III. Paul's Circumstances (1:12-1:26)

4. Perspective (1:21-1:24)



Some Key Words (05/11/24-05/12/24)

Live (Zen [2198]):
[Present: Internal viewpoint.  Action viewed in its nature and progress, ongoing, open-ended.  Active: Subject performs action.  Infinitive: Verbal noun, perhaps adverbial (showing purpose or result), perhaps substantive.]
To have life, physically or spiritually. | to live, literally or figuratively. | to live, be alive.
Die (Apothanein [599]):
[Aorist Active: Subject performs action.  Infinitive: Verbal noun, perhaps adverbial (showing purpose or result), perhaps substantive.]
To die, physically or spiritually. | to die, literally or figuratively. | To die, pass away.
Fruitful (karpos [2590]):
| fruit, literally or figuratively. | harvest, fruit.  The effect or result of something, what comes of it.  Profit, utility.  Something presented to God as a thank-offering.
Labor (ergou [2041]):
work.  The result of labor.  The object or point of doing. | toil, occupation. | one’s employment or occupation.  What is accomplished by art, industry, and mind.  The thing done.
Choose (airesomai [138]):
[Future: Action remains future.  Can have a deliberative sense, as considering what can or should be done. Middle: Subject acts upon himself or in regard to self, or permits to be done for self.  Possibly suggesting interaction of multiple subjects.  Often active in meaning (deponent verbs). Indicative: Action is certain or realized.]
To take up, to receive, to lift, remove. | to take for oneself, prefer. | to choose or prefer.
Hard-pressed (sunechomai [4912]):
[Present: Internal viewpoint.  Action viewed in its nature and progress, ongoing, open-ended.  Passive: Subject receives action.  Indicative: Action is certain or realized.]
To hold fast, confine.  To be in a mental strait.  To be detained or afflicted. | To compress, arrest.  To compel, perplex, preoccupy. | to hold together by constraint.  To hold fast.  To be held by, occupied with.  To oppress. To be torn between two options.
Desire (epithumian [1939]):
The active desire that comes of the diseased condition of the soul. | a longing, often for what is forbidden. | craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden.
Depart (analusai [360]):
| to break up.  To depart, literally or figuratively. | To depart.  To undo woven threads.
Better (kreisson [2908]):
More advantageous, more appropriate. | better, to greater advantage. | more serviceable, more excellent.
Remain (erimenein [1961]):
| to stay over, remain. | To still abide, to tarry still.  To continue.
Necessary (anagkaioteron [316]):
Necessity, whether physically or morally.  Closely connected. | necessary. | necessary. Indispensable.  Needful due to close bonds of friendship, or duty.  What is required by the condition of things.

Paraphrase: (05/12/24)

Php 1:21-24 – From my perspective, living or dying is all but immaterial.  If I live on, it is for Christ.  If I die, I’m with Him.  Bonus!  So then, if I live, there is work to do and it will bear more fruit.  So, I don’t really know which I would choose, if choice were mine.  I’m pulled in both directions.  On the one hand, to be done with this flesh and be with Christ is far and away superior, yet I know it is more needful that I remain for your sake.

Key Verse: (05/12/24)

Php 1:24 – To remain in the flesh is more needful, because you need me.

Thematic Relevance:
(05/12/24)

This comes across as antithetical to the theme of contentment.  But it also demonstrates quite clearly when it is most needful to be possessed of that contentment in Christ.

Doctrinal Relevance:
(05/12/24)

To be with Christ is a right desire, but to hurry it is sin.
Our choices are not to be made for desire but for fruitfulness.

Moral Relevance:
(05/12/24)

Life is hard and heaven awaits.  It’s easy enough to understand the urge to depart, even to sympathize with it and share in it.  And yet…  This is not within our purview to determine.  God determines our days.  Thus, the conclusion:  Better to stay so I can continue the good work prepared beforehand for my doing.

Doxology:
(05/12/24)

Praise God, we are not left to a futile perseverance through trials, but rather given fruitful participation in the work of the kingdom.  There is purpose to life, and that makes life wonderful, however we may long for home.  And the time will come, as it does for all; for the elect, a time of homecoming, of entering more fully into that rest we have come to know in part.  Glory to God, and may we be found active at those things He has designed for our doing.

Questions Raised:
(05/12/24)

Is that note of illicit desire intentional as concerns departing life?  After all, as at least one footnote observed, suicide would assuredly be sinful.  But is it suicide that is in view?  Paul tired of life?

Symbols: (05/12/24)

N/A

People, Places & Things Mentioned: (05/12/24)

N/A

You Were There: (05/12/24)

So now how do you feel?  Your father, your mentor, the man through whose ministry you came to faith has just expressed the feeling that he’d rather die than return to you.  Okay, it may not be quite that blunt, but it’s close.  I know you need me, but I’m tired of this.  I want to go home.  That’s got to sting just a little bit, even if you’re receiving this as the loving letter that it is.  Really, Paul?  Are we such a burden, then?

But it’s not that they are a burden.  Not at all.  It’s simply that life is hard and full of hardship.  You saw, after all, how things went for Paul when he was there with you.  Have things changed, that he should expect better treatment this time?  You heard, at least, of his bum’s rush out of Thessalonica, and you probably know some of those who have been pursuing him city to city, some of those who showed up in Jerusalem, leading to this current predicament.  You’ve heard, certainly, of the near death experiences he endured between Israel and Rome.  And he’s not getting any younger.  That body of his was worn enough when you saw him.  Of course he’s tired of the life for which he was chosen.

But then, hear the heart of your pastor in this:  Yes, I’d rather take that course, but it’s off-limits.  It’s every bit as much as it was off-limits for him to go to Asia when the Spirit said to go to Macedonia.  Here is the needful work.  Here is where I need you.  And what was his response?  Yes, Lord, I go.  What is his response now?  I’ll set aside my desire for their need.  Here I am, Lord.  Send me.

We’ll see his choice more explicitly in following verses, but it’s already here.  This may be my hunger, but it’s illicit and I cannot follow it.  Here is our Lord’s desire, and I shall set myself to pursue it.  As with my defense, so with my future:  Come what may, I shall exalt the Lord in my body.

Some Parallel Verses: (05/12/24)

1:21
Gal 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I that lives, but Christ in me.  This life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, who gave Himself up for me.
1:22
Ro 1:13
I have often planned to come to you, to obtain some fruit among you as elsewhere among the Gentiles, but have thus far been prevented.
1:23
2Co 5:8
We are of good courage, and would prefer rather to be absent from the body, to be home with the Lord.
2Ti 4:6
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering.  The time of my departure has come.
Jn 12:26
If any would serve Me, he must follow Me.  And where I am, there will My servant be as well.  The Father will honor anyone who serves Me.

New Thoughts: (05/13/24-05/15/24)

Is There a Choice? (05/13/24)

It’s curious to me how this passage is hitting.  One would expect that the opening verse, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain,” would be the obvious focal point.  It’s the piece that’s familiar, and so poignant.  I still recall that brother of mine, back on the Cape, singing the song built upon this verse before the church so soon after having lost their newborn.  Never has that verse felt more earnestly expressed.  Yet, as I look at the passage containing that verse, it’s almost an aside, or perhaps a preparatory note.  Or perhaps we might see it as setting out the guiding principle in his deliberations, or removing one aspect of those deliberations.  There is not, from his perspective, one path that pursues Christ and another that doesn’t.  Were that the case, the choice would be easy.  It’s because this aspect is equally to be found in both directions that choice, to the degree there is choice, is rendered such a challenge for him.

And thus, we arrive at verse 22, with its conclusion, “I do not know which to choose.”  This, of course, takes me to the question that heads this section of my notes:  Is there a choice?  In what sense was Paul in position to choose the future?  In what sense are any of us in such a position?  I suppose at some level we are probably asking, is Paul suicidal as he writes this?  But the overall flow of the letter precludes such a thing.  Is he, then, reflecting on an earlier state of affairs, a dark period when such thoughts were not so far from him?  I don’t think so, though I can’t necessarily preclude the possibility.  There is simply too much of joyful confidence in this epistle to reach such a conclusion.

What we are left with is a man of God considering what course it is that God has ahead for him.  He may be considering the options as a hypothetical.  The ERV takes that tack with its translation.  “But what would I choose – to live or to die?  I don’t know.”  Certainly, such a rendering is within the range of the syntax.  The Future Tense can have that deliberative sense to it.  And it’s not as though this desire for home were something new for Paul.  We hear much the same desire expressed when he writes to the church in Corinth, indeed, encouraging the self-same perspective for those to whom he writes.  “Being always of good courage, knowing that while we are here in the body we are absent from the Lord – for we walk by faith not sight – we are of good courage, much preferring to be absent from this body and at home with the Lord.  As such, we have this as our ambition:  Whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him” (2Co 5:6-9).  You see the same deliberation there as he is working through here.  What would I choose?  Would I choose the personal benefit of going home now, or shall I choose the harder but more fruitful course of remaining to continue the work?

But let me note a distinction.  In that passage from 2Corinthians, the will is expressed by eudokoumen.  It is a thinking well of the option, seeing the good of it.  Here, however, we have a different presentation of the option of going home early.  It is epithumian, which our lexicons concur reflects the illicit desire of what is forbidden.  Now, there are attempts to ameliorate this in our translations, footnotes insisting that this cannot be Paul’s intended meaning, given that suicide is a sin.  But on what basis the conclusion?  After all, Paul knows better than most that it is not within his power to determine whether this day should be his last or not.  He knows, as should we, that God alone determines our days.  And He determined them long since.

I have written often enough of this perspective, and its interplay with the urgent pursuit of mankind to find ways to prolong life, or even achieve some sort of immortality.  But immortality is not to be had apart from God.  Or, more properly, immortality apart from God is His full and final just judgment upon those who reject Him and refuse to love the Son.  It is the acceding to man’s sinful desire.  “This is what you want?  Well, enjoy!”  But there is no enjoyment.  There is no joy.  There is only sinful lust, and the destructive fallout of lust fulfilled.  There is no longer the hand of God restraining.  And you are not alone.  You are together with manifold others who also pursue their lustful desires without restraint, without limit, and without a pause.  But never again will there be any hope of catching God’s ear, of repenting to any good effect.  The case is closed, and the doors closed after.

Immortal life, on the other hand, is to be had in Christ or not at all.  And it is to be had by His choosing or not at all.  He calls.  We answer.  It is ever this order.  And He who calls has numbered our days.  He had them numbered and scheduled before the work of Creation was properly begun, while all remained in the planning stages.  But the time and place of your birth?  Settled.  The length of your days?  Established.  The means of your body’s death?  Likewise determined.  This does not strip you of free choice as to how you pursue your course.  Not at all.  Paul could make his choices here.  He remains a moral agent.  So yes, in that sense, there is a choice to be made.  It could be said that in every act of our day we are making that choice.  Are we pursuing length of days, or seeking to reduce the wait before we go home?  I don’t think many of our choices feel that significant as we are making them, but every choice lends its weight to one course or the other, doesn’t it?  Did you buckle your seatbelt for that quick drive to the store?  It matters.  Did you come to a full stop at the intersection?  It matters.  Are you considering what you eat, and its impact on health?  How you sleep?  Who you sleep with?  Are you heeding those instructions we have here in Scripture to guide life?  Do you go to bed angry?  Do you kick against the goads?  The list goes on.

And at some level, every item on that list comes down to this struggle Paul is expressing.  What would I choose, to live or to die?  Or, given what I am considering, what am I choosing, life or death?  Better by far that we brought in the moral considerations as he is doing.  Better by far if we looked to each decision for its value from a kingdom perspective, rather than simple gratification, or just getting on with life.

So here it is.  Here is the dilemma:  Why do you do what you do?  Why do I do as I do?  Why do I go to work?  Why do I offer such counsel as I do to my daughter?  Why do I treat my wife as I do, whether in those moments when I truly cherish her and seek to protect her, or in those times when frustration over our differences overwhelms sense?  Why, for all that, do I give concern to the business of the church, and what my part in it should be?  Why do I contemplate this teaching trip to Africa this fall?  Is it for my sense of self-worth?  Then it is worthless.  Is it to demonstrate my skills?  Then I have none.  Is it because this is where God says to go, and because there is expectation of value for His kingdom in the work to be done?  Then, praise God, let’s get to it!

But Paul’s course is being made clear even as he speaks of his deliberations.  I long to depart, but it is, at least for the present, an illicit desire.  It would be a giving in to the lust of the flesh.  After all, he’s getting older.  His body had to be hurting after all he’d been through.  And four years confined to the walls of his prison home had to be wearing on his psyche.  Who is going to thrive, being chained to an armed guard day in, day out, month after month?  Even with the liberty to welcome visitors, to preach, and so on, it’s going to wear on you.  So, sure.  If you were in like circumstances, I have no doubt but that you would feel that same urge.  After all, we express it readily enough in circumstances far less trying.  Difficulty at work?  Oh, just shoot me now.  Stupid argument with a loved one?  Take me now, Lord!  It doesn’t take much.  A bad cold is enough, honestly, to have us longing for a shortening of our days.  But they are not ours to shorten, and it is perhaps one of the greater evils of our time that rather than aiding one another through such rough patches (and let us specify, patches far rougher than those suggested here), we look to aid their early demise rather than to offer a more honest, godly, life-affirming perspective.  Honestly, I suspect that in many places now, were you to express that frustration of, “shoot me now,” it would be taken as a request and honored forthwith.

But it’s an illegitimate choice, and Paul is making that plain even as he notes the option.  As we saw in 2Corinthians, it’s not that the preference for being home with Christ is sinful.  Far from it!  This is indeed eminently to be desired.  But to seek entrance into His presence when it is not yet our time?  No.  That is lust corrupting even the best of intentions.  The time will come, and when it is time, there is that within us which will know it.  I look at Paul’s later letter to Timothy.  “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering.  The time of my departure has come” (2Ti 4:6).  No deliberation here.  No doubts.  It’s time.  I’ve known those saints who have hit this stage.  Life has been long, and the joy of the Lord has indeed been their strength, not just their boastful claim.  But it’s time.  My work here is done.  Time to go.  There has been no hurrying of the schedule, only acceptance, and joy at the prospect.  How blessed are those who reach their end in such peace and confidence.

Lord, I know somewhat this hunger to be shot of this present life.  But then, I also know significant hunger for the many joys this life You have given me provides.  I need only think of this last week, and the week ahead.  What pleasures You have set around us!  How can we complain (though of course, we do)?  The simple pleasures of sitting out on the porch of an evening, listening to the sounds of the night birds, and whatever it is wandering through the bushes, watching the lightning bugs dance, feeling the lovely breeze, and effectively, not a care in the world.  Not this week.  Or the sensation of floating off the shore, warm and almost weightless.  I could turn to the pleasures of pursuing my music-making efforts, the joy of these times of study, and so on.  There are many things here that capture my senses.  And forgive me that they so readily draw me from You, from the work You have set for me to do.  Help me to attune my attention to Your ends, Your plans.  Too readily do I just shoot off in whatever direction, and I should (at least to some degree) heed my lovely wife’s example, and consider more what it is You have in mind for the day, for the moment.  Adjust as necessary.  I am in Your hands.

Which Way the Heart? (05/14/24-05/15/24)

Paul is presenting us with a view of his dilemma.  It’s not a dilemma concerning his survival, nor is it a dilemma concerning how to make his defense before Caesar.  After all, he’s had a good four years now to sort that out in his thinking.  But he’s weighing his options here, as to the outcome, perhaps as to how he ought himself to pray or ask that others might pray.  Except, he’s already sorted that as well, hasn’t he?  Not that he’s spoken directly to that point but you see already his own answer:  Let me not be put to shame, but proclaim Christ with all boldness, now as always (Php 1:20).  He hasn’t switched topics coming to this passage, but is rather making his thinking on the matter clear to his friends.  Living or dying are more or less equal options.  That’s really what he’s saying here, and perhaps there’s a bit of a corrective for us in it.

When I read through that first verse, in conjunction with the preceding one, it can come across almost like, “I don’t care.  Live, die, it’s all the same.”  But that’s not the attitude he’s conveying.  And I have to conclude that if our own attitude is along these lines, we need to pull ourselves up short and have a look at what’s going on.  Paul’s not declaring ambivalence here, he’s declaring that two courses are set before him, both potentially of God, both of value from a kingdom perspective, and each offering certain positive potentialities.  He’s looking in both directions and seeing good cause to take that path.  But then he looks the other way and sees equally good, if different, cause to take that path instead.  That’s the anguish that is in view, to the degree that it is anguish at all.

What throws us a bit is this note of, “I don’t know which to choose.”  Here, he’s talking about the knowing of ginosko, or at least its derivative, gnorizo.  That has the sense of making known.  At least one of the translations took that sense of the meaning.  I do not make known.  It’s active voice, so the idea of the answer not being made known to him wouldn’t fit.  He is the actor here.  He can’t make known his preference, because he really doesn’t have one.  Both ways are equally to be desired.  Take this as your starting point, then.  Paul is not really contemplating the choice as though it was his to decide.  And this should color how we hear that matter of choice.  Which to choose?  That’s not your call, mate.  Ah, but which to prefer?  Which even sounds better?  That’s acceptable.  There’s nothing about pursuing God’s will that precludes having preferences in the matter.  It’s just that in the end, you know them subjected to His will, and this is your driving force.

I would observe as well that this act of choosing is presented in the middle voice.  Now, that may simply mean that the act of choosing is something done for oneself, out of self-interest, if you will.  But it could also have that sense of two acting together, a joint decision, in this case, of God’s choice and Paul’s, which I would have to say is always a desirable result.  So, one could take this in the sense of Paul not knowing which course God has chosen for him.  I could see that as a possible translation.  But then, I’m no translator, and I find no translation backing my supposition, so perhaps not.

But let’s look at Paul’s deliberations, the things that are tugging at his heart, for that’s very much what he is presenting.  And we might accept that the order in which he presents these interests is telling as to his priorities.  The first he has to mention comes even before he notes his being torn.  If I live then there is further fruitful ministry for me.  First consideration.  I am a fruitful tree for my Lord, and the longer I live, the more fruit I bear.  The longer I live, the more profitable I am to the kingdom.  And then, there is this particularly Jewish sense of fruit, which is that of having something to present to God as a thank-offering.  The longer I live, the greater the offering I have to give to my Lord.  And that, I could readily believe, is the color of Paul’s thought.  After all, what value fruitfulness in this life apart from it being an offering given unto God?  You can’t take it with you.  And you will most assuredly pass from this life at some stage, so it’s not like all that accumulated value shall be yours in perpetuity.

You know, this neighborhood in which we’re currently nestled while on vacation is a town of mini-mansions.  I mean, so far as mansions are concerned, these are tiny affairs, but as measured by the more normal scale, they are immense, and immensely expensive, both in the purchasing and the upkeep.  And here on the Gulf Coast, where hurricanes are hardly an unheard-of phenomenon.  I mean, the island we’re on is still mid-recovery from the devastating hurricane but a year and a half ago.  Granted, it was a particularly virulent hurricane, but still.  You’re in an area that measures its height above sea level in single-digit feet.  It won’t take much for wind and wave to push even this far in.  And all around is water on every side, really.  The island has effectively one road servicing its entire length, beach to one side, swamplands to the other, and not much but sandy soil in between.  What I am saying is this is a heck of an expenditure to have a showcase house in a showcase location, and all of it subject to total loss at what amounts to the toss of a coin.  And you don’t even get to do the tossing.  It speaks of a mindset so wholly focused on this life as to be utterly negligent of all else, and that’s not a healthy focus.  It’s certainly nothing to do with Paul’s reasoning here, and it ought not to be the basis for our own reasoning in our own turn.

Paul wants a harvest, but not for his bank account.  Face it.  He has no bank account, no store of treasure to fund his mission.  And now, he is doubly dependent on other sources, being in prison.  I can’t imagine he was continuing his tentmaking under these conditions.  Any funding must come from elsewhere, and we know that the Philippians were at least one source of it for him.  But what was he using that funding for?  It wasn’t for more luxurious digs.  It wasn’t to bribe the officials and seek early release.  Had that been his course, he would have been out long ago.  Felix, at least, was certainly open to the idea, and rather expecting it.  But no.  Paul’s concern for fruitfulness is everything to do with God, and as such, I return to that image of having something to present before God as a thank-offering.

This, I think, ought to be our perspective on all matters of ministry, which is to say, on all aspects of Christian life.  What am I producing, that I may present before my Lord when comes my day to appear before Him?  Is this not the message in the parable of the talents?  You have been entrusted with something of immeasurable value in being given to know and believe this gospel message.  What have you done with it?  Have you simply sat back in the comfort of knowing yourself redeemed?  Have you done aught to benefit your fellow believer by your understanding?  Have you at the very least encouraged a brother or sister in their faith?  Have you spoken of your love for Christ to one who doesn’t as yet know Him?  Have you boldly owned up to your faith?  What have you got to show for yourself?  That’s a rather terrifying question, isn’t it?  No, that’s not the right word.  To be terrified of answering would have us in the same place of utterly misjudging our Master that was the final issue of that poor slave with one talent.  It’s not that he could only give back what had been entrusted to him.  I mean, at least he hadn’t wasted it and come with nothing to show.  No, it’s the way he perceived his master, as a harsh and rather unjust taskmaster.  That’s what really sealed his judgment.

All the same, if we love Him, it must occur to us now and again to wonder if we have done as we were designed to do, if we have done any of those good works prepared beforehand for our doing.  If we look back across our life, can we see anything of value that we have done for Him?  To be sure, we can all find plenty of times we have wasted, opportunities we have missed, periods when all our concern was too wrapped up in our own pleasures to leave room for considerations of ministry.  But hopefully, each of us shall have something from which we may draw an offering to set before our King when we stand before Him.  Whether little or much, let there be something of demonstrable thanksgiving that we may present before Him.  Let Him have some useful harvest of our lives.

Now, I would have to say that messages urging concern over our reward in that day fall flat on my ears.  I am home with the Lord, and this is already far greater reward than I can hope to deserve.  Anything beyond that is a bonus.  It puts me in mind of those stock options which enabled our move from renting to owning a house.  There’s this thought that creeps in.  It’s worth X now, but what if I wait?  Does it become 2X?  Does it drop to 1/2X?  But in my thinking, it was free money either way.  Buy, sell, be done.  Did you double, triple?  What’s the difference, really?  At that point, the potential for loss was sub-zero, not a concern.  The only question was how great the upside.  Of course, the longer you hold, the greater the risk that loss becomes an option.  But if it’s all effectively free money, how can one complain if it was slightly less free money than it could have been?  I suppose in large part that same mindset holds me in regard to my homecoming.  There is no downside.  I’m coming home.  There can be no thought of loss.  It’s not even a possibility.  The size of the reward, at that point, is kind of irrelevant.  It’s not like we’ll be in some competition, as I see in these houses around me, to have the grandest edifice, the most beautiful gardens.  It will be God, all in all.

So it is with Paul’s concern for bearing fruit.  It’s not the reward that is in view, but the utility.  May I have done something of value in service to my Lord.  That is all.  I could take Darby’s rendering of the point as demonstrating this mindset.  “But if to live in the flesh is my lot, this is for me worthwhile.”  Why?  Because it presents more opportunities for fruitful ministry.  Face it.  Once in the grave, those opportunities are done and gone.  I suppose we could add to Paul’s account the continuing impact of his ministry through these epistles of his.  And we could do likewise for those we account heroes of the faith, whose impact on lives continue through their writings, and through the record of their examples.  But it’s primarily while living that we bear fruit, and praise God if indeed, as with those we consider here, that fruit persists.  If it does so, it is quite clearly by the work of the Holy Spirit, and as such, no further credit to our own accounts.

Perhaps the GNT gets nearer Paul’s quandary.  “But if by continuing to live I can do more worthwhile work, then I am not sure which I should choose.”  Again, we can quibble as to the idea that Paul has any real choice.  But we’re talking about weighing the options.  Living on is not, in and of itself, sufficient cause to desire that course.  If living means some near-monastic condition, touching no-one, preaching no longer, perhaps confined to bedrest by the crippling effects of such a hard life, then, no, it really doesn’t offer much by way of enticement, does it?  Not that this is cause to seek an early exit.  But there’s nothing here to suggest real value, certainly not kingdom value.  But if it means more ministry opportunities?  Yes, okay!  Now, there’s something to it.  Now, it takes on a weight equal to the unquestionable benefits of going home.

Now, there’s something to think about, a real choice to be made, if indeed, he were empowered to choose.  And it is this dilemma of equally valued choices that Paul expresses as we get into verse 23“I am in a dilemma,” he writes (following the Weymouth translation.)  “I am not able to incline towards either one,” as Wuest concludes the prior verse.  He is held fast between the two options; torn, for that he sees good reason to choose either course.  This is the power of the verb he has chosen to express the case.  I am preoccupied with the thought because I am pulled both ways with equal force.  It’s a term that more often speaks of being held or oppressed, but it takes this sense as well.  It puts me in mind of my senior high English teacher, with his exposition on Robert Frost.  He made much of this sort of tension in Frost’s writing, of being pulled in equal but opposite directions by the choices presented.

And so, he is laying out the value propositions to be seen in each case.  From a personal standpoint, to depart this life and be with the Lord has clear and obvious benefit.  Troubles over, sin a thing of the past, and nothing but an eternal resting in the joyful presence of Christ to contemplate going forward.  There is no downside.  However, as we have noted, and as he indicates, this desire is tinged with sin in its own right, or at least it would be were it pursued.  He’s making that clear here, even though our translations seem determined to bury it from sight.  Oh!  But that would be a sinful thought!  That would be advocating for suicide.  We can’t have that.  No.  No, you can’t.  And that is pretty much exactly what he is expressing here.  It would be nice, but it’s not within my legitimate exercise of power to so choose.  I want it, but it is the hunger after something forbidden.  That date for homecoming is God’s call, and His alone.

Again, let’s recognize the realities of the situation.  Paul is in no position to take his own life even were he so inclined.  He’s not really in any position to choose the outcome at all.  I suppose he could purposefully make such a hash of his defense as to ensure that Nero condemned him, sort of the period equivalent of suicide by cop.  But that wasn’t going to happen, was it?  He was already determined to make a full and confident defense of his faith.  And he’d done so enough times before this.  There really isn’t any question of him throwing the case now.  It’s simply a presentation of value propositions.

On the other hand, he sees fruitful ministry opportunities.  He also adds, as a personal note to his friends, that their need for that ministry outweighs his own desire for personal benefit.  The equal weighting, I would suggest, is between the general opportunity for fruitful ministry, and the joyful rest of his homecoming.  That he has these friends to whom he feels the duty to minister further is really the thing that finally tilts the balance.  It is the weight answerable to his dilemma.  “For your sakes it is more important that I should still remain in the body.”  That’s the dilemma coming to resolution, the question finally answered.  Given a choice, I choose to do that which is more important.

Recall that this is our brother who has long preached of our need to count others as more important than ourselves.  Well, Paul is not one to preach what he does not practice.  No.  What he has taught is what he has lived, and that isn’t changing now.  This is more important:  Your spiritual development.  Mine, should I be called home, is apparently complete.  But yours, as you remain, still needs building up, and there is a fruitful work I can do unto the Lord.

There will come a time for each one of us when we know our work here is done.  We saw that in the passage from Paul’s letter to Timothy.  This time, it’s done.  I’m going home soon, a drink-offering poured out.  By then, he had indeed, labored fruitfully for some further years.  He had his thank-offering to give, and you can sense in that recognition that he is fully at peace with it this time.  No more the dilemma of choice, no longer a need to damp down illicit desire for home.  Now it’s time.  This is the peace we occasionally see in those brothers and sisters who, having lived to a great age, have finally concluded that the time has come.  There’s not so much a letting go of this life, as a joyful welcoming of that life to come. 

But until such time, we do well to take to heart the example of Paul in his prison cell.  There remains the opportunity to bear fruit for our Lord.  There remains a need for us to minister one to another, to build one another up in holy faith.  Let us be about it, then, and may the Lord be pleased with the harvest we produce.

Life with Purpose (05/15/24)

Continuing the thoughts of the previous section, it is this mindset, or this decision made, that leads me to set verse 24 as my key verse for this passage, rather than the far more familiar verse 21.  The one gives grounds for properly weighing the options, but the other presents us with the deciding vote.  “To remain in the flesh is more needful, because you need me.”  That presents my paraphrase of the conclusion.  It is more necessary, more needful.  Duty calls, and Paul will answer.  We might put it down to the close bonds he had with this church.  If any church had shown themselves his friends and supporters, it was Philippi.  We could list the whole Macedonian mission in that regard, were we so inclined, but even in that rich ministry field, it seems Philippi stood out.  It’s surprising just how robust these churches proved to be, given the rushed nature of Paul’s time with them.

Each of these places, he had been required to abandon far sooner than would have been his preference.  I happened to hear Paul McCartney & Wings with their old hit, ‘Band on the Run’ at the restaurant a few days back.  The title puts me in mind of Paul’s ministry in that period; always on the run, chased out of one city, and on to the next.  But never as one abandoning the mission, no.  No preach and run profiteer he, but forced out on each occasion by those who felt their prestige threatened by the gospel, too pleased with their profit to heed the prophet.

But back to Paul’s decision.  This is the needful course.  This is the option required by the condition of things.  This is the path of purpose.  And it is this purposefulness to which I want to turn my attention as a last stop in this particular study.  There is that note of necessity in Paul’s conclusion, but it’s not the necessity of fate.  It’s not the necessity of, oh well, here’s how it’s going to turn out anyway, might as well accept it.  No.  This is something far stronger than mere acceptance.  This is notice of preference.  This is an earnest and in some ways agonized weighing of the options, and setting one’s heart in the direction of the best.  Duty before pleasure would be one way of expressing his choice, but even that, I think, falls short.  As I noted before, he is very much practicing what he has long preached, because what he has preached is what he truly believes, and what he believes, is what he seeks truly to live.  May we, Lord willing, prove to be of like character!

So, we hear this response.  There may have been no real choice to be made, or no real power to enforce the choice.  But we ever and always have the choice of siding with God or setting ourselves in opposition to His purposes.  Our desires are always in competition with the need of the moment.  Always.  We don’t like dealing with necessity.  We want pleasure.  We may like the reputation for being dutiful sons, dutiful husbands and wives, dutiful employees or laity.  But the labors involved?  Not so attractive.  When duty calls and the answer requires taking up spades to dig in the dirt?  I’ll pass if it’s all the same.  But it’s not all the same.  And duty answers, and though we may (and probably do) grumble through the call of duty, yet we are pleased to see the result of having answered.  It is as Hebrews says.  “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11).  Discipline and duty:  They are almost one and the same.  Duty requires discipline of us, and discipline comes only by practice and character already established by prior discipline.

It's a curious thing, how often my wife counsels a somewhat less dutiful attending to the necessities of the workplace.  But it cannot be, as I measure it.  This is the course of duty.  This is what is required of me by the condition of things, every bit as much as attending to her wants and needs are my gladsome duty.  And I should have to confess that though it is my gladsome duty, I am not always well-pleased to perform it.  But if ever there is a relationship of close bonds, it is here with her.  And so, I am often set in that place Paul gives expression to, though with options far less laudable.  How often, in the course of any given week, do we find ourselves with this dilemma?  My hunger is to go this way, but I cannot follow it.  That is that course of lust.  Over against it, we see our Lord’s desire.  Spirit and flesh are ever at war one against the other, as Paul notes in writing to the church in Rome.  It hasn’t changed in the centuries since.  It won’t change so long as life persists.

But the way of purpose, the path of value, is ever that which our Lord desires of us.  It is, after all, the course of His choosing.  It is that for which we were created.  And this, I think, draws me close to my closing thought for this study.  You and I are created with purpose in view.  There is, of course, that most fundamental purpose to which the Westminster Catechism gives voice.  Our chief purpose is to love God and enjoy Him forever.  Not a bad thing, that.  But if we love Him, we will obey His commands.  If we love Him, His choice is our desire, because our desire is to please Him whom we love.  And so, over and over again, we find ourselves in need of setting aside our desire for His or, if you prefer, attuning our desire to His.  This, I might suggest, is one of the chief values in prayer.  It’s not that we cajole God into satisfying our requests.  Neither is it the case that God cannot, or will not supply answer until we pray.  That can’t be it, for God is not beholden to any, not in heaven and certainly not on earth.  But we, on the other hand, are in near constant need of readjustment as to our priorities and desires.  And our prayers have this power to shape our thinking more after God’s own heart, which is as our thinking should be.

If, then, things in your life feel rather pointless, if the course of your days has become empty rote habit, perhaps the issue is in your prayer life.  Perhaps it’s time to pray more earnestly, more honestly, that our Lord and Savior would direct your days.  He does so anyway.  “The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (Pr 16:9).  Far better, then, that we, in our planning, should consult Him who directs.  Here is the course to a life with purpose.  Here is the course to a fruitful life, pleasing to the Lord, and promising a gladsome result come the time when our work here is done.  Let us be about it.

Lord, may it be so.  Let us, without tying ourselves in knots and without becoming caught up in dilemmas of our own making, seek to pursue Your course.  You are my God, and I trust You to guide.  I know You direct my footsteps regardless.  But let me be such as seeks to set my feet where You are directing, as pursues those purposes for which I was created.  I am Yours, and would that I more often acted like this was so.  Thank You, that You continue to work in and upon me.  May You be pleased to work through me, that I may be Onesimus, useful to You in accordance with Your desire.

picture of Philippi ruins
© 2024 - Jeffrey A. Wilcox