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12 friends have opened a study shared with them.
At the end of every school year, I always looked forward to getting the yearbook. The first thing I did was turn to the back, find my name, and see what pages had photos about me. After I saw those, I'd read through the rest of it. But when I read the final verses of Philippians, I didn't see how it related to me.
Philippians 4:21-23
Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers and sisters who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
Before I understood the centrality of friendship to the Christian life, these simple greetings seemed irrelevant. I preferred the more "important" doctrine in the middle of the letter. But now I see that what I skimmed is most important. In a church where Euodia and Syntyche are at odds, the last thing Paul wants to do is end the letter by naming his favorites. Instead he says, "greet every saint." He wants the messengers who carry his letter to say hello to each individual member of the church on his behalf. It's a small detail that reveals Paul's concern for everyone, whether or not they are influential or wealthy. At the start of his letter, Paul includes Timothy in the opening verse. As he closes the letter out, he includes all of the brothers and sisters who are with him. He writes to a community from within a community. He's embedded in relationships. Everyone knows Caesar has imprisoned Paul to stop him from spreading the gospel. But ironically, members of Caesar's household are now "saints" who send their love to the church in Philippi. For Christians who call Jesus "Lord" in a Roman colony that swears allegiance to Caesar, this offers hope. Because he's seeing his imprisonment advance the gospel at the center of the empire, Paul can be confident that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord (2:10-11). When I flew to Cape Town for the 2010 Lausanne Congress, I only knew a few other people who were going. I felt anxious as I walked into the convention center, surrounded by thousands of strangers. I wondered how I would fit in, hearing people from nearly every nation talking in dozens of different languages. But by the end of the week, I had learned that we all valued each other as brothers and sisters. There were no strangers, only family members we hadn't talked to yet. Paul's life, relationships, and knowledge of God are all wrapped in grace. He starts Philippians with "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1:2). He ends it with "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit" (4:23). It's not a principle or a program, but a person who loves us. Grace is Jesus being gracious. We know grace best when we receive God's gift in our spirits. When Paul wrote his letter, he didn't try to fill it with his own name. Instead, he wanted to put everyone else's name in it. The same grace that changed a self-important Pharisee, loyal servants of Caesar, and a divided church in Philippi is offered to us.
Why do you think Paul gives relationships and grace the last word?
What does it tell you about Jesus that members of Caesar's household wanted to send greetings to their brothers and sisters in Philippi?
What's one way you treat following Jesus as something you do by yourself?
This Sunday, talk to two people you normally wouldn't. Learn their name, ask them a sincere question, and offer them one sentence of sincere encouragement.
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