(September 18, 2017) 9:56 AM So here’s my penultimate rendering of Phil. 1:27-30.
Now the only thing that really matters is that you make it your habit to live as good citizens of heaven in a manner required by the Good News about Christ, so that, whether or not I’m able to go and see you in person or remain absent, I will be hearing that all of you, like soldiers on a battlefield, are standing shoulder to shoulder and working as one team to help people put their trust in the Good News. Don’t allow your enemies to terrify you in any way. Your boldness in the midst of opposition will be a clear sign to them that they will be destroyed and that you will be saved, because it’s God who gives you salvation. For God has granted you the privilege on behalf of Christ of not only believing in Him but also suffering for Him. Now it’s your turn to take part with me in the life-or-death battle I’m fighting — the same battle you saw me fighting in Philippi and, as you hear, the one I’m fighting now.
For a long time I struggled with what to do with Paul’s “striving together [Greek sunathlountes] in one soul for the faith of the Gospel.” Many commentators insisted that Paul was using an athletic metaphor here, one dealing especially with teamwork. But did the ancient Greeks have what we know as “team sports” similar to our basketball, volleyball, and football? Indeed they did. One such team sport was akin to our modern-day rugby. Another resembled field hockey. The Greeks loved sports. They felt that it distinguished them from non-Greeks.
Verbal aspect … civic, military, and athletic metaphors … objective genitives … all make for an interest paragraph, don’t you think? Please understand that Paul is not a military hawk, even though he uses military metaphors. We overcome evil not with evil but with good. We “love our enemies to death” says Fee, and he’s right. We are literally offering the “life-giving message” (2:16) to those who are dying.
Next up: Perhaps the greatest description of Christian unity in the New Testament (2:1-4).