and I send him home to gladden you, and Timothy I hope to send soon to learn how you fare, for I cannot come myself while these chains hold.

The hard question

You may ask: if God spared Epaphroditus and had mercy on him (Philippians 2:27), why did God let him come so near death at all, when he was only doing the work of love? I will not smooth it. I do not tell you God owed him health for his service; I say God had mercy — a gift, not a wage. The same God left a thorn in my own flesh and would not remove it (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). Read the passage again and see that I do not explain the illness away; I name it a near thing, a real grief spared, and I give thanks. Mercy you may trust; a formula that God keeps his servants from suffering, you may not — for I write these very words in irons.

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