|
Scripture
3I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
*Philippians 1.3-8 (ESV)
Wisdom Saying
Christian brotherhood and sisterhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer,Life Together
Comments
St. Paul speaks of "your partnership in the gospel" and "you are all partakers with me." He had founded this church at Philippi. The church was the first we know of in Europe. He left Philippi, persecuted by the citizenship there. But he, afterward, enjoyed an intimate relationship with the little church there. This entailed financial help from them and their sending one of their own to assist Paul.
"Your partnership" is Greek koinonia. This derives, it appears, from the preposition soon, "with."
"Partakers" is Greek sugkoinonos. The substantive derives from combination of soon and koinonos~of the same root as koinonia. "Partakers" is "comrades with" or "partakers with."
|
|
St. Paul shows affection for the Philippian church, saying, "... I hold you in my heart [kardia, the seat of spiritual life]" and "... I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus." "Affection" is Greek for "bowells," the bowells viewed as the seat of tender affection. But more than his bowells, he yearns for the church with the "bowells of Christ Jesus." This love for the Philippian church is through his matured union with the love of Jesus Christ.
There is a deep withness the Church is called to share among its members. I am not speaking of a church or churches, but the Church. I am speaking of the mystical Body of Christ.
Persons who are members of a church or of a Christianity, but not participants and partakers in the mystical Church, cannot live the deep withness, for this is nothing other than a mystical union of souls in and with the Triune God.
This sharing of tender affections is not a sentimental love; rather, this affection is the Love of Christ Jesus. This Love is by Grace. Such Love forms Itself within a person through a daily, moment-by-moment, koinonia with the Christ.
John Wesley (18th Century), in his sermon "On Living without God," indeed, draws a parallel between those who are practical atheists but who do not confess Christ Jesus and those who confess Him and, yet, live without Him. When he speaks of those living without God in the world, based on Ephesians 2.12, he affirms "... such as are a vast majority of even those who are called Christians!"
But what is this Christian who is truly Christian?~indeed, possibly, speaking of Christian rather than a Christian or Christians is best, though the true Christian aspires and lives as Christian. This Christian who is Christian, truly is one dying to the self-sense. This is not to annihilate the self but to know the true self through the drowning of self in spiritual baptism and its spiritual resurrection, or rebirth as the universal, organic Body of Christ Jesus.
Continued... |
