What is the “good work” of Philippians 1:6?

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Pastor Foley

When my wife and I first got married, I bought her what is called a “Mizpah necklace”. It has Genesis 31:49 written across it: “The LORD watch between you and me, when we are out of one another’s sight.” It is in the shape of a heart, divided in half so that each spouse receives half the heart and half the verse. I bought it at the time because it sounded romantic. But, when you look at the context, it is not romantic at all. It is something which Laban says to Jacob after repeated conflicts, mistrust, and cheating!

We Christians do this a lot with scripture verses. We take them out of context because they sound better independent of the context! When we read them in context, we realize they mean something entirely different than what we were intending to use them for.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)

In the case of Philippians 1:6, we usually interpret this as saying something like, we are pretty messed up now but one day Jesus will help us not to be such bad people anymore. But this way of reading the scripture is as out-of-context as the Mizpah necklace.

It is difficult for us to hear what Paul is actually saying here because we are so focused on ourselves. We may not necessarily be focused on ourselves because we think we are so great, but we may even be fixated on our own sin or shortcomings.

In order to understand what Paul is talking about, we need to remember the situation which Paul was in when he was writing Philippians. When Paul wrote, he was in prison in Rome. He had actually been in several different prisons for several years on the way to going to Rome. We read this story in Acts.

First, Paul is arrested in Jerusalem because there was a riot in which the crowd wanted to kill him. He is arrested in Jerusalem and gets moved around to different prisons in Israel. And he gets forgotten for years in some prisons. After this, on the way to being moved to prison in Rome, the ship he was on was shipwrecked and he and the other people on the boat ended up on an island.

After getting to prison in Rome, he is cold and lonely, he doesn’t have his coat, and most of his helpers have abandoned him. It is during this time that he said it would be better for him to be dead (and thus with the Lord) than to be in this situation.

What Paul was waiting for was the determination of his court case. He is not able to move around freely. And the people who can move around freely are ‘super-apostles’ who go around to the churches which Paul founded and try to convince them that Paul was wrong and that faith in Jesus should be accompanied by various ritual and ethical rules and should result in worldly benefits and success, rather than what Paul is experiencing.

When Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians, the Philippians were being persecuted, had infighting, and would possibly soon be visited by the super-apostles.

So all of this is on Paul’s mind as he writes. Thus Paul doesn’t write with the attitude, “Forget all of these situations. How are you doing in your personal spiritual journey? Aww, you’re having a hard time. But don’t worry. Everything is going to turn out okay!”. This verse is not primarily intended to be a verse of comfort for your individual spiritual life.

How do we know?

First, when it says, “He who began a good work a good work in you”, the “you” here is plural. (The word “in” is also better rendered “among”, too.) Paul is referring to the Philippian church collectively. And he says that the work will be completed at the day of Christ Jesus. “The day of Christ Jesus” here refers to the “Day of the Lord”, that is, Judgment Day–Christ’s second coming.

The “good work” is not just only or primarily Christ’s work in the life of each individual. The “good work” is God’s work of calling the gentiles through faith in Christ Jesus.

The people of Israel were called in the Old Testament to be a light to the nations so that the word of God could go to all nations. Some among Israel had the wrong idea from the promises of the Old Testament that people from all nations would stream into Jerusalem as God raised the Israelites up, smashed their enemies, and blessed them in every way above all people. Because they would be so rich, wise, healthy, successful, and free, other nations would say, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Let’s go to Israel.”

But then Jesus comes in the New Testament and says, “Actually, it’s a bit different from that. I am going to take upon myself all of the responsibilities of Israel because Israel has not been faithful. People from the nations will be drawn to me as I am raised up on the cross.” And so Christ dies and is raised from the dead and begins to gather all people to himself as the inheritance promised by his Father.

When Jesus is resurrected, before His ascension, the disciples ask him, “Is now the time for the kingdom to be restored to Israel?” But Jesus says, “That’s not for you to know; but know this: this is the time where you go out.” So they go out into all nations and people from all nations stream into Jesus, because His body is the new temple and the gateway to the new Jerusalem. So Christ is working through Peter, Philip, and, later and primarily, Paul to accomplish this “ingathering” into Christ from all the nations.

This is the “good work” which God has began and will bring to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. When Paul says that it “began in you”, he is saying that this work of gentile ingathering was begun in Philippi–as well as Thessalonica and Galatia and Ephesus and Rome and the other places about which we read in Paul’s letters where Paul had planted these fellowships of Jewish and gentile believers.

Paul is not looking inside of you for a “good work” in Philippians 1:6. Paul is looking around the world and seeing the “good work” of God bringing many gentiles into the new temple who is Christ. Even though Paul is in prison and about to have his head cut off, even though the Philippian church is facing persecution without and division within, Paul is confident that God will continue this work of reaching out and gathering his people from all peoples. Nothing can stop it or delay it.

That is still true today. We should never talk about nations “closed” to the gospel. As Paul tells Timothy (in 2 Timothy 2:9), Paul may be in chains, but chaining or restraining the word of God is impossible. Political miracles need not precede spiritual ones. Even today, God does some of his best work when all of his human messengers are detained or restrained.

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The New Testament: A “Martyr’s Manual”

Posted on December 24, 2024 by Pastor Foley

Have you ever wondered how the New Testament came together as a single book?

You may know that each of the books and letters that makes up the New Testament were originally each sent to or used by individual churches (like Paul’s letters), or to the churches in a particular region (like the six churches mentioned in the book of Revelation). So what was it that brought all of the individual books together into a single book?

You may have heard that it happened in the fourth century at around the same time as the Nicene Creed, when the church was seeking to put down various heresies. And you may have heard that the question of what to include in and exclude from the New Testament was to ask simply: “Was this book written by an apostle?” If ‘yes’, then it was included. If ‘no’, then it was excluded.

 There’s certainly a lot of truth to that. But that’s really only the end of the story. The story of how the New Testament came to be begins back in the early second century. And it happened not because of something internal to the church but because of something external:

Persecution.

At the beginning of the second century, as the gospel began to spread throughout the world, it faced growing opposition. Christians—those carrying the gospel, especially the leaders of the churches—began to be persecuted, even unto death. These leaders each came to see the need to bring together in one collection all the individual letters and books of the apostles that would enable Christians to faithfully testify to the Lord Jesus—and to know how to respond to the opposition that arose from that testimony.

So it was from persecution—and because of persecution—that the New Testament was born.

By the beginning of the second century, most churches were using some or most of the books and letters that came to be included in the New Testament. But the books and letters were in many different orders, with certain books and letters being more emphasized by some churches and other books and letters being emphasized in other places. And there were some books and letters—for example, Acts, Hebrews, Revelation, 2 Peter, 3 John—that were missing from the collections of many churches, often because they were difficult for ordinary believers to understand. And some churches were using books and letters that were ultimately excluded from our New Testament—for example, The Didache (or “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”), and other books like the Revelation of Peter, the Letter of Barnabas, the Gospel of James, and the Shepherd of Hermas, all of which were quite popular.

But the New Testament wasn’t a collection of the most popular books about Jesus, nor was it simply a collection of writings related to the apostles.

Instead, the New Testament  was created as a martyr’s manual. It was designed to equip disciples to be faithful witnesses to the Lord Jesus even unto death.

In a sense, there were two “tests” that every book in the New Testament had to pass in order to be included in the New Testament:

First, the book had to teach that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, born of a woman, born of the seed of David, sent at the end of this present age in the flesh to die for our sins and offer the mercy of God as prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures, who was buried, who was raised on the third day in a visible, physical resurrected body as according to the Scriptures, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father, who will come again soon to judge the living and the dead. If a particular book didn’t teach all these things, it at least had to be consistent with these teachings. If a book included or emphasized anything other than these things, or if it stated or implied or could be used to teach something different than these core truths, then it was excluded. That was the first test.

The second test was this:

Did the book make clear the cost of following Jesus? If a book showed Jesus as simply a teacher of wisdom or a giver of blessings; if it failed to make clear the suffering that disciples would face in this world, then that book was omitted.

These two “tests” weren’t formally applied at a specific meeting of church leaders that happened at a certain place on a certain date. But as we read the letters between church leaders—like Ignatius, Polycarp, Iranaeus, and Origen—and as we study the history of the church in the second century when the New Testament began to be assembled, it is clear that these were the two key tests for what books would be included in this “martyr’s manual” called the New Testament.

That’s because it was the reality of persecution in the early second century that made it urgent for churches—especially those in the areas facing persecution—to put together a single collection of reliable books to prepare Christians for faithful witness and martyrdom. Even the ordering of the books is designed to make it so that when we read the New Testament from the beginning to the end, we focus on who Jesus is, what he does, and the suffering we will face for testifying to him.

These days we are taught that we have a legal “right” to believe in Jesus (or whatever we want to believe in), and that persecution due to our faith is a “violation” of our legal “rights”. We are taught that we should fight for these rights by becoming involved in political, where we elect the right people, make the right laws, and protest to uphold the right values. We have been taught that belief and suffering for belief are two separate things. We have been taught that belief is good and suffering for belief is wrong and should be eliminated or prevented.

But this understanding goes against the whole New Testament.

The New Testament is, and always has been, a martyr’s book. It never separates belief in Jesus from suffering for his name. The New Testament is consistent in saying that to believe in Jesus is to suffer for Jesus. And the New Testament is consistent in saying that suffering for Jesus is an honor, a blessing, and a gift, not a tragedy.

When we believe in Christ but don’t suffer for our belief in him, we are like a flower without roots, stuck in a vase: It can look pretty for a while, but soon it will wither and die. It is only in suffering for our belief in Christ that we become rooted deeply in Christ, and he will nourish us through those roots of suffering for his name until he returns and we see him face to face

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What we believe about Christ’s return is the most important factor in how we relate to God, each other, and the world

Posted on December 10, 2024 by Pastor Foley

Last Sunday was the first Sunday in the Advent season, which is the season of the church year before Christmas. We sometimes (wrongly) think that Christmas is the beginning of the church year, and thus we sometimes (wrongly) think that the Advent season is the season of preparation for Christmas. We (wrongly) think that just like Lent is about “preparing our hearts” to receive salvation from Christ’s death and resurrection, Advent must be about “preparing our hearts” to receive the coming of Christ at Christmas.

But in fact, Advent is the beginning of the church year. So last Sunday was like New Years Day in church. And instead of Advent being preparation for Christmas, in Scripture it is Christmas which is preparation for Advent!

That is because Advent is about the visible, physical return of Christ to the earth, to rule and reign forever over a new heavens and a new earth, where those of us who have put our trust in him will be resurrected bodily from the dead with bodies like his.

Scripture calls this “the blessed hope” in Titus 2:13. The blessed hope is NOT that we will leave our bodies behind and go to heaven to make our home with God. The blessed hope is that God will descend to earth to make his home among men, as John writes in Revelation 21:3:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

Scripture tells us that those who die before Christ returns are present with Christ in heaven, but they are not presently feasting at a heavenly banquet with others who have died. Instead, they are presently doing what we are doing: Waiting eagerly for his return, when they will come with him and the New Jerusalem to the new earth to join us for that banquet. This is why the writer of Hebrews says of those who have died in faith (in Chapter 11 verses 39-40):

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

And this is what Advent is about: Waiting. Not “waiting to go to heaven when we die so that we can join in the heavenly banquet that’s already started so we can see our relatives and have a great time there” but “waiting for the completion—the perfection—of God’s plan, which is the physical, visible return of his Son Jesus with his resurrected body, accompanied by all those who died in faith, who return with him to join us and, as the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:52 , we all together will be changed:

in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

So the Scriptures that are given to us in the lectionary to read during Advent all relate to Christ’s return—what the Bible calls “The Day of the Lord”, “The Day”, or “That Day”, or what we sometimes call “Judgment Day” or “The Second Coming”.

We know that even now, the Son, the messiah, the Lord Jesus, rules over all the kings of the earth, seated on the heavenly throne with his Father. The Father has given the Son all power and authority (Matthew 28:18), yet we know this only by faith: As the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 2:8, “At present we do not see everything subject to him”. The kings of the earth still rebel against him.  

But as Christ Jesus told Paul in Acts 26:14 when he was still Saul, the persecutor, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads”. That is, resistance is futile; what we know now by faith, we will soon see: On that day, which the Bible calls the day of the Lord, the end will come: All rebellion will be crushed—not only human rebellion, but the rebellion of the serpent, sin, and death. And:

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15:24)

Because we have this “blessed hope”, the Apostle Paul tells Titus:

It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

That’s what we do during Advent: We say “no” to this present age. Or as Jesus says in today’s scripture reading from Luke 21, in verses 34-36:

Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.

Jesus, Paul, and all of Scripture tells us that in fact it is only our belief that Christ will return soon that prevents our hearts from being weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life. It is only our belief in the soon-coming Day of the Lord that teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

Or, to say it the other way around:

If we lose our belief that Christ will return soon, then our hearts will become weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and we will say “yes” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and we will find ourselves unable to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

What we believe about the return of Christ is the most important factor in how we relate to God, to the world, and to each other. If you don’t believe that, then ask yourself why tomorrow, the first Sunday in Advent, is designated as the Christian’s New Year’s Day. Scripturally we can even say that a Christian is someone who, more than anything else, is eagerly awaiting and primarily focused on the Lord’s return.

You may have heard people say things like, “Well, if you’re focused on the Lord coming back, you’re not going to be useful or good at making a difference in the world around you.”

But Scripture strongly disagrees with that claim. It is only when you are eagerly awaiting and primarily focused on the return of Christ that you can say to this world what it doesn’t want to hear, show to this world what it doesn’t want to see, and be in this world what the world despises: a faithful witness to Christ.

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