PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Philippian Studies
Moule, H. C. G. (Handley Carr Glyn) · 50,434 words · 73 reading sections
By The Same Author.
E-text prepared by Al Haines Transcriber's notes: In the original book, each odd-numbered page (except for the first page of a chapter) had its own header. In this e-book, each chapter's headers have been collected into an introductory paragraph at the start of the chapter. The original book contained many Greek …
423 wordsSECTION 2Chapter Ii
"Thou the Way art, Thou the Prize That beyond the journey lies; Thou the Truth art, Thou the Guide, Gone before, yet at our side; Everlasting life below It is truly Thee to know: Such to Thy Saints wast Thou of yore; Unchangeable Thou art, and shall be evermore." MONSELL. The plan and purpose of the following …
257 wordsSECTION 3Introductory
THE APOSTLE'S POSITION AND CIRCUMSTANCES (PHIL. i. 12-20.) THE CHRISTIAN'S PEACE AND THE CHRISTIAN'S CONSISTENCY (PHIL. i. 21-30.) UNITY IN SELF-FORGETFULNESS: THE EXAMPLE OF THE LORD (PHIL. ii. 1-11.) THE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE (PHIL. ii. 12-18.) TIMOTHEUS AND EPAPHRODITUS (PHIL. ii. 19-30.) JOY…
897 wordsSECTION 4Introductory
Let us approach the beloved pages once again. They can never wear out; there will always prove to be "more to follow." Perhaps we have loved and pondered them for long years ourselves. Perhaps we have heard them expounded by voices silent now, "in days that never come again," in chambers or in churches which we seem st…
864 wordsSECTION 5Introductory
Only, there is this wonderful difference; that for St Paul the Jesus Christ of recent history is absolutely One with the Jesus Christ of his present spiritual experience. The Man of the Cross is also, for him, the Lord who is exalted to the throne of heaven, and is also so related to the writer that Paul is "in Christ …
953 wordsSECTION 6Introductory
But the evil we indicated just above was present in the otherwise happy scene. When Epaphroditus crossed the mountains and the sea to carry a generous gift of money to St Paul, risking his life (ii. 27) somehow by dangerous sickness in the effort, he had to carry also news of differences and heart-burnings, which could…
830 wordsSECTION 7Introductory
I will venture then to take it for granted that it was some time in A.D. 61, or at latest early in A.D. 62, that Epaphroditus came, with his collection and his reports, and struggled through his illness, and then prepared to return to Macedonia, carrying this precious Letter with him. We seem to see the scene as he con…
301 wordsSECTION 8The Intimacy Of Human Hearts In Christ
"I learned without booke almost all Paules Epistles, yea and I weene all the Canonical! Epistles, save only the Apocalyps. Of which study, although in time a great part did depart from me, yet the sweete smell thereof I trust I shall cary with me into heaven." PHILIPPIANS i. 1-11 The Apostle and his converts one--The…
676 wordsSECTION 9The Intimacy Of Human Hearts In Christ
Ver. 11. rather those +who have been filled with the fruit+ (_karpon_, not _karpon_) of righteousness--the result, in witness and service, of your reconciliation and renewal,[6] fruit which is borne +through Jesus Christ+, the Procurer and the Secret of your fruit-bearing life, to +God's praise and glory+, the true goa…
936 wordsSECTION 10The Intimacy Of Human Hearts In Christ
The fact, the experience, of course transcends our analysis. But it is not beyond our faith, nor beyond our reception and inward verification. "Thy love, Thy joy, Thy peace, Continuously impart Unto my heart; Fresh springs that never cease, But still increase." [7] Our immediate purpose meanwhile is not to discus…
862 wordsSECTION 11The Intimacy Of Human Hearts In Christ
No answer which a heart fully wakeful to God can give to such deliberate inward questionings can possibly be an easy or "light-hearted" answer. The gladdest and most thankful utterance of such a heart will carry along with it always the prayer, "Search me, O God, and try my heart"; "Enter not into judgment with Thy ser…
824 wordsSECTION 12The Apostle'S Position And Circumstances
[2] The middle suggests a certain fulness of action. [3] I think the definite article should be supplied in English; the reference is to the work of works. [4] I give both the possible renderings of _huper_. Both would certainly be in place, as he thought of them and prayed and gave thanks for them. [5] The derivati…
737 wordsSECTION 13The Apostle'S Position And Circumstances
Ver. 19. me His vassal. +For I know that I shall find+ (_moi_) this experience +result in salvation+, in the access of saving grace to my soul, +through your supplication+ for me, which will be quickened by your knowledge of my trials, +and+ through a resulting +full supply+ (_epichoregia_: the word suggests a supply w…
884 wordsSECTION 14The Apostle'S Position And Circumstances
We can please ourselves if we will by imagining many a scene for the exercise of that influence. Sometimes the Saint would be left much alone with the Praetorian. Sometimes a long stream of visitors would flow in, and for a whole day perhaps the two would scarcely exchange a word; the Guardsman would only watch and lis…
847 wordsSECTION 15The Apostle'S Position And Circumstances
It is an instructive lesson. Would that in all the after ages the Church had more watchfully followed this noble precedent! The result would have been, so I venture to hold, a far truer and stronger cohesion, in the long run, than we see, alas, around us now. What was the secret of this happy harmony of the love of or…
675 wordsSECTION 16The Apostle'S Position And Circumstances
Reader, this is admirable in St Paul. But after all, the ultimate secret of the noble phenomenon resides not in St Paul but in Jesus Christ. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. i. 15, 16). The man had seen his Saviour with his whole soul. And because of--not the man who saw but--the Saviour who was seen, beh…
656 wordsSECTION 17The Apostle'S Position And Circumstances
-------- *** _En holo to praitorio_ (ver. 13).--The word _praitorion_ occurs in e.g. Matt. xxvii. 27. Acts xxiii. 35, in the sense of the residence of a great official, regarded as _praetor_, or commander. The A.V. here evidently reasons from such passages, and takes the word to mean the residence at Rome of the supre…
338 wordsSECTION 18The Christian'S Peace And The Christian'S Consistency
O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; Give unto Thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that both our hearts may be set to obey Thy commandments, and also that by Thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies may pass our time in rest and quietness; thro…
709 wordsSECTION 19The Christian'S Peace And The Christian'S Consistency
Ver. 29. Yes, +because to you there has been granted[10] as an+ actual +boon--for the sake of Christ not only the believing on Him but also the suffering for His sake+;[11] a sacred privilege when it is involved by Ver. 30. loyalty to such a Master! So you will be +experiencing+[12] (_echontes_) +the same conflict in …
816 wordsSECTION 20The Christian'S Peace And The Christian'S Consistency
"My friends, let us reflect upon the character of the promises of the Gospel, and we shall see how far we are from possessing and enjoying them. May God open the heavens above our heads; revealing all to us, filling us with all wisdom, granting us to see that even here below we may attain to perfect joy, while looking …
850 wordsSECTION 21The Christian'S Peace And The Christian'S Consistency
But now, what is the secret of the equilibrium? We saw in our last chapter what was the secret of the unruffled peace with which St Paul could meet the exquisite trials occasioned by the separatist party at Rome. It was the Lord Jesus Christ. And the secret of the far more than peace with which here he meets the altern…
684 wordsSECTION 22The Christian'S Peace And The Christian'S Consistency
"Only let them order their life in a way worthy of the Gospel of Christ." "_Only_"; as if this were the one possible topic for him now. This will content him; nothing else will. He "desires one thing of the Lord"--the practical holiness of his beloved converts; and he cannot possibly do otherwise, coming as he has just…
695 wordsSECTION 23The Christian'S Peace And The Christian'S Consistency
[5] Literally, "your progress and joy of the faith." The Greek suggests the connexion of both "progress" and "joy" with "faith." And St Paul's general use of the word _pistis_ favours its reference here not to the objective _creed_ but to the subjective _reliance_ of the holder of the creed. [6] _Politeuesthe_: litera…
375 wordsSECTION 24Unity In Self-Forgetfulness: The Example Of The Lord
"Our glorious Leader claims our praise For His own pattern giv'n; While the long cloud of witnesses Shew the same path to heav'n." WATTS. PHILIPPIANS ii. 1-11 Dissensions incident to activity--Arguments for heart-union--"No plunderer's prize"--"The name"--The tone of the great passage--What the "Kenosis" cannot b…
723 wordsSECTION 25Unity In Self-Forgetfulness: The Example Of The Lord
Ver. 2. calling for your pity; +make full my joy+, drop this last ingredient into the cup of my thankful happiness for you, and bring the wine to the brim, +by being[2] of the same mind+ (_phronma_, feeling, attitude of mind), +feeling+ (_echontes_) +the same love+, "the same" on all sides, soul and soul together (_sym…
685 wordsSECTION 26Unity In Self-Forgetfulness: The Example Of The Lord
Ver. 10. can sit; +so that in the Name of Jesus+,[19] in presence of the revealed majesty of Him who bears, as Man, the human personal Name, Jesus, +every knee should bow+, as the prophet (Isa. xlv. 23) foretells, +of things celestial, and terrestrial, and subterranean+, of all created existence, in its heights and dep…
729 wordsSECTION 27Unity In Self-Forgetfulness: The Example Of The Lord
We are beset at the present day, on many sides, with speculations about the "Kenosis" of the Lord which in some cases anyhow have it for their manifest goal to justify the thought that He condescended to be fallible; that He "made Himself void" of such knowledge as should protect Him from mistaken statements about, for…
751 wordsSECTION 28Unity In Self-Forgetfulness: The Example Of The Lord
Oh reason of reasons, argument of arguments--the LORD JESUS CHRIST! Nothing in Christianity lies really outside Him. His Person and His Work embody all its dogmatic teaching. His Example, "His Love which passeth knowledge," is the sum and life of all its morality. Well has it been said that the whole Gospel message is …
665 wordsSECTION 29Unity In Self-Forgetfulness: The Example Of The Lord
[8] _En morphe_: _morphe_ is imperfectly represented by our common use of the word "form," which stands often even in contrast to "reality." _Morphe_ is _reality in manifestation_. [9] _Uparchon_: R.V. margin, "originally being." The word lends itself to such a reference, but not so invariably as to allow us to press …
645 wordsSECTION 30The Lord'S Power In The Disciple'S Life
"O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me, And all things else recede; My heart be daily nearer Thee, From sin be daily freed. "More of Thy glory let me see, Thou Holy, Wise, and True; I would Thy living image be In joy and sorrow too." H. B. SMITH, _from the German of_ C. LAVATER. PHILIPPIANS ii. 12-18 "Your own salv…
707 wordsSECTION 31The Lord'S Power In The Disciple'S Life
Ver. 14. gentle opposite to it. +Do all things without+, apart from (_choris_), in a definite isolation from, +murmurings and disputes+, thoughts and utterances of discontent and self-assertion towards one another, grudgings of others' claims, and contentions for your Ver. 15. own; +so that you may become+ (_genesthe_…
767 wordsSECTION 32The Lord'S Power In The Disciple'S Life
ii. We have here in particular that deep secret of the Gospel, unspeakably precious to the soul which indeed longs to be holy--the Indwelling of God in the believer. It here appears in close and significant connexion with the revelation of the love and work of the Incarnate and Atoning Lord; as if to remind us without …
671 wordsSECTION 33The Lord'S Power In The Disciple'S Life
_Choris emou_--"isolated from Me (John xv. 5)--_ye can do nothing_"; and what seems our "doing" will, in such isolation, be only too sorely felt to be a weary toil. But let us accept it as true, at the foot of the atoning Cross, that the Indwelling of God in Christ is as much a fact as our pardon and adoption in Him, a…
825 wordsSECTION 34The Lord'S Power In The Disciple'S Life
"On earth, as in the holy place, Nothing is great but charity." [9] iv. Meanwhile the "charity" of the saints is not by any means the mere amiability which makes itself pleasant to every one, and forgets the solemn fact that we who believe are the servants of a Master whom the world knows not, the messengers of a Kin…
727 wordsSECTION 35The Lord'S Power In The Disciple'S Life
[3] It is possible to render _logon xoee epechontes_, "serving as life (to the world)." But it is unlikely. See Philippians in _The Cambridge Greek Testament_, Appendix. [4] The aorists obviously are anticipatory; giving the review of the past as he will then make it. Cp. e.g. _kathos epegnosthen_, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. […
415 wordsSECTION 36Timotheus And Epaphroditus
"Puisse la meme foi qui consola leur vie Nous ouvrir les sentiers que leurs pas ont presses, Et, dirigeant nos pieds vers la sainte patrie Ou leur bonheur s'accroit de leurs travaux passes, Nous rendre ces objets de tendresse et d'envie Qui ne sont pas perdus, mais nous ont devances." A. VINET PHILIPPIANS ii. 19…
695 wordsSECTION 37Timotheus And Epaphroditus
Ver. 29. welcoming him back. +Receive him therefore in the Lord+, in all the union and sympathy due to your common share in Him, +with all gladness, and+ Ver. 30. +hold in high value such men as he is; because on account of Christ's work he was at death's very door,[11] playing+ as it were the +gambler with his life,[…
897 wordsSECTION 38Timotheus And Epaphroditus
What is the difference in quality and character between this extract and our present section of Philippians, or between it and many another passage in the Pauline Epistles? From one point of view, I repeat it, none--none that we either can, or should care to, affirm. Of the letters compared, one is as purely human as t…
826 wordsSECTION 39Timotheus And Epaphroditus
In a passage like the present therefore we feel the two elements or aspects, the human and the divine, each real and powerful, and both working in perfect harmony. The human is there, not in the least as a necessary element of error; rather as an element of delicate and beautiful truth, the truth of justest thought and…
909 wordsSECTION 40Timotheus And Epaphroditus
We close the section of Timotheus and Epaphroditus. We have given our main thought to the light which it throws upon the nature of the Scriptures, those blessed "men of our counsel." We have scarcely turned aside to think of the actual "men" of the passage; Timotheus, and his self-forgetting devotion to the Lord and to…
682 wordsSECTION 41Joy In The Lord And Its Preserving Power "That I May Know Him"
"One family we dwell in Him, One Church, above, beneath, Though now divided by the stream, The narrow stream of death. "One army of the living God To His command we bow; Part of His host hath cross'd the flood, And part is crossing now." C. WESLEY. O Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life; Grant …
716 wordsSECTION 42Joy In The Lord And Its Preserving Power "That I May Know Him"
It is conceivable that even yet, in the history of the Church, this phase of error may in some form assert itself again. We look in the future, it may be in the near future, for the keeping to the old Israel of promises which have never been revoked. We believe that Rom. xi. shall yet find its fulfilment, and that the …
659 wordsSECTION 43Joy In The Lord And Its Preserving Power "That I May Know Him"
Ver. 2. keep your eyes open upon (_blepete_), +the "dogs,"+ the men who would _excommunicate_ all who hold not with their half-Christian Pharisaism and its legal burthens, but who are themselves thus self-excluded from the covenant blessing. +Beware of the evil workmen+, the teachers whose watchword is "works, works, w…
722 wordsSECTION 44Joy In The Lord And Its Preserving Power "That I May Know Him"
Ver. 9. _anexichniaston_, Eph. iii. 8), +and be found+, at any and every "time of finding" (Ps. xxxii. 7, Heb.) by the Holy One, +in Him+, one with Him, in His precious merits and in His risen life, but now especially in His merits; +not having a righteousness of my own, that derived from the Law+, a title to acceptanc…
692 wordsSECTION 45Joy In The Lord And Its Preserving Power "That I May Know Him"
Let us "arm ourselves likewise with the same mind." We have countless perils about us in our modern Christendom, things which only too easily can trouble the reason and sway the will away from the one "hope set before us." Let us meet them, whatever else we do, with the Moravians' prayer. Let us meet them with obedienc…
798 wordsSECTION 46Joy In The Lord And Its Preserving Power "That I May Know Him"
[2] The words obviously may be rendered, "_Farewell_ in the Lord"; and so some take them, explaining that St Paul was intending to close immediately, and so wrote his "Adieu" here; but then changed his plan. This is very unlikely however. See below, iv. 4: _Chairete en Kurio pantote_. The "always" there scarcely suits …
666 wordsSECTION 47Christian Standing And Christian Progress
"We will dwell on Calvary's mountain Where the flocks of Zion feed, Oft resorting to that fountain Open'd when our Lord did bleed; Thence deriving Grace, and life, and holiness." _From the Moravian Hymn-book_. "I want that adorning divine Thou only, my God, can'st bestow; I want in those beautiful garments to …
718 wordsSECTION 48Christian Standing And Christian Progress
Then, "_we are confident_." If I traced the bearing of this clause aright, in the last chapter, we shall feel that the word _pepoithotes_ is meant to carry a _positive_ message. It is not only that "we do not rely on the flesh"; it is that "we are reliant, though not on the flesh." Even so, in the true idea of the Chri…
831 wordsSECTION 49Christian Standing And Christian Progress
Christ presents to us Himself (as we follow out this rich Philippian passage) as _all_ our Righteousness, in His precious justifying Merit, offered for the acceptance of the very simplest faith. And He presents Himself as _all_ our Power, for deliverance and for service, in His resurrection Life; coming to reveal Himse…
673 wordsSECTION 50Christian Standing And Christian Progress
Ver. 15. +us perfect ones+ (_hosoi oun teleioi_), with the perfection not of ideal attainment but of Christian maturity and entirety of experience, +be of this mind+; the "mind" of those who rest in Christ immoveably for their acceptance, and press forward in Christ unrestingly in their obedience, ever discovering fres…
741 wordsSECTION 51Christian Standing And Christian Progress
He has had a vision of absolute holiness which has completely guarded him from the delusion of thinking that he is himself absolutely holy, even in the fullest state of grace. He is so genuinely "perfect" in the sense of mature knowledge of his Lord that he is incapable of thinking himself "perfected." All the while, …
766 wordsSECTION 52Christian Standing And Christian Progress
[1] Dr H. Bonar. [2] _Heth o katelephthen_: grammatically we may render, "inasmuch as I was seized"; cp. the Greek of Rom. v. 12; 1 Cor. v. 4. But the connexion of thought seems to be best met by the above rendering, which is practically that of A.V. and R.V. [3] _Stephanos_, as in 1 Cor. ix. 25, Rev. iii. 11, and of…
275 wordsSECTION 53The Blessed Hope And Its Power
"We are waiting, we are yearning for Thy voice Through the long, long summer day and winter night; We are mourning till Thou bid'st our souls rejoice, Till Thy coming turns our darkness into light: Come, Lord Jesus, come again; We shall see Thee as Thou art, Then, and not till then, In Thy glory bear a part; Th…
770 wordsSECTION 54The Blessed Hope And Its Power
Ver. 17. +United imitators of me become ye, brethren+; taking me, your long-known guide in the Lord, for your moral pattern, and strengthening your mutual cohesion (_summimetai_) by so doing (an appeal prompted not by egotism or self-confidence, but by single-hearted certainty about my message and my purpose); +and mar…
784 wordsSECTION 55The Blessed Hope And Its Power
The whole passage now before us is strongly characteristic of the New Testament way of dealing with sin. In the first place, there is no lack of urgent and explicit warning. The moral and spiritual evil is labelled unmistakably. It is pointed out as a danger not hypothetical but actual; not floating in the air, but emb…
717 wordsSECTION 56The Blessed Hope And Its Power
Then let us cultivate this blessed secret. Let us prove the power of Christ loved and looked for. In a very special sense let St Paul teach us here to apply to our present needs the force of a heavenly future, the future of His coming, and of our meeting Him and being transfigured by Him. In many directions, in the Chu…
787 wordsSECTION 57The Blessed Hope And Its Power
As we draw to an end, let us take up the closing words of our paragraph, and read them as a special "lesson of faith." St Paul is telling us of a change yet to pass over us, over these our bodies, altogether inconceivable in kind and degree. They are to be "transfigured into conformity to the body of our Saviour's glor…
681 wordsSECTION 58The Blessed Hope And Its Power
"For Thou hast met our longings With words of golden tone, That we shall serve for ever Thyself, Thyself alone; "Shall serve Thee, and for ever, Oh hope most sure, most fair; The perfect love outpouring In perfect service there." [6] [1] _skopeite_: _skopein_ usually has reference to the attention which results…
352 wordsSECTION 59Purity And Peace In The Present Lord
"Now the Christians, O King, as men who know God, ask from Him petitions which are proper for Him to give and for them to receive; and thus they accomplish the course of their lives. And because they acknowledge the goodnesses of God towards them, lo! on account of them there flows forth the beauty that is in the world…
663 wordsSECTION 60Purity And Peace In The Present Lord
It is not guaranteed to us, I think, that we shall certainly be brought here on earth to perfect intellectual agreement by a realized union with Christ all round. Such agreement will certainly be promoted by such a realization; we all know how powerfully, in almost all matters outside number and figure, feeling can inf…
748 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.