Today we continue with Paul’s letter to the Philippians. In my last post, I went over Paul’s salutation to the church in Phillipi. Now, Paul starts to tell his readers how thankful he is for them.
3 I give thanks to my God for every remembrance of you, 4 always praying with joy for all of you in my every prayer, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020)
1:3 – In most translations of the Bible, this verse begins a section titled “Thanksgiving and Prayer.” After finishing the salutation of his letter, Paul tells his readers that he gives thanks to God for them. This is a much different opening than he had in his letter to the Galatians. Immediately after his salutation in that letter, he begins to exhort his Galatian readers for being so easily deceived and pulled away from the true gospel. The Philippian church did not seem to have as severe problems as many of his other letters addressed to other churches.
1:4 – We can see that there is an obvious affection for the church in Philippi as Paul speaks of his joyous prayers for them. Again, this shows a completely different tone from his letter to the Galatians or even his letters to the Corinthians. I believe we can reasonably infer that the Philippian church was much more faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ and was less inclined to follow after false teachers.
1:5 – Paul states that the church in Phillipi had “partnered” with him in the gospel “from the first day until now.” As I stated in my introduction to this series, the first days of the Phillipian church are found in Acts 16 and were very eventful. After being in the city for a few days Paul and his companions went out to the river on the Sabbath where they met Lydia, the trader in purple cloth. After hearing the gospel proclaimed by Paul, Lydia and her entire household were baptized.
In the following days, Paul’s group was followed by a demon-possessed girl who harassed them. Paul cast out the fortune-telling demon causing the slave girl’s masters to report Paul and Silas to the authorities who had them beaten and thrown in jail. That night as Paul and Silas were praising God in the jail, there was an earthquake that opened the doors of the jail. The jailor thought that everyone had escaped and almost killed himself before Paul let him know that none of the prisoners had escaped. The jailor and his entire household came to faith in Christ and then the jailor took care of Paul and Silas’ wounds from their beating.
Paul is expressing his gratitude to God that those events were the beginning of a partnership for the gospel that carried on even as Paul was in prison for preaching the gospel.