One of the gutsier things that pops up repeatedly in Paul’s letters is his unapologetic claim that the churches he ministers should imitate him. I think a case could be made that this element carried more importance in Paul’s understanding of his ministry than we might typically acknowledge, perhaps due to our preference for his more self-effacing statement about being the “chief of sinners”. Coming to grips with the other side of the equation, the bold “be like me” thrust, provides us with some good food for thought, though.

One “be like me” statement is a more critical element in the letter to the  Philippians than is usually acknowledged. Philippians is full of some very personal and passionate narratives of Paul’s life of faith, and of course the wonderful material in chapter 2 highlights Christ’s example of selflessness.   In the end of the second chapter though, the letter shifts to notes about a couple of Paul’s co-workers, Timothy and Epaphroditus.  It’s not the part of Philippians we typically read devotionally or in worship, but Paul’s discussion of these two brothers really serves a critical part of his rhetorical strategy in the letter.  Paul’s purpose in the letter is to help solve a divide in the church, most apparently caused by a rift between two women in the Church, Euodia and Syntyche. His letter works to that end, and all thats written there about Jesus, Timothy, and Epaphroditus works to that common purpose.  They serve as examples, showing the letter’s recipients that the people they honored and loved all lived selfless and sacrificial lives.  Importantly, the autobiographical bits of the letter in chapters 1 and 3 aren’t diversions, but importantly fit directly into that rhetorical strategy, calling upon the Philippians’ desire to be like Paul, even in his sacrificial way of living for the sake of Christ.  All of that, of course, brings us to Phil 3:17.

It’s near the end of his rhetorical push, after Paul’s given all those examples, and he says, “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.” It’s not a side statement, but an important part of his messge in the letter, and perhaps even his whole ministry.  Paul isn’t scared to say, “Be like me.” It’s really a mouthful.  Complementing Timothy and Epaphroditus as examples was one thing, and the Christological section is natural enough, but the offering of himself as an example boldly punctuates his argument with a deeply personal conviction, giving ultimate testimony that what Paul genuinely believes in the behavior he wishes the recipients to practice.

I want to live like that.  I want to live in such a way, that I can freely turn to the people I love and say, “This is the way to live.” I want to have that boldness and the integrity that makes it possible.

Our vitality as a community of faith depends on the life example that members of our body make available to others.  Typically, we only offer limited visions of ourselves, the self-effacing messages of our own weaknesses, a message which says, “Don’t be like me.”  It’s important for the sake of our ongoing community, though, that we learn to give testimony to how our lives have followed Jesus’s way, and what that has meant and looked like.  How has our path of discipleship changed us?  In what way could I commend my path to others, saying, “It would be good for you to become something like me.”?  I know many of us feel the responsibility to live that way in our families, before our children.  What about in our community of faith?

The section describes Paul’s identity in some interesting ways, and one of those in particular caught my attention.  Paul is a steward of God’s grace, particularly God’s grace to the gentiles.  As he proclaims the mystery which he has received, he is acting not just as a conduit for God’s message, but a manager, a caretaker of the grace of God.  He stewards that grace in relationship to the Gentiles freely, but also with skill and wisdom.

That responsibility, the stewardship of grace to the Gentiles, was a very concrete concept for Paul.  It is as a steward, charged with a responsibility of grace, that he interacts with Gentiles who have names and faces.  They aren’t just a general race, but the actual persons he knew, love, and with whom he struggled.  they are the people who would gather in house churches in particular cities like Corinth, Philippi, or Ephesus.  These weren’t mythical cities, but actual particular locations, with streets and buildings, noises and smells.  And to the people in those cities, Paul understood himself to be bound by a sacred charge to demonstrate, declare, and dispense the grace of God.

Most of us who understand ourselves to be disciples of Jesus understand that we have a role in passing on God’s grace to others.  It is critical, though, that we move from that understanding, with it’s nameless faceless “others“, towards understanding that we have been charged with extending grace to specific, particular people.  We can easily think of ourselves as “stewards” of God grace, but the important questions to ask is, “I am a steward of God’s grace to __________?”

I am most plugged into God’s call for my life when I have some names and faces to go with that question.  The further away I get from being able to be specific, the closer I get to understanding it as a general “others”, the further I move from real engagement with God’s mission.

Think about it.  Pray about it.  Meditate on it.  Scan facebook, drive around your city and look around, look through your cell phone’s address book, but start getting your head around this critical question:

Who is the flesh and blood embodiment of your mission to extend God’s grace to the world?

Translation

You know, therefore, that the ones who are by faith, these are the sons of Abraham.  The scriptures saw ahead of time that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaiming the good news beforehand to Abraham that, “All the peoples would be blessed in you.”  So, the ones who are by faith are blessed together in the faith of Abraham.  But who ever is by works of the law, is under a curse; for it has been written that “cursed is everyone who does not keep all of the things that have been written in the book of the law, and do them.”  That no one is justified to God by the law is evident, because “the righteous shall, by faith, live.”  But the law is not by faith, but “the one who does these things will live in them.”  Christ raised us from the curse of the law, becoming cursed for us, because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hung from a tree.”  This is in order that the blessing of Abraham could come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus,  in order that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith.

Reflections

It is so significant that God gave Paul this insight into his promise for the gentiles.  How different everything would be without it.

Today, I’ll let it go with the simple reflection that I am very thankful for the gospel.  I am thankful to be a son of Abraham through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  May I live in the gospel!

Translation

But when I saw that they weren’t being straight with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of everyone, “If you are a Jew, and yet live like a gentile and not like a jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?  We are natural Jews and not from the Gentile sinners.  We know that man is not justified from works of the law, if not through the faith of Jesus Christ.  And we have put our faith in Christ Jesus, in order that we might be justified from the faith of Christ and not from works of the law, because no flesh can be justified by works of the law.  But if we are seeking to be justified in christ, and are found to also be sinners, is Christ a servant of sin?  May it not be so!”

For if I build up that which I tore down, I demonstrate that I myself am a lawbreaker.  For through the law I put the law to death, in order that I might live in God.

I have been crucified with Christ.

I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

What I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, the one who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if justification is through law, Christ died for no reason.

Reflections

Pardon the long translation with a short reflection, but when I was reading this, it was so apparent how punchy the last section is.  Paul almost drops into a staccato style, which is so different than his normal verbiage.  It really is a beautiful section of scripture.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was in the wrong!  For before certain men came from James, he ate with gentiles; but when they came, he stepped away from the gentiles and separated himself from them, fearing those men from the circumcision.  And many of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabus got carried away with them!  But when I was that they weren’t being straight with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of everyone, “If you are a Jew, and yet live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

Reflections

Most obviously, the boldness of Paul jumps out of this text.  He really does not care who he’s talking to, there is simply no tolerance in his world for distorting the gospel.  What’s more, it is clear that he believes that distorting the way the community of God relates within itself is actually a major distortion of the gospel.  It appears that the major ofense here is Peter’s willingness to back away from the gentile converts, making them seem like second-class christians because they haven’t also become Jews.  If that’s the case, then Paul’s primary argument here is about the equality of the gentiles wehn compared to their Jewish brothers in Christ.  There is no room in Paul’s theology for a divided church!  We also might well heed the warning of this passage for any other way we might be tempted to relegate people within the community of God.  Paul might well oppose us to our face on a number of fronts if we try to maintain barriers that should be dissolved by the work of Jesus!  We might well ask, is the barrier we are trying to maintain more powerful than the cross of Jesus?  Is it more powerful than the holy spirit?  If so, then we should feel comfortable living our lives according to the barriers of the world.

I’m also struck by the fact that, while Peter (Cephas) probably gets the most attention here, Barnabus gets swept away too.  It’s so stinking easy to get carried away, especially by things that evoke our own identities.  these guys that come in and distort everything make Peter want to act like a Jew, call out to the Jew in Barnabus, saying “this is your primary identity.  Protect your identity!”  Even Barnabus gets sucked into somebody else’s vision of his identity.

Now from those who seemed influential (if they ever were does not matter to me, God does not show favoritism to men), but to me they added nothing, but rather, seeing that the gospel to the uncircumcised had been entrusted to me as the gospel to the circumcised had been entrusted to Peter (for the one working in Peter’s apostleship to the circumcised worked in me in the apostleship the gentiles) and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, knew the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to me, and to Barnabus, in order that we might go to the gentiles, they to the circumcised.  They only wanted us to remember the poor, which is the same thing I am eager to do!

Reflections

These verses took a few minutes longer to translate today, not because they were particularly difficult (the idoms are the same as in preceding verses), but because I was trying to do them while watching football.  It is possible that I fumbled a word or two along the way, but I am only partly remorseful for this lack of discipline.  It is a good example of Paul’s rambling sentence structure.  This sentence goes on and on, with lots of parenthetical notes and asides.

On a serious note, Paul’s refusal to recognize perceived human status really comes alive in these verses.  In Paul’s world, there really is no different levels of esteem among people, in terms of the people whose opinions should count.  That being said, He feels like it is worthwhile telling the galatians that he isn’t on an island here.  His isn’t a rogue movement.  The really important reason though, isn’t thatthe other leaders agreed with him, but that they recognized God’s work in his apostleship!  There is continuity not just among the leaders, but the real important continuity is that all of this was by God’s doing.

One final note.  It is very interesting to me that the important connection, the one thing that remains nonnegotiable, is compassionate care for the poor.  The apostles insist on it, Paul is eager to follow through with it.  The major question from this text for the church today might well be “Would we pass the test of remembering the poor?”

For I to make it known to you, brothers, that the gospel proclaimed by me is not according to man.  For I neither received it from man nor was I taught, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ.  For you have heard of my lifestyle when in Judaism, that according to excess I pursued the church, and destroyed it, and grew in Judaism beyond many of my peers among my people, being even more of a zealot for the traditions of my forefathers.   But when God, (the one who separated me from my mothers womb and called me through his grace), was pleased to reveal his son to me, in order that I might proclaim him to the gentiles, immediately I did not seek advice from flesh and blood.  Nor did I go to Jerusalem to the ones who were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.  Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days.  But I saw no other apostle except James the apostle of the Lord.  What I write to you, behold, before God I do not lie!  Then, I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.  I was unknown by face to the churches in Christ of Judea.  They only heard that I, the one pursuing them at one time, was now proclaiming the faith which I once tried to destroy.  And because of me, they glorified God.

Reflections

This passage reads oddly, boastfully at first glance.  Paul sounds like he’s painting himself as an independent maverick apostle.  In reality though, this passage isn’t about his independence, but about his total dependence!  The question is not whether or not he is going to be dependent, but who he is dependent upon.  Paul’s perspective, his understanding of reality is absolutely not dependent on flesh and blood, but on the revelation of Jesus Christ.  The most radical thing Paul ever claims begins here: his gospel comes straight from God’s revelation to him of Jesus Christ.

“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained.”

I love that last phrase, “God’s word is not chained.”  You can do whatever you want to Paul, but don’t think that by doing so you’ve chained the word of God.  You can chain up and the disciples, but you can’t lock down the power of the Word.

I’ve been trying to think of how my experience of the word matches up with that.  How does our experience of the word compare to Paul’s testimony here?  I think that maybe it seems to us as if the word is powerless, useless, constrained.

Perhaps it isn’t the word that has been bound, though.