With wonderful self-surrender the Apostle thinks of his lack of
like-minded companions as being a reason for depriving himself of the
only like-minded one who was left with him. He felt that Timothy's
sympathetic soul would truly care for the Philippians' condition, and
would minister to it lovingly. He could rely that Timothy would have no
selfish by-ends to serve, but would seek the things of Jesus Christ. We
know too little of the circumstances of Paul's imprisonment to know how
he came to be thus lonely. In the other Epistles of the Captivity we
have mention of a considerable group of friends, many of whom would
certainly have been included in a list of the 'like-minded.' We hear,
for example, of Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, John Mark, Epaphras,
and Luke. What had become of them all we do not know. They were
evidently away on Christian service, somewhere or other, or some of them
perhaps had not yet arrived. At all events for some reason Paul was for
the time left alone but for Timothy. Not that there were no Christian
men in Rome, but of those who could have been sent on such an errand
there were none in whom love to Christ and care for His cause and flock
were strong enough to mark them as fit for it.
So then we have to take account of Paul's loneliness in addition to his
other sorrows, and we may well mark how calmly and uncomplainingly he
bears it. We are perpetually hearing complaints of isolation and the
difficulty of finding sympathy, or 'people who understand me.' That is
often the complaint of a morbid nature, or of one which has never given
itself the trouble of trying to 'understand' others, or of showing the
sympathy for which it says that it thirsts. And many of these
complaining spirits might take a lesson from the lonely Apostle. There
never was a man, except Paul's Master and ours, who cared more for human
sympathy, had his own heart fuller of it, and received less of it from
others than Paul. But he had discovered what it would be blessedness for
us all to lay to heart, that a man who has Christ for his companion can
do without others, and that a heart in which there whispers, 'Lo, I am
with you always,' can never be utterly solitary.
May we not take the further lesson that the sympathy which we should
chiefly desire is sympathy and fellow-service in Christian work? Paul
did not want like-minded people in order that he might have the luxury
of enjoying their sympathy, but what he wanted was allies in his work
for Christ. It was sympathy in his care for the Philippians that he
sought for in his messenger. And that is the noblest form of
like-mindedness that we can desire--some one to hold the ropes for us.
Note, too, that Paul does not weakly complain because he had no helpers.
Good and earnest men are very apt to say much about the half-hearted way
in which their brethren take up some cause in which they are eagerly
interested, and sometimes to abandon it altogether for that reason. May
not such faint hearts learn a lesson from him who had 'no man
like-minded,' and yet never dreamt of whimpering because of it, or of
flinging down his tools because of the indolence of his fellow-workers?
There is another point to be observed in the Apostle's words here. He
felt that their attitude to Christ determined his affinities with men.
He could have no deep and true fellowship with others, whatever their
name to live, who were daily 'seeking their own,' and at the same time
leaving unsought 'the things of Jesus Christ.' They who are not alike in
their deepest aims can have no real kindred. Must we not say that hosts
of so-called Christian people do not seem to feel, if one can judge by
the company they affect, that the deepest bond uniting men is that which
binds them to Jesus Christ? I would press the question, Do we feel that
nothing draws us so close to men as common love to Jesus, and that if we
are not alike on that cardinal point there is a deep gulf of separation
beneath a deceptive surface of union, an unfathomable gorge marked by a
quaking film of earth?
It is a solemn estimate of some professing Christians which the Apostle
gives here, if he is including the members of the Roman Church in his
judgment that they are not 'like-minded' with him, and are 'seeking
their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.' We may rather hope that he
is speaking of others around him, and that for some reason unknown to us
he was at the time secluded from the Roman Christians. He brings out
with unflinching precision the choice which determines a life. There is
always that terrible 'either--or.' To live for Christ is the antagonist,
and only antagonist of life for self. To live for self is death. To live
for Jesus is the only life. There are two centres, heliocentric and
geocentric as the scientists say. We can choose round which we shall
draw our orbit, and everything depends on the choice which we make. To
seek 'the things of Jesus Christ' is sure to lead to, and is the only
basis of, care for men. Religion is the parent of compassion, and if we
are looking for a man who will care truly for the state of others, we
must do as Paul did, look for him among those who 'seek the things of
Jesus Christ.'