“Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice” (Philippians 1:15-18 ESV).
This is one of those passages of Scripture that I, I admit, tend to want to skip over. Why? Because I find it particularly confusing, and it is open to much misinterpretation. Like I have these questions in my mind:
1. What does it mean to preach Christ from envy and rivalry?
2. What does it mean to preach Christ out of selfish ambition?
3. How will preaching the truth of the gospel afflict Paul?
4. What is to be gained by teaching the truth, but in pretense?
For truly these people, whoever they were, were teaching the literal truth of the gospel, not the lies that so many others were teaching. Paul makes that quite clear. For if they were teaching lies, he would say so, and he would not be okay with that. For he talked on that subject multiple times. So, what would be gained by preaching the truth in pretense, and how would that facilitate bringing injury to Paul?
When something doesn’t make sense to me, this is how I work it out, in prayer, and by asking myself these kinds of questions, and trusting the Lord to lead me to truth and to understanding.
Now I think that today this would have the opposite effect, for the truth that Paul taught is not what is gaining popularity among the people today, except for some parts of what he said, largely taken out of context and made to say what he did not say in context. So to answer these questions we may have to put ourselves more in the setting of Paul’s day and then look for how this can be applied to our lives today.
The main question I always struggle with whenever I read this passage is how could someone teaching the truth of the gospel, even with the wrong motives, cause injury to Paul? That is where I get stuck every time, even if I previously resolved it in my mind, because I forget, partly because I am old. So, I always have to revisit this question whenever I read this passage of Scripture. And please feel free to offer your thoughts on this subject.
Well, I can definitely see how, if they were teaching what Paul taught, and while he was in prison, but they were live and in person, they could draw people away from Paul and to themselves. They would have in person opportunities to demean Paul, to even lie about him, to injure his character, and to try to prove that they cared more about the people than he did. But for what reason? So they would have the people following them instead? Could be! So that people would listen to them and admire them? Sure!
That could be the total reason, couldn’t it? They could see that what Paul was teaching gained him a following, and they were jealous of his popularity, and so they thought if they just taught what he did that they could gain those followers for themselves, and they could possibly influence the people then to turn away from Paul. That is definitely plausible, and it is the only thing that makes sense to me. But could there be more to it?
In Today’s World
Now I am thinking in today’s world. What would be the motivation today for teaching or preaching what Paul taught, or what another Christian taught regarding what Paul taught, when that teaching is not what is gaining ground today? Not what he taught in context, anyway. For it is literally losing much ground. Like Paul said, some teach the truth sincerely, from good will, out of love, but others do so for selfish ambition, and out of envy and rivalry.
So, why? Well, we still do have a number of traditional Christians living today who still hold to the old time gospel which is outdated in our present society. So, if you were someone who wanted to deceive these people, they are not going to be easy to trick like maybe you might be able to trick those who don’t know the Scriptures well. And so you begin by teaching the truth, and then people think you are teaching the truth, but then little by little and very subtly you begin to trickle in little lies one by one.
And you find that if you sneak the lies cleverly into the truth, very carefully and slowly, most people don’t notice, and so you do more and more, and pretty soon those people who had held to the gospel of Paul have now been persuaded to following an altered gospel. And you know what? That is exactly what has taken place in the American church, and I have watched it happen one lie at a time. Little by little the lies were introduced and then accepted and then more and more lies were added on in the same way.
So, that would be a reason today to teach the gospel that Paul taught out of envy and rivalry and selfish ambition. It would be not only to gain followers to yourself, but also to deceive the people eventually into accepting the lies as the truth without them even noticing that this is what was happening to them. For I have watched how “sin” has been changed to “messed up,” and so the severity of it lessened to something not so bad. And I have watched as repentance has been changed to a mere confession of sin, and the list goes on and on. And what was is now something opposite of what it was.
So, please be people who study the Scriptures for yourselves, in context, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, and who do not rely on other humans to tell you the truth. Not saying you shouldn’t listen to other humans, but that we all should be testing what we hear and read and think we see against the truth of the Scriptures, in context, for not many people are telling the whole truth these days, and liars abound everywhere we look.
[Matthew 7:15-23; Matthew 24:11-14; John 10:1-15; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15; Philippians 3:2; 2 Peter 2:1-22; 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 1 Timothy 6:3-10; 2 Timothy 3:1-9; 1 John 4:1-6; Jude 1:1-25]
Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer
Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897
Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.
Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.
O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.
O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.
Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg
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