Additional Notes §30
§30 Paul’s Sufficiency (Phil. 4:10–13)
Paul now comes to one of his main reasons for writing. If this note (4:10–20) was an integral part of the main letter, he has reserved it to the end to give it prominence—his expression of thanks for the gift that Epaphroditus had brought him from the Philippian church.
4:10 / I rejoice greatly in the Lord, meaning “I gave joyful thanks to the Lord” (when I received your gift). Paul is grateful to the Philippian Christians for the gift they have sent, but his rejoicing arises chiefly from the evidence it supplies of their continued eagerness to cooperate with him in the gospel.
Some commentators have found Paul’s wording here very oddly chosen for an expression of thanks: Dibelius speaks of his “thankless thanks.” But his words have to be read in the light of the deep mutual affection existing between him and the Philippian church and in the light of his well-attested financial policy.
The phrase at last might imply, if it stood by itself, that the Philippians had let an inordinately long time elapse since last they sent Paul a gift; but the context shows that no such reflection is intended. It is conceivable, indeed, that in the covering note they sent with this gift they said, “At last we are glad to send you a gift once more,” and that Paul takes them up and says, “At last, as you put it.…” But the long interval was probably due to Paul’s own policy in the matter of accepting gifts from his churches. He makes it plain that, if only now they have renewed their concern for him, it was not that there was any intermission in their care for him but rather that they had no opportunity to show it. And why not? Because Paul himself had deprived them of any such chance.
In Macedonia—especially in Thessalonica—and again in Corinth Paul had learned that, if he accepted material aid for himself from his converts, this was misrepresented by his detractors as evidence that he aimed to live at their expense. (These detractors in Thessalonica appear to have been outside the church; in Corinth they were inside.) Hence, perhaps, he had to request his converts not to send him money for his personal use. Moreover, when he earnestly began to organize the relief fund for the Jerusalem church, he was anxious that all available gifts from his churches should be channeled into that fund, and he knew that even so there were some people who would seize on any pretext to suggest that money intended for it was being diverted to his own pocket. The Macedonian churches, we know, had overstretched their resources in their generous giving to the relief fund (2 Cor. 8:1–5).
But now the relief fund had been completed and the money taken to Jerusalem. During his visit to Jerusalem with representatives of the contributing churches Paul was arrested and, having spent two years in custody in Caesarea, was now living under house arrest in Rome. His situation had changed: his friends in Philippi judged that now, at last, it was opportune to send him a gift once more, and they sent one by the hand of Epaphroditus.
4:11 / Paul greatly appreciated the Philippians’ kind thought, but he assures them that he had not been in need of support of this kind. His language may suggest the embarrassment felt by his independent and sensitive spirit at saying “Thank you” for a spontaneous gift even from such well-loved and loving friends as the Christians in Philippi.
Paul’s policy was not to live at the expense of his converts. He agreed that, like other apostles and Christian leaders, he was entitled to be supported by them, but he chose not to avail himself of this right (1 Cor. 9:12; 2 Thess. 3:9). He traveled light; his possessions were restricted to the clothes he wore and perhaps some tools of his trade and the few papyrus and parchment scrolls mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:13. He could survive on very little; in fact, he had schooled himself to do so. I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances, he says, supplying the words that John Bunyan expanded in the shepherd boy’s song:
I am content with that I have,
Little be it or much,
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because thou savest such.
Fullness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage:
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.
“Be content with what you have” (Heb. 13:5) seems to have been a general precept in the early church. This attitude is the opposite of covetousness, against which both Jesus (cf. Luke 12:15) and his disciples uttered solemn warnings, describing a “greedy person” as “an idolater” (Eph. 5:5).
The word rendered content (Gk. autarkēs) was current in Stoicism to denote the ideal of the totally self-sufficient person. Paul uses it to express his independence of external circumstances. He was constantly conscious of his total dependence on God. He was not so much self-sufficient as “God-sufficient”: “Our competence comes from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).
4:12 / Paul had had long experience of having less than sufficient at some times and more than sufficient at other times: it made little difference to him. I have learned the secret of being content, he says, borrowing a term from the vocabulary of the mystery religions (“I have become adept” is F. W. Beare’s rendering), whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. What Paul would have regarded as plenty may be guessed at—anything above the minimum requirements of food and clothing, no doubt. For a man brought up in Paul’s environment, his conversion meant an initiation into a new way of life. One could not be a citizen of Tarsus without possessing substantial means. But for the sake of Christ Paul had “lost all things” (3:8), including (we may be sure) his material heritage; he learned henceforth to live on what he could earn by his part-time “tentmaking” (cf. 1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:8; Acts 18:3; 20:34).
4:13 / He takes no credit to himself for having learned this lesson of contentment: it is thanks to his “enabler” that he can do everything through him who gives him strength. It was, indeed, when he was most conscious of personal weakness that he was most conscious of the power of Christ resting on him. “For Christ’s sake, I delight,” he says, “in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9, 10).
4:10 / I rejoice: the aorist echarēn (“I rejoiced”) refers back to the moment of Paul’s receiving the gift, but his joy persists into the present.
At last: Gk. ēdē pote. See J. H. Michael, “The First and Second Epistles to the Philippians,” ExpT 34 (1922–23), pp. 106–9, for the view that Paul here quotes their words. See also pp. 15–16 above.
You have renewed your concern for me: Gk. anethalete to hyper emou phronein, lit., “you flourished again (intransitive) with regard to your thought for me” or “you caused your thought for me to flourish again” (transitive). This is the only NT instance of anathallein (or indeed of thallein or any compound of it).
You had no opportunity: Gk. ēkaireisthe, imperfect of akaireisthai, “to lack kairos (opportunity)”; this is the only occurrence of this rare verb in the Greek Bible.
4:11 / To be content whatever the circumstances: Gk. en hois eimi autarkēs einai. The Stoic emphasis on autarkeia in the sense of self-sufficiency goes back to Socrates who, when asked who was the wealthiest person, replied, “The one who is content with least, for contentment (autarkeia) is nature’s wealth” (Stobaeus, Florilegium 5.43). On Paul’s natural independence of spirit and outlook see C. H. Dodd, “The Mind of Paul, I” in New Testament Studies, pp. 71–73.
4:12 / A rhythmical pattern has been detected in vv. 12 and 13, but here at least it is not to be explained in terms of a quotation from some other source.
I have learned the secret: Gk. memyēmai, “I have been initiated” (from the root my in this verb myein is derived mystērion, “mystery”).
4:13 / Who gives me strength: lit., “in my strengthener (enabler)” (Gk. en tō endynamounti me), i.e., Christ. With this use of the present participle of endynamoun cf. the aorist participle in 1 Tim. 1:12, “I thank my strengthener (tō endynamōsanti me, ‘him who empowered me’), Christ Jesus our Lord.”