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The resurrection scenes in Luke are profound and memorable. They build slowly toward a resounding climax. Luke 24 consists of three interlocking narratives: 1) 24:1-12 Women Find an Empty Tomb, 2) 24:13-35 Two Men Encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus, 3) 24 36-49 Jesus Appears to the Eleven. Let’s begin with some observations on Luke 24:1-12–

NRS Luke 24:1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

In the opening scene (Luke 24:1-12), a group of women including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James go to the burial place of Jesus early on the 1st day of the week (they had rested on Sabbath (23:56) and discover that Jesus’ body is gone. They are suddenly joined by two angelic beings (24:4). The angels say (24:5a-8):

NRS Luke 24:5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words…

These verses affirm several key elements about the resurrection:

1) It was a bodily resurrection. The tomb was empty. This is affirmed across the NT. To deny a bodily resurrection in favor of a spiritual resurrection is to move outside of the biblical evidence. This part of Luke’s narrative makes little sense if Jesus’ body was present at the tomb.

2) In verses 5-8, there is the beginning of a pattern (24:5-8, 25-26, 44-49) in which Jesus’ earlier words are recounted (e.g., 9:22). What happened to Jesus should not have been a surprise. It was God’s plan to which Jesus willingly submitted for Jesus to suffer and die and be raised on the third day. It becomes a central element of early Christian teaching to move toward a Christocentric reading strategy for Scripture. In other words, God’s actions through Jesus becomes the key to understanding the overall movement and message of the Scriptures. A crucial learning for us today is that this reading is not only messianic but also missional. The good news about Jesus must be shared with the nations. A key Scriptural pattern emerges: an encounter with the Risen Messiah (or a hearing of its reality) becomes an commissioning for announcing this Good News for others.

3) Resurrection creates the Church as a missional movement. The women in this story shift from mourners taking spices to the tomb to proclaimers of the Resurrection Story. This group of women (only the two Mary’s and Joanna are named) become the initial witnesses and servants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Profoundly in the 1st century, the testimony of women was not valid in a court of law. Thus, the first witnesses to the Resurrection come from the margins of society. God entrusted the Gospel to a band of marginalized women to become his initial preachers. Mission is the shared stewardship of all followers of Jesus the Messiah. Notice the implication for preaching here: proclamation is the sharing of testimony. The women experienced the resurrection of Jesus - now they have a message to announce.

4) The proclamation of the Resurrection is received with skepticism (24:11). This is worth pondering. Sometimes we think that the ancients were gullible and believed anything. Resurrection is an anti-intuitive and supraexperiential claim. Dead men and women are not raised. Bodies do not disappear from tombs except at the hands of robbers. Yet because of the witness of these women Peter responds by running to the tomb to check it out for himself (24:12).

How do you respond to the testimony of these women?

© 2007 Brian D. Russell (Rev 2009 and 2010)

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Gospels, Luke, Mission, New Testament, Preaching, calling, church, early church, missional church, missional leadership, missional reading, missionary, resurrection by brian
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Here is a draft of an essay trying to answer this question: What is a Missional Hermeneutic? (Updates 9/7/2010)

A missional hermeneutic (MH) is an interpretive approach that privileges mission as the key to reading the Scriptures. MH works across the spectrum of approaches to the biblical text. It takes seriously the historical situation of the text (“behind the text”). It recognizes the influence of the reader’s social location (“in front of the text”). Yet it is fundamentally rooted in a close reading of the text (“the world of the text”). MH seeks to hear the Scriptures as an authoritative guide to God’s mission in the world so that communities of faith can participate fully in God’s mission.

At the 2008 meeting of AAR/SBL, George R. Hunsberger (“Proposals for a Missional Hermeneutic: Mapping the Conversation”) reviewed current proposals on missional hermeneutics and organized them into four categories: The Missional Direction of the Story, The Missional Locatedness of the Readers, The Missional Engagement with Cultures, and The Missional Purpose of the Writings. I have adopted Hunsberger’s categories for the purposes of this essay.

The Missional Direction of the Story

A missional hermeneutic recognizes that the biblical canon tells the story of God’s mission (missio dei) in and for creation. The story of God’s mission can be summarized as Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus the Messiah, Church, and New Creation.

The Bible opens with the creation of the heavens and earth by God. The human community is crafted in God’s image as the pinnacle of God’s handiwork. Men and women function equally as the image of God for the sake of the rest of Creation. From the beginning, humanity was created for God’s missional purposes to represent God before Creation by reflecting God’s character in community with God, with one another, and with the world.

Genesis 3-11 function in the story to explain the fundamental problem in the world. The “very good” Creation of Genesis 1-2 is shattered by human sinfulness. Sin infests every human person and institution as well as fractures creation itself. The stories and genealogies of Gen 3-11 describe the world in which we find ourselves this side of God’s New Creation. Yet in the midst of the chaos of sin and brokenness, Gen 3-11 presents a God who does more than pass the expected judgment—the God of the Scriptures begins to act to redeem a fallen world.

In Genesis 12, God calls a new humanity into being with a series of promises to Abram and his descendents. This people exist to serve as the agents of God’s blessings for the nations (Gen 12:3). The narrative of God’s new humanity runs uninterrupted through the Protestant canon from Gen 12 – Esther. God’s new humanity becomes the nation of Israel. It is decisively shaped through God’s liberation of Israel from Egyptian bondage and through the forging of a covenant at Sinai. Israel’s deliverance from Egypt is purposeful and is undertaken for the sake of the world. At Sinai, Israel is called to serve as God’s missional people, a holy community for the nations (Exod 19:4-6). The remaining books of the Pentateuch establish a polity for God’s people as they prepare to live faithfully in the Promised Land as a witness to the nations. Joshua to Esther narrate the potential and pitfalls of God’s people living in Canaan including the devastation of the Exile due to disobedience and the resilience of God’s faithful love shown through God’s restoration of Judah from Exile.

A large portion of the Old Testament is not set within a narrative framework. How do the Psalms, the Wisdom Literature, and the Prophets fit in the story?

The book of Psalms serves as the prayer and worship book for God’s people. The psalms reverberate with themes of God’s reign over the nations. Through lament, thanksgiving, and praise, the psalms encourage an expansive vision of the worship of God that ultimately climaxes in the concluding exhortation: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! (150:6). The psalms root God’s people in a vital worshipping relationship with the Lord, the Creator of the World and Deliverer of Israel.
Israel’s Wisdom traditions serve God’s story by offering serious reflection on the God’s creation and the good life. Wisdom deals with questions that engage all of humanity. Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs have much in common with the wisdom of Israel’s neighbors. Wisdom is interested in navigating successfully through life. Since God created all that is, the wise can observe life astutely and deduce principles for living in God’s world. This focus on the human side of life makes it easy to connect Israel’s wisdom to culture. Yet, Israel’s unique contribution to the lore of the ancients is profoundly missional: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov 1:7). The implication is this: careful attention to the human condition may prepare persons for the truth about God (cf. Ecc 12:12-14).

The Prophets (Isaiah – Malachi) contribute to the Israel’s story in three ways. First, Israel’s prophets continually call God’s people back to their roots as a missional community that embodies God’s holiness before the nations. The Prophets take Israel to task for failing to live as God’s people. Second, the Prophets maintain an international focus. The God of Israel is the Lord of the nations and as such the prophets speak words of both judgment and salvation to the nations. Provocatively Jonah audaciously announces God’s love for even the most committed opponents of God’s people. Last, the Prophets envision a new future work of God’s salvation (e.g., Jer 31:31-34, etc.).

It is against the backdrop of Israel’s Scriptures that Jesus the Messiah enters the story. Jesus lives as the ultimate human being who fulfills in his life, death, and resurrection God’s Creational intentions for humanity and everything that God had envisioned for Israel as God’s new humanity. Jesus’ death is for the totality of the Fall and his resurrection declares the ultimate victory of God. The Gospels narrate Jesus’ life and ministry to teach future generations of disciples what it means to follow Jesus. The core of Jesus’ message is the announcement of the arrival of God’s kingdom and his call to realign our lives in light of this reality (Matt 4:17, Mark 1:15 cf. Luke 4:16-21).

In the aftermath of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the Risen Jesus sends out the Church to announce and extends God’s salvation to the nations. The Church is unleashed in the power of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament witnesses to the spread of the Gospel across the 1st century Mediterranean world. The Scriptural story goes forth from the land of Israel to the nations in fulfillment of the Israel’s mission. The New Testament epistles serve as teaching documents for fledgling missional communities around the Mediterranean world.

The Scriptural story ends with Revelation’s portrait of God’s future New Creation (Rev 20-21).
Learning to understand the big story of the Scriptures is more than a descriptive task. The story of the Scriptures seeks to convert its readers/hearers to its perspective. The Scriptural story invites its readers to understand their lives as part of its narrative.

The Missional Locatedness of the Readers
An interpreter’s social location serves a crucial role in the reading process. It may provide a fresh perspective for reading a text or it may distort a text’s meaning. Michael Barram (“The Bible, mission, and social location: Toward a missional hermeneutic.” Interpretation 61 (2007): 42-58) has argued that readers must locate themselves in mission. The biblical texts were written in a missional context. Participating in God’s mission enables contemporary readers to find common ground with the ancient text’s perspective.

Moreover, engaging in missional activity in the world creates new questions with which to engage the Bible and is crucial for learning to hear the text for both church and world. A practitioner of MH learns to listen to a text on behalf of the people to whom s/he serves as a witness. Missional engagement unleashes the interpreter to read a text through the eyes both of Christ followers and of unreached persons. The wise interpreter learns through missional praxis the sorts of questions that an outsider to the faith may raise when hearing a biblical text. Thus, the practice of reading the Bible from a missional locatedness trains us to read and hear the Scripture from contested spheres in the marketplace and not only in the realm of the sanctuary where we “preach to the choir.”

The Missional Engagement with Cultures
A third line of inquiry in the field of MH is the manner in which the biblical materials themselves model engagement with culture. We gain new insights about 21st century incarnational ministry by studying the ways in which biblical texts communicate to their context. For example, how do the Creation stories of Genesis engage and subvert the dominant worldviews of Israel’s neighbors? How do the similarities between the narrative structure of Exodus 15:1b-18 and the Baal Epic serve to promote Israel’s understanding of reality to their Canaanite context? How does Paul use existing modes of communication in the Greco-Roman world to enhance the persuasiveness of his writing?

The Missional Purpose of the Writings

MH recognizes that the Scriptures exist to convert and shape their hearers. Most of us have been trained to read the Bible as the basis for doctrine and individual piety. MH reminds us that Scripture is concerned with shaping communities of God’s people into outposts for the advancement of the Gospel.

Darrell Guder has been on the forefront of emphasizing this aspect. He writes concerning the New Testament documents (“Missional Pastors in Maintenance Churches” Catalyst: Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives for United Methodist Seminarians 31.3 (2005): 4.):

… NT communities were all founded in order to continue the apostolic witness that brought them into being. Every NT congregation understood itself under the mandate of our Lord at his ascension: “You shall be my witnesses.” …To that end, the NT documents were all, in some way, written to continue the process of formation for that kind of witness. They intended the continuing conversion of these communities to their calling—and that is how the Spirit used (and still uses!) these written testimonies.

Thus, we need to ask specifically how each text was intended to form God’s people into a missional community. Moreover this is not merely a NT perspective. As shown above, the thread of mission runs across the biblical canon. Both OT and NT texts can be read profitably in terms of how they seek to form the people of God for the sake of God’s mission to all Creation.

In his recent essay “Prophet to the Nations: Missional Reflections on the Book of Jeremiah,” Christopher Wright raised a related question: What does this text teach about the missional cost to the messenger?

Wright expands the dimension of a biblical text’s teaching. Wright shows that the book of Jeremiah explicitly displays the personal cost to the prophet of participation in God’s mission. Raising the issue of missional cost is crucial as we seek to create a missional ethos in our congregations.

The Potential of a Missional Hermeneutic for Preachers and Teachers

1) MH provides a context and direction for preaching/teaching. Learning to read discrete texts within the grand narrative of God’s mission as described in Scripture provides a crucial angle for communicating the Gospel. The interpreter recognizes that every text in the Bible helps to shape the people of God to serve as a missional community that embodies the character of God in/to/for the world.

In preparation for preaching and teaching, ask questions such as these:
How does this text help us to understand God’s mission in the world?
How do we need to change in order to live out this text corporately and individually?
How does this passage serve as an invitation to the world to join God’s mission?
What kind of persons does this text call us to become?

2) MH connects worship explicitly with life in the world by establishing a missional ethos for the community of faith. Learning to read the Scriptures through MH keeps God’s mission on the front burner for all aspects of the community. Most profoundly it keeps the worship of the Triune God grounded in God’s missional intentions for humanity and all creation. Biblical worship at its core is profoundly missional. The aim of God’s mission is worship. Humanity was created to serve as God’s missional community before creation. As God’s new humanity, the Church worships as a bold and daring testimony to the world of the greatness of God and as an invitation to unreached persons to become part of God’s new humanity for the sake of the world.

3) MH establishes a new framework for learning. As communities of faith struggle to break the grips of the paradigm of serving as inward-focused dispensers of religious goods and services to serving as outposts for the sake of God’s Kingdom, MH provides a different outcome for learning. “Christian education” is no longer merely learning facts about the stories of the Scriptures or grasping the basics of the historical creeds of the church. The goal of learning in the Church now becomes a constant conversion to the message of Scripture so that each disciple can be shaped into the sort of person that s/he needs to become in order to participate fully in God’s mission in the world. All learning can now be set in the context of the missional reality of the 21st century Church.

Suggested Reading:
Barram, Michael. “The Bible, mission, and social location: Toward a missional hermeneutic.” Interpretation 61 (2007): 42-58.

Bauckham, Richard. The Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004.

Beeby, Harry D. Canon and Mission. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999.

Bosch, David J. “Towards a Hermeneutic for ‘Biblical Studies and Mission’” Mission Studies 3.2 (1986): 65-79.

Brownson, James. Speaking the Truth in Love: New Testament Resources for a Missional Hermeneutic. Christian Mission and Modern Culture. Continuum, 1998.

Guder, Darrell C. (ed). Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Gospel and Culture Network. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.

Guder, Darrell C. “Missional Pastors in Maintenance Churches” Catalyst: Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives for United Methodist Seminarians 31.3 (2005): 4.

Hunsberger, George R. “Proposals for a Missional Hermeneutic: Mapping the Conversation” Gospel and Our Culture Network Newsletter eseries 2 (2009): cn.org/resources/newsletters/2009/01/gospel-and-our-culture

Russell, Brian D. “Missional Hermeneutics” http://realmealministries.org/WordPress/?page_id=753

Wright, Christopher J.H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006.

Here is the link to the published form of the essay “What is a Missional Hermeneutic?”

Brian D. Russell (Ph.D.) is Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary-Florida Dunnam Campus and a John Wesley Fellow. He is currently writing a book on missional hermeneutics that will be published in late 2010 by Wipf and Stock.

Tags: Biblical Studies, Creation, Exodus, Genesis, Gospels, Hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, biblical theology, church, early church, ecclesiology, education, emerging church, ethos, humanity, imago dei, learning, metanarrative, missional church, missional hermeneutic, missional leadership, missional reading, world mission, world religion, worldview by brian
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Philippians 3:17-21 serves to summarize 2:1-3:16 with a chiastic arrangement to remind the Philippians of his three examples.

3: 17a Be imitators of me (cf. 3:1-16)
Lessons from 3:1-16

1) Prioritizing our relationship with Jesus the Messiah as ultimate value/source of ultimate wealth (3:7-11) vs. a life based on confidence in our flesh (3:1-6). Give God our main thing so that it can become His thing.

2) Pursuing Christ diligently in the present (3:12-14) vs. Focus on the past.

3) Confidence that God honors this sort of life by uniting the community around the pursuit of Christ.

3:17b Observe those who walk/live according to our example (cf. 2:19-30)

Lessons from 2:19-30

1) Genuinely care for others (2:20).

2) Focus on the affairs of Jesus Christ vs. Self-focus (2:21)

3) Served for the Gospel (2:22)

4) Willing to serve to the point of death (2:27)

3:20-21 Citizens of heaven/Savior/Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 1:27-2:18)
Lessons from 2:1-18

1) Non-exploitation of status/rights/privileges (2:6)

2) Willingness to embrace servant/slave status for the sake of the Gospel (2:7)

3) Extent of obedience = willingness to die the death of a slave on the cross (2:8)

Bottom Line teaching: The status we embrace establishes the limits of our capacity to reach others with the Gospel.

© 2009 Brian D. Russell

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Leadership, Mission, New Testament, Paul, Philippians, early church, missional church, missional reading, missionary by brian
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Paul draws together 1:27-3:21 with a final exhortation in 4:1: “Therefore my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, this is how you are to continue to stand (firm) in the LORD, my beloved!”

This statement serves well to conclude Paul’s instruction to live as citizens (of heaven vs. citizens of the Empire) worthy of the Gospel.

1) Reinforces Paul’s deep relational ties with the Philippians Christ followers. This has been evident from the opening prayer (1:3-11), but Paul piles on the descriptive terms to express his love and admiration for the Philippians. Missional lesson: any rebuke or correction implicit in Paul’s exhortation must be understood in light of the relationship of love and commitment to the furtherance of the Gospel that Paul and the Philippian Christians share.

2) Paul makes it clear that his instructions are of an ongoing nature. The verb “stand” or “stand firm” is a present imperative in the original Greek. The sense of the present here is durative or continuous action. Paul has been describing an ongoing way of life for the Philippians to embody as they seek to serve as a missional community in Philippi.

3) The language of “standing” or “standing firm” ties 4:1 directly to the opening general exhortation in 1:27. In 1:27, Paul expects that an outcome of “living as citizens of heaven worthy of the Gospel” will be the Christ followers “standing firm in one spirit, contending together for the Gospel…” Thus, 4:1 is another frame around 1:27-4:1. It also reinforces the missional ends of Paul’s rhetoric. The Gospel must be proclaim in Philippi through the witness of the Christ following community there. Despite the opposition present, they must stand firm by modeling their lives after the examples of Jesus the Messiah, Timothy, Epaphroditus, and Paul.

4) 1:27-4:1 then serves to describe the manner by which the Christ followers in Philippi were to live as citizens of heaven worthy of the Gospel. 4:2ff then presents a final series of exhortations based on the foundation created in 1:27-4:1.

© 2009 Brian D. Russell

Tags: Biblical Studies, Hermeneutics, Leadership, Mission, New Testament, Paul, Philippians, early church, missional church, missional reading by brian
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The status we embrace establishes the limits of our ability to reach others with the Gospel.

In Philippians 1:27, Paul has exhorted the Christ followers in Philippi to embrace a different sort of status in the world. He writes: “Only live as citizens [of heaven] worthy of the gospel of Messiah.” The use of citizen is intentional. Many of the Philippians would have been Roman citizens, i.e., privileged persons in the Roman empire. This was an exalted status particularly in the provinces.

Paul uses the metaphor of citizenship to frame the central section of Philippians (1:27-4:1). In 3:20, he boldly reminds the Philippians “our citizenship is in heaven.” This metaphor is not a call to abandon the earth but rather it is a poignant critic of the tension of living in the world without being of it. It is a call to establish one’s priorities not on any privileges rooted in the Empire but rather based on the ethos of God’s kingdom.

What does it mean to embrace the ethos of God’s kingdom? Paul uses the next three segments to offer tangible examples of living as citizens of heaven: the model of Messiah Jesus (2:1-18), the model of Paul’s coworkers Timothy and Epaphroditus (2:19-30), and the model of Paul himself (3:1-16). Paul then sums up his argument (3:17-21) and offers a concluding exhortation (4:1).

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection serve as the paragon for citizenship of heaven. The Christ Hymn (2:5-11) must be read in the context of 1:27. In essence it is about a willingness to embrace whatever status was necessary for the mission of God. Profoundly, 2:6 describes the pre-incarnate Jesus as equal to God and of like form. In other words, Jesus by virtual of his nature enjoyed all of the rights, power, and prerogatives of divinity. Yet, he did not consider this equality something to be grasped, i.e., something to be held onto selfishly or perhaps better he did not consider equality with God something to be exploited for his own interests. Instead, Jesus took on the form of a slave (doulos) – this is the same title that Paul assigned to himself and Timothy in 1:1. A slave was the lowest strata of Roman society-a far cry from the high status of Roman citizen. Moreover Jesus embraced this status to the extend that he accepted death even death on a cross. What was the extent of Jesus’ willingness to embrace a low status? He was willing to die the sort of death that the Romans reserved only for slaves and traitors.

The status that we embrace sets the limit of our ability to reach others with the Gospel.

Paul offers the Jesus as the model of this. How will we respond? What would our communities of faith look like if we embraced this ethos fully? How would our individual lives be different?

© 2009 Brian D. Russell

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Mission, New Testament, Paul, Philippians, calling, church, early church, emerging church, ethos, kingdom of heaven, missional church, missional leadership, missional reading by brian
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The central argument of Philippians is found in 1:27-4:1. This section may be outlined as follows:

I. Living Worthily as Citizens of Heaven/Gospel (1:27-4:1)
A. Exhortation: Live as Citizens of Gospel/Heaven (1:27-30)
1. Standing Firm (1:27-28)
2. Sharing Christ’s (and Paul’s ) suffering (1:29-30)

B. Example One: Imitation of Christ (2:1-18)
1. The Mind of Christ (2:1-5)
2. The Humiliation and Exaltation of Jesus Christ (2:6-11)
3. Exhortation to live in response to Jesus (2:12-18)

C. Example Two: Imitation of Paul’s Coworkers (2:19-30)
1. Timothy’s Example (2:19-24)
2. Epaphroditus’s Example (2:25-27)
3. Exhortation to welcome Paul’s Co-workers in Philippi (2:28-30)

D. Example Three: Imitation of Paul (3:1-21)
1. Warning: Confidence in the Flesh– 3:1-6
2. The Way: Confidence in Knowing Jesus Christ (3:7-16)
3. Exhortation to follow the preceding examples (3:17-21)

E. Conclusion – General Exhortation to Continue Standing Firm – 4:1

1:27a is the overarching general exhortation that controls 1:27-4:1. Its translation in English is ambiguous:

NASB Philippians 1:27 Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ;

NIV Philippians 1:27 Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

NRSV Philippians 1:27 Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ,

NKJV Philippians 1:27 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ,

NLT Philippians 1:27 Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.

Only the NLT (which tends to be very dynamic in its translation) captures the literal sense of the Greek language. The main verb in the 1:27a is an imperative that means “live as a citizen.” Its noun cognate is found in 3:20 “our citizenship is in heaven.” In Paul’s other writings, he uses the Greek work (peripateo) meaning “walk/live” (1 Thes 2:12; Col 1:10; Eph 4:1) in similar expressions.

Why does he use this particular exhortation “Live as citizens of the Gospel of Christ” in Philippians?
1) The missiological setting of Philippi set the stage for this vocabulary. Philippi was a Roman colonial city. Many of its residents (presumably including some the Christ followers) enjoyed Roman citizenship. This was a significant and important status in the Empire. Paul captures a meaningful word for Roman citizens and deploys it skillfully to call the Christians of Philippi to embrace a different sort of status and citizenship. A fundamental insight in 1:27-4:1 is this: the status that one embraces sets the limits of one’s capacity to reach others with the Gospel. Roman citizenship is a set of privileges that one enjoys and is able to exploit for his or her own benefit. Gospel citizenship is a privileged relationship with God that unleashes one to lay aside personal benefits for the sake of God’s mission and for the good of others. It is worth pondering and reflecting on Paul’s word selection. What are some images/metaphors/phrases that can we subverted and refilled with Gospel content in our contemporary settings.

2) Paul is clear that this is the key command in his letter. Most of our English translations begin v. 27 with “only.” The idea here is this: pay attention to this one thing or only one thing. In other words, if the Philippians can embody this one exhortation, they will be living well. This is emphasized by the framing use of “our citizenship exists in heaven” (3:20). Paul begins and ends this large block of teaching with a reference to citizenship. Paul is challenging the Philippians to rethink their notion of citizenship with its privileges in the Empire and embrace to new citizenship with Kingdom of God as God’s missional people in the world.

3) The nuance of the imperative “live as citizens of the Gospel of Christ” is an ongoing action. We may capture this by translating the clause “live continually of the Gospel of Christ.” Paul is stressing that this calling is a moment by moment existence. It is not a one time or occasional activity. It is the essence of being a Christ follower in Philippi.

4) The goal is missional. The purpose for Paul’s command is so that Paul will hear about the Philippian’s Gospel shaped actions (1:27b-28). The principal witness according to Paul will be the Philippians “standing unified (“in one spirit”) contending for the Gospel without being intimidated by foes. The stress on unity as a witness will weigh heavily in Paul’s subsequent argument. The people of God present a corporate witness to the world that is vital and powerful.

5) Paul does not shy away from the reality of suffering and hardship due to the Gospel for the Philippian Christ followers (29-30). He talks about suffering as a given in the same way that their believing is a given (29). This is not suffering in general or suffering due to ill chosen actions. The suffering Paul is describing is suffering because they are allied with Jesus the Messiah. Paul’s initial entry into Philippi stirred up quite the opposition (Acts 16:16-40). The Philippians Christ followers are now experiencing similar troubles as Paul. If Paul’s current troubles were with the Empire (1:12-26), it may be that the Philippians were running into conflict with Roman citizens in Philippi who honored the Emperor alone as Lord. The confession “Jesus the Messiah is LORD” (2:9-10) is a bold and daring one in the context of an Empire that crushed all opposition. To have an allegiance above the state is risky.

To be continued…

© 2009 Brian D. Russell

Tags: Biblical Studies, Mission, New Testament, Paul, Philippians, church, commentary, early church, emerging church, missional church, missional hermeneutic, missional reading, missionary by brian
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