'Now I would have you know, brethren, that the
things which happened unto me have fallen out
rather unto the progress of the gospel; 13. So
that my bonds became manifest in Christ throughout
the whole prætorian guard, and to all the rest;
14. And that most of the brethren in the Lord,
being confident through my bonds, are more
abundantly bold to speak the word of God without
fear. 15. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy
and strife; and some also of good will: 16. The
one do it of love, knowing that I am set for the
defence of the gospel: 17. But the other proclaim
Christ of faction, not sincerely, thinking to
raise up affliction for me in my bonds. 18. What
then? only that in every way, whether in pretence
or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and therein I
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. 19. For I know
that this shall turn to my salvation, through your
supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus
Christ. 20. According to my earnest expectation
and hope, that in nothing shall I be put to shame,
but that with all boldness, as always, so now also
Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by
life or by death.'--PHIL. i. 12-20 (R.V.)
Paul's writings are full of autobiography, that is partly owing to
temperament, partly to the profound interpenetration of his whole
nature with his religion. His theology was but the generalisation of his
experience. He has felt and verified all that he has to say. But the
personal experiences of this sunny letter to his favourite church have a
character all their own. In that atmosphere of untroubled love and
sympathy a shyer heart than Paul's would have opened: his does so in
tenderness, gladness, and trust. We have here the unveiling of his
inmost self in response to what he knew would be an eager desire for
news of his welfare. This whole section appears to me to be a wonderful
revelation of his prison thoughts, an example of what we may call the
ennobling power of a passionate enthusiasm for Christ. Remember that he
is a prisoner, shut out from his life's work, waiting to be tried before
Nero, whose reign had probably, by this time, passed from its delusive
morning of dewy promise to its lurid noon. The present and the future
were dark for him, and yet in spite of them all comes forth this burst
of undaunted courage and noble gladness. We simply follow the course of
the words as they lie, and we find in them,
I. An absorbing purpose which bends all circumstances to its service and
values them only as instruments.
The things which happened unto me; that is Paul's minimising euphemism
for the grim realities of imprisonment, or perhaps for some recent
ominous turns in his circumstances. To him they are not worth dwelling
on further, nor is their personal incidence worth taking into account;
the only thing which is important is to say how these things have
affected his life's work. It is enough for him, and he believes that it
will be enough even for his loving friends at Philippi to know that,
instead of their being as they might have feared, and as he sometimes
when he was faithless expected, hindrances to his work, they have turned
out rather to 'the furtherance of the gospel.' Whether he has been
comfortable or not is a matter of very small importance, the main thing
is that Christ's work has been helped, and then he goes on to tell two
ways in which his imprisonment had conduced to this end.
'My bonds became manifest in Christ.' It has been clearly shown why I
was a prisoner; all the Prætorian guard had learned what Paul was there
for. We know from Acts that he was 'suffered to abide by himself with
the soldier that kept him.' He has no word to say of the torture of
compulsory association, night and day, with the rude legionaries, or of
the horrors of such a presence in his sweetest, sacredest moments of
communion with his Lord. These are all swallowed up in the thought as
they were in the fact, that each new guard as he came to sit there
beside Paul was a new hearer, and that by this time he must have told
the story of Christ and His love to nearly the whole corps. That is a
grand and wonderful picture of passionate earnestness and absorbed
concentration in one pursuit. Something of the same sort is in all
pursuits, the condition of success and the sure result of real interest.
We have all to be specialists if we would succeed in any calling. The
river that spreads wide flows slow, and if it is to have a scour in its
current it must be kept between high banks. We have to bring ourselves
to a point and to see that the point is red-hot if we mean to bore with
it. If our limitations are simply enforced by circumstances, they may be
maiming, but if they come of clear insight and free choice of worthy
ends, they are noble. The artist, the scholar, the craftsman, all need
to take for their motto 'This one thing I do.' I suppose that a man
would not be able to make a good button unless he confined himself to
button-making. We see round us abundant examples of men who, for
material aims and almost instinctively, use all circumstances for one
end and appraise them according to their relations to that, and they are
quoted as successful, and held up to young souls as patterns to be
imitated. Yes! But what about the man who does the same in regard to
Christ and His work? Is he thought of as an example to be imitated or as
a warning to be avoided? Is not the very same concentration when applied
to Christian work and living thought to be fanatical, which is welcomed
with universal applause when it is directed to lower pursuits? The
contrast of our eager absorption in worldly things and of the ease with
which any fluttering butterfly can draw us away from the path which
leads us to God, ought to bring a blush to all cheeks and penitence to
all hearts. There was no more obligation on Paul to look at the
circumstances of his life thus than there is on every Christian to do
so. We do not desire that all should be apostles, but the Apostle's
temper and way of looking at 'the things which happened unto' him should
be our way of looking at the things which happen unto us. We shall
estimate them rightly, and as God estimates them, only when we estimate
them according to their power to serve our souls and to further Christ's
kingdom.