Living Beyond Yourself

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, complete my joy, so that you are in agreement, having the same love, united in spirit, having one purpose. Do nothing according to selfish ambition or according to empty conceit, but in humility considering one another better than yourselves, each of you not looking out for your own interests, but also each of you for the interests of others.

The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 31: Galatians / Ephesians / Philippians / Colossians / Philemon Our Common Life in Christ

In the first four verses of chapter 2, Paul gives a succinct, radiantly clear description of our common life in Christ. Thus he underscores the challenging fact that the Christian life is always a shared life: “With one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (1:27).

Humility

It is all about humility. Humility is a prominent theme in Philippians occuring in various forms 4 separate times (2:3, 8; 3:21; 4:12; see the discussion of humility by Grundmann 1988, 1–60).

It is a virtue that would seem very odd in the Greco-Roman culture that found it totally alien to its ethical system. Humility signified lowly, insignificant, weak, trivial.

People of position are to show pity toward the humble since it “is easy to outdo the lowly” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics IV, 3, 26).

Humility is not something that would be Looked at with favor. And yet here Paul is calling for it

Paraklesis, Koinōnia

If there is any Paraklesis

“Consolation in Christ”, encouragement or urging/exhortation

all believers, have experienced a call to a higher walk in their union with Christ, their saving relationship to Him. That reality provides Paul grounds to exhort them about that walk.

What is to be sensed here is the strong, upholding support that is ours within the Christian community.

If there is any Paraklesis this strong bonding that we are suppose to have Koinonia

this fellowship that transgress just being in church together. it is a participation or sharing.

Paul uses the same word to suggest what happens in Holy Communion. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16, RSV). It is the essence of our common life in Christ and implies all that Paul’s threefold benediction explicitly states: the grace which Christ supplies, the love which God bestows, and the fellowship which the Holy Spirit creates (2 Cor. 13:14). The Holy Spirit gives us the gift of koinōnia, of fellowship. We do not create it. As Christ supplies grace, God bestows love, so the Spirit creates a deep sharing among us which makes us one.

Maxie D. Dunnam and Lloyd J. Ogilvie, Galatians / Ephesians / Philippians / Colossians / Philemon, vol. 31, The Preacher’s Commentary Series (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1982), 273.

If there is any affection and mercy.

Make my Joy Complete

Make my Joy Complete which is an imperative a command.

How

Being like-minded

Having the same love

Being one in the spirit and purpose

Paul is calling for harmony of relationship, mutual concern and love for one another, a caring for quality of fellowship in order that Christ may perform His ministry through the body.

Galatians through Colossians b. The Content of the Exhortation: Unity (v. 2)

“Having the same love” means sharing the same commitment to each other’s welfare. Love (Greek agape) is a self-sacrificing and deliberate commitment to the good of others.

What Paul means is that each Christian should regard his fellow Christians as being above him and therefore rightful objects of his service. This is, in effect, a “definition” of humility when put into practice, a serving submission to others.

Verse 4 expands this idea even further. Each one must not be looking out for (literally) “the things of themselves” but for “the things of others.” In other words, each Christian will not be selfishly pursuing his own interests and affairs but, in a spirit of humble service, concerned about the welfare and progress of his fellow Christians.

Robert E. Picirilli, “Commentary on the Book of Ephesians and Philippians,” in Galatians through Colossians, ed. Robert E. Picirilli, First Edition., The Randall House Bible Commentary (Nashville, TN: Randall House Publications, 1988), 300.

Living Beyond Yourself

The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 31: Galatians / Ephesians / Philippians / Colossians / Philemon The Seeds that Produce the Harvest

Abraham Maslow, one of the giant thinkers of the twentieth century, brought a radical shift of perspective to psychology and began an entirely new approach to therapy as he realized the importance for persons to find purpose outside themselves.

humility also describes a right relationship to other people. Wengst has argued that the difference between the Greco-Roman writings and the Jewish and Christian writings with respect to humility lies in the perspectives from which each is written. The literature of the former comes from a high position that looks down on the socially inferior, who invariably appear lowly, subservient, and humble. The Old Testament, however, speaks from the perspective of insignificant people and in fact takes the side of those who are downtrodden and humiliated, because God is on their side. Humility denotes “the solidarity of the humiliated” (Wengst 1988, 1–60).

The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 31: Galatians / Ephesians / Philippians / Colossians / Philemon The Seeds that Produce the Harvest

“Without exception, I found that every person who was sincerely happy, radiantly alive, was living for a purpose or a cause beyond himself.”

Next Steps

When we find ourselves trapped thinking of only ourselves even if we say it is for someone else. We find ourselves miserable. We are miserable gods. Only in our humility to God the ability to bow to him can we be humble to others. and as we are humble to others.