Introduction to Philippians

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Introduction to Philippians
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Introduction This is the most personal of all of
Pauls letters with the possible exception of
Philemon.
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Authorship It is safe to say that the vast
majority of those who study the NT today will be
certain that Paul was responsible for Philippians.
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The City and Church

• Its background- Philipi was already a very old
  and historic city when Paul visited there. He
  visited on his second missionary journey.
• Pauls visit- Remember that Paul came to Philipi
  as a result of a vision that he had while he was
  in Troas.

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Critical questions

• Unity of the letter- there have been some who
  have argued that the letter is a composite of
  several letters that have been stitched together.
  This is as a result of
• Arguments against unity
• Arguments in favor of unity

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• Place of writing-before it is possible to assign
  a date to the letter one must decide from where
  it was written. This is a difficult question,
  but several factors help us in the quest
• Known factors

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• Proposed places of writing
• Rome- Rome not only meets most of the above
  criteria, but it is the oldest and most widely
  held view.
• Ephesus- Modern scholarship has suggested that
  Ephesus was the place where Paul wrote this
  letter.
• Caesarea- the objections are more serious, but
  not strong enough to totally eliminate Caesarea
  from consideration.

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• Opponents in Philipi- These should probably not
  be understood as a single group of people, but as
  several groups.
• One group opposed Paul himself. These were
  fellow Christians, Paul calls them brothers in
  114-15. They may have been Judiaizers who
  taught not only the need for faith in Christ, but
  the need for keeping the law.
• The second group were much different. They had
  apparently threatened the Philippians and made
  them afraid while trying to undermine the gospel.
  (126-27).

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Important theological themes in Philippians

• Christology-
• Slavery- In 11 Paul calls himself a slave of
  Christ and by implication indicates that we are
  to be slaves of Christ.
• The theme of Joy- this runs throughout the book.
  The noun joy occurs five times and the verb to
  rejoice nine times in this short letter.