Additional Notes §2
§2 Introductory Thanksgiving (Phil. 1:3–6)
The prescript of Paul’s letters is regularly followed by an introductory thanksgiving. Galatians is an exception: there was little cause for thanksgiving in the current situation of the Galatian churches. The priority Paul normally gave to thanksgiving is made explicit in Rom. 1:8: “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you.” The present thanksgiving reflects “Paul’s sense of close fellowship with his Philippian friends” and is “unusually earnest” (O’Brien, p. 19). As elsewhere, Paul’s giving of thanks is closely interwoven with prayer.
1:3 / The indicative I thank is used also in the introductory thanksgiving of Romans 1:8; 1 Corinthians 1:4; 2 Tim. 1:3; Philemon 4 (the plural “we thank” in Col. 1:3; 1 Thess. 1:2; “we ought … to thank” in 2 Thess. 1:3). In 2 Corinthians 1:3 and Ephesians 1:3 (as also in 1 Pet. 1:3) we have the more liturgical form “Praise be to [lit., ‘Blessed be’] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The very thought of his Christian friends in Philippi and other places gives Paul cause for gratitude to God.
1:4 / Paul’s introductory thanksgiving is repeatedly linked with the assurance of his constant prayer for the friends to whom he writes (cf. Rom. 1:9; Eph. 1:16; 1 Thess. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:3; Philem. 4). One gets the impression that he could never think of them without praying for them; but over and above that, he prayed for them regularly and systematically both as individuals and as churches.
It is not certain whether the words in all my prayers for all of you should go closely with the following clause (as in NIV) or with the preceding clause I thank my God … for you, in which case they would stand in parallel construction with every time I remember you. The repetition of all and every time/always (one and the same root in Greek) is noteworthy; it is a characteristic feature of Paul’s style throughout his correspondence and not least in this letter. There are four occurrences in verses 3 and 4, which could be brought out in the rendering: “I thank my God for you in all my remembrance of you at all times in all my prayer for you all.”
His statement that he prays for them all with joy introduces a recurring note in this letter (cf. 1:18, 22; 2:2, 17, 18, 28, 29; 3:1; 4:1, 4, 10). In contrast to many of his other churches, the Philippian church gave Paul almost unmixed joy as he contemplated it. Evidently it harbored neither such subversive teaching as had earlier found its way into the churches of Galatia nor such ethical libertinism as was defended by some members of the Corinthian church.
1:5 / What calls forth his grateful joy more particularly here is the energetic wholeheartedness with which the Philippian Christians had cooperated with him in the gospel since first he visited their city. While he was with them several of them had “contended at my side in the cause of the gospel” (4:3) and after his departure they continued their active witness. They prayed for him regularly (v. 19); they maintained contact with him through messengers like Epaphroditus (2:25–30); they sent him gifts as opportunity offered—indeed, one of Paul’s reasons for sending them this letter was to thank them for a gift that Epaphroditus had brought from them; here he briefly anticipates his fuller acknowledgement of it in 4:10–20. They participated generously in the Jerusalem relief fund that he organized in his Gentile mission field during the closing years of his Aegean ministry: in 2 Corinthians 8:1–5 he gives warm commendation to the liberal giving of the Macedonian churches (among which the Philippian church, of course, was included).
The fact that their cooperation in the gospel had continued without intermission until now suggests that nothing was happening among the Philippian Christians to cause Paul serious disquiet.
1:6 / Their eager partnership in Paul’s gospel ministry was a sure sign of the work of grace that had begun to be accomplished in their lives when they first believed the saving message. Paul voices his conviction that he who began a good work in them, will carry it on (cf. 2:13) until it reaches its consummation at the advent of Christ. Similarly in 1 Thessalonians 5:24, after praying that the readers may be preserved “blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul and his companions affirm, “The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.” Salvation is God’s work from first to last; therefore, where it has truly been inaugurated, it will certainly be completed.
The day of Christ Jesus, called “the day of Christ” in verse 10 and in 2:16, is the time of Christ’s expected appearing in glory (cf. 3:20). The expression is taken over from the OT “day of the LORD”—the day when Yahweh, the God of Israel, would vindicate his righteous cause and put down all injustice, wherever it might be found, first and foremost among his own people (cf. Amos 5:18–20). But now, by divine investment, “Jesus Christ is Lord” in the most august sense that the word can bear (2:11); the day of the LORD is therefore the day of Christ Jesus. In a Christian context it is the day when the lives and actions of the people of Christ will be assessed. Each believer’s “work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light” (1 Cor. 3:13); therefore, final judgment must “wait till the Lord comes” and must not be anticipated by those whose knowledge of the unseen motives and personal circumstances of others is at best imperfect (1 Cor. 4:5). Above all, the day of Christ Jesus is the time when the salvation of believers, already inaugurated, will be consummated. Like their Thessalonian brothers and sisters, the Christians of Philippi had learned “to wait for his [God’s] Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead” (1 Thess. 1:10), and to rejoice in the “hope of salvation” because they had been chosen not to endure the divine retribution to be visited on the ungodly at the end time but “to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:8, 9). For believers, then, that day would be light and not darkness (by contrast with the warning of Amos 5:20 that to some it would bring “darkness, not light”).
1:3 / On introductory thanksgivings in Paul’s letters see P. Schubert, Form and Function of the Pauline Thanksgivings, and P. T. O’Brien, Introductory Thanksgivings in the Letters of Paul. Such thanksgivings have been identified in papyrus letters of the same general period: “Paul was therefore adhering to a beautiful secular custom when he so frequently began his letters with thanks to God” (A. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, p. 181, n. 5).
The verb here is eucharisteō (as in Rom. 1:8; 1 Cor. 1:4; Philem. 4); cf. eucharistoumen in Col. 1:3; 1 Thess. 1:2; eucharistein opheilomen in 2 Thess. 1:3; charin echō in 2 Tim. 1:3; eulogētos ho theos in 2 Cor. 1:3; Eph. 1:3.
The words every time I remember you (Gk. epi pasē tē mneia hymōn) might be rendered “every time you remember me” (if hymōn is subjective, not objective, genitive); cf. Moffatt: “for all your remembrance of me.” P. T. O’Brien thinks it “best to understand the phrase as a reference to the Philippians’ remembrance of Paul by means of their monetary support on several earlier occasions” (Introductory Thanksgivings, p. 23). If this is maintained, then Paul mentions three reasons for this thanksgiving: their remembrance of him, their continuous partnership in the work of the gospel (v. 5), and his confidence that this good work will be carried on to the end (v. 6). On the other hand, in every other place where Paul refers to “remembrance” (mneia) in his introductory thanksgivings, it is he who remembers the readers (Rom. 1:9; Eph. 1:16; 1 Thess. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:3; Philem. 4). In the only other occurrence of mneia in his letters it is indeed his readers’ remembrance of him that is meant, but not in an introductory thanksgiving (1 Thess. 3:6).
1:5 / The clause because of your partnership is literally rendered “because of your participation (koinōnia).” It understands “participation” in an active sense, of the Philippians’ sharing in Paul’s gospel ministry, and this is certainly right. However, H. Seesemann, Der Begriff Koinōnia im Neuen Testament, pp. 73f., 79, argues for a more passive sense, of the participation of believers in the saving blessings of the gospel: “your participation in the gospel” is thus a circumlocution for “your faith.”