Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Philippians 1:12-18.
“But I would ye should understand,
brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto
the furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians 1:12).
Paul writes his epistle to the
saints at Philippi while in bonds,
literally in chains. As now, such circumstances did not typically win friends and
influence people in that day. Paul had been slandered, attacked, beaten, and
imprisoned throughout his ministry as an apostle.
He had survived death by stoning at
Lystra (Acts 14:19-20). He fled Thessalonica “by night” after being threatened
(Acts 17:10). He was nearly torn limb from limb in the temple in Jerusalem as
the mob cried out, “This is the man,
that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this
place” (Acts 21:28). Forty Jews took a vow not to eat or drink till he was assassinated
(Acts 23:12-13). Transferred to Caesarea, a Jewish orator named Tertullus
accused him before the Roman governor Felix of being “a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among
all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the
Nazarenes” (Acts 25:5). Appealing his case to Caesar, Paul was sent to Rome
under the guard of a Roman centurion named Julius (Acts 27:1). The ship was
wrecked in a storm, and Paul made it to shore clinging to the wreckage (27:44).
As the survivors built a fire, a poisonous snake came out from the wood pile
and bit the apostle on the hand. He shook the snake off into the fire and
miraculously persevered. Eventually he came to Rome and was kept a prisoner for
two years. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 Paul provides a list of many of the things
he had endured as an apostle.
When
Paul said in Galatians 6:17, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,”
he was not speaking metaphorically.
Paul’s
statement in Philippians 1:12 comes in the context of his “lived experience.”
He begins, “But I would ye should understand, brethren….” He wants them to
understand his circumstances with Christian discernment. He calls them his
brethren. They are together part of the family of God.
He
declares that the things which have “fallen out” (taken place in his life in
the providence of God; the verb means to loosen or unravel) for him have
transpired for the furtherance [advance] of the gospel [here: the proclamation
of the good news of what God has done for us in Christ].
As
I read this passage it took me back to Genesis 50:20: “ye thought evil against
me, but God meant it unto good.”
It
also recalls Paul’s great declaration in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to his purpose.”
Just
as God had allowed Joseph’s suffering to save many from physical famine in Egypt,
God had allowed Paul’s suffering so that he might preach the gospel to many in
Rome and save them from spiritual famine. This included some in the Roman
palace (1:13) and even in “Caesar’s household” (4:22).
This
is the way believers look at their circumstances whether filled with “smiling”
or “frowning” providences. God is making things “fall out” for his own glory and
the good of his people, for the furtherance of the gospel.
Grace
and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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