Phillipians 1: Slaves Of Christ

Paul founded the church at Philippi during his second missionary journey in about 53 AD. This is the first church that Paul founded in Europe. He went to Macedonia in response to a vision. He had planned to go to Asia but the Holy Spirit kept him from there and sent him a vision of a Macedonian man begging him to come.

Philippi was a city in the province of Macedonia. It was founded by Philip, father of Alexander the Great. It had become a Roman colony. It was very proud of its association with Rome. It was made a Roman colony by Augustus, to commemorate his victory over Brutus and Cassius. A colony was a portion of Rome itself transplanted to the provinces, and a portrait of the mother city. Its inhabitants were Roman citizens, having the right of voting in the Roman tribes, governed by their own senate and magistrates, and not by the governor of the province, with the Roman law, and Latin language. They were very proud of being uniquely Roman.

At Philippi, when Paul first entered the city, he could not find many Jews. Paul’s custom upon entering a city was to first preach at the synagogues, but there was not even one synagogue. A synagogue was required if there were a least 10 Jewish men, but there wasn’t even that. So Paul and his companions traveled to the river where they found some women praising God. These turned out to be God fearers primarily, not Jews--Gentiles who feared Jehovah.

Their hearts were open to God, especially a woman named Lydia who was a seller of purple cloth. She invited them to stay at her house. During their short stay there they had two major encounters. They cast a demon out of a sooth saying girl and were beaten and arrested for it. Then after prayer they had a miraculous deliverance from the jail which led to the jailers conversion. Finally they left Philippi after a short time.

This young church was left to fend for itself after a very short time.

Paul writes his letter to the Phillipians from a jail cell in Rome. This letter is written about 10 years later, in about 62 AD. Paul is chained to the Praetorian guard in Roman cell. He had already been in prison for about two years. He might have been facing a death sentence , yet the word "joy" or "rejoice" appears more than 16 times in this short letter.

Paul’s object is to thank them for their recent gift, encourage them in Christ and also to warn them about possible false doctrine. But in this church, unlike others, there seemed to be no serious problems that Paul felt that he needed to rebuke. This is Paul’s warmest letter and shows the beautiful relationship that Paul had with this church.

Joy is the theme that permeates this letter.

I. Slaves and Saints of God

The letter begins with a salutation.
Phil 1:1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons:

A. Willing Slaves
We see first of all that Paul writes with Timothy. Timothy was a young man who was a protégé and co worker of Paul and who was caring for Paul’s needs. Timothy had been with him on that first trip and had been a faithful co worker for ten years now.

His introduction is much more informal than his other letters which shows that this was a letter to friends. Again, the letter was not to make a major rebuke but is the most congenial of Paul’s letters. He does not lay claim to any title. He claims to be the "doulous" of Christ. The NIV translated "servant", but it really is "bond servant" and would have been understood as "slave."
What does it mean to be a slave of Christ? First of all we know that it means that Paul considered that a life of self direction was over. His life was not his own but it was bought with a price. He considered his life to be purchased by Christ.

Do you consider yourself a slave of Jesus Christ? We know that we are not our own anymore and this is what makes Christians unique.