Epistle to the Philippians Book

	General Introduction
	Preface
	Bibliography
	Abbreviations
	Introduction
	Philippi and Paul's mission
	The place and date of writing
	The situation giving rise to the letter
1	Paul's own situation
2	The situation and needs of the church
	The contents and structure of the letter
1	Philippians as a letter
2	Philippians as an example of rhetoric
3	Analysis by content
	Philippians - one letter or several fragments?
	Commentary
1.1-2	Opening greeting	1
1.1a	The writer	1
1.1b	The readers	2
	The use of 'In Christ' in Philippians	3
1.2	The greeting	4
	A sermon in a greeting	5
1.3-11	Opening prayer-report	6
1.1-8	Paul gives thanks for the church	7
	Making prayer more concrete	7
	Joy in Philippians	8
	Fellowship in Philippians	9
	The nearness of the day of the Lord	12
	The Christian mind	13
	Love in the church	15
1.9-11	Paul's prayer for the church	15
	Judgment and discernment	16
	The paradox of grace	18
1.12-26	Paul's own situation and prospects	19
1.12-14	The positive effects of Paul's imprisonment	20
1.15-18a	Two kinds of evangelist	22
	A word to preachers	23
1.18b-20	Paul's confidence for the future	24
1.21-26	Life and death with Christ	27
	Salvation or service?	29
	Death and the Christian	32
1.27-2.18	Appeal for unity and humility within the church	34
1.27-30	Unity and opposition	34
	Unity in the church	35
	Onward, Christian soldiers?	37
2.1-4	Love in the church	41
	Incentives to Christian unity	41
	Keeping the church leaders happy	43
	Unity and diversity in the congregation	44
	Humility and service	46
2.5-11	The example and lordship of Christ	47
	The significance of the 'hymn'	58
2.12-18	The outworking of salvation in the life of the church	59
	Obedience in the church	60
	The work of God and the work of the believer	62
	Seeing things from a long-term perspective	65
	The life of the church	66
2.19-30	Future visits to Philippi by Paul and his colleagues	67
2.19-24	Timothy's planned visit to Philippi	68
	Human plans and God's will	70
2.25-30	Epaphroditus' return to Philippi	70
	Epaphroditus	74
3.1-4.1	Warning against Judaizers	75
	The Judaizers and the preacher today	76
3.1-11	Two sources of confidence	77
	Pride	82
	Christ the only Saviour	91
	The cruciform life	94
3.12-16	Christian maturity	94
	Christian perfection	98
3.17-4.1	Two ways of life	99
	The place of example	100
	The problem of nominal Christians	100
	The problem of final judgment	102
	The resurrection of the body	104
4.2-9	Practical instructions for life in the church	107
4.2-3	Unity between quarrelling Christians	108
	Women in the church	110
4.4	Joy in the Lord	111
4.5	Sweet reasonableness	111
4.6-7	Prayer drives away anxiety and care	112
4.8-9	The Christian's thoughts	114
	Divine blessings	116
4.10-20	Thanks for a gift to Paul	118
	Christian giving	123
4.21-23	Closing greetings	124
	Finally, my friends	125