Over the past several Sundays, we have been working through a sermon series on Paul’s letter to the early church in Philippi—a now ruined city in north east Greece. As we’ve worked through this series (which we are concluding today), we’ve seen how this little letter is overflowing with faith, love, and gratitude in and for our risen Lord Jesus, despite having been written by Paul at time when things were really not going well for him, seeing as he was in one of his various imprisonments.
Whilst imprisonment (regardless of time and place) was and is a deeply distressing experience (and something I’m sure I can’t even begin to imagine), imprisonment under the Roman Empire had the added complexity that if one wanted to eat or drink (or stay alive!) whilst imprisoned, friends and loved ones had to actually go to the prison themselves to bring provisions for the prisoner. The Empire did not provide their prisoners with anything, thus, the church in Philippi (upon hearing of Paul’s imprisonment) took matters into their own hands and sent one of their own (a man named Epaphroditus) hundreds of miles with money to make sure their friend and teacher, Paul, would survive his imprisonment.
And so, here we have the main impetus for Paul sending this letter to the Philippians at this moment in time: to say… thank you! But Paul being Paul (a man who is nothing if not verbose!) wasn’t just going to send them a simple thank you note. No. He, of course, was also going to send them encouragement and teaching, to help them in their continued journey of trying to live out faith in Jesus at a time when to do so was not only (still) completely novel, but also considered illegal.
In the Mediterranean world of the first century CE, Stoicism was one of the most influential (if not the most influential) philosophical thought systems, offering an all-embracing vision of a united and divine world order in which humans could participate through their inner rationality. This inner rationality was seen as a kind of “divine spark” within all creation, including humans. And so, because Stoicism taught that humans were a part of “the divinity” (so to speak), it was not inconsistent within this worldview to see a powerful ruler (especially one who embodied cosmic order) as being divine. Consequently, a cult of worship eventually developed around the Roman Emperors and their families, and, by Paul’s time, it had become obligatory to participate in this cult within the bounds of the Empire.
That being said, the only group that had official sanction to not participate in this Imperial Cult were the Jews—that’s how important the land of Judaea was to the Empire! So whilst many early Jesus followers (including Paul) considered themselves to still be following the Jewish faith (in light of the belief in Jesus as being the fulfilment of the Hebrew Scriptures), many within the Jewish establishment (like the Pharisees) considered the Jesus followers as deeply other, thus leaving the early Jesus followers in this religious and legal no mans land. As such, the fact that the early Jesus followers around the Mediterranean managed to persevere (managed to continue in their existence) despite having no real allies around them, suggests something very important. The kind of “power” (the kind of strength, the kind of hope) they would have needed to have kept going must have come from outwith themselves; it must have come from God! How else could they have managed to get through such difficulty and continue living the Good News of Jesus?
It is this idea (that God’s “power” infills us and strengthens us in the midst of life's trials) that Paul speaks to in the passages we've heard today. And as we bring this sermon series on Philippians to a close, I'd like to spend the rest of our time today unpacking this idea, to help us make sense of Philippians as a whole.
When I was about 13 or 14 years old (I can’t really remember exactly when), my mother (over the course of several weeks) sat me down, at various points, in the living room to listen to and take notes on the audio book "Grit" by Angela Duckworth, which has the subtitle, “Why passion and resilience are the secrets to success.” Now, I don’t know for certain why she felt her early-secondary-school-aged daughter (who already had crippling anxiety telling her to “do more” and “do better”) needed to listen to a book aimed at business professionals trying to understand how to sustain long-term success and high performance. But what I do know about my experience of listening to "Grit" is that it only made me feel more convinced that my anxiety was telling me nothing but the truth.
Much like many other books in the self-help genre, the author's thesis is essentially that one must cultivate grit within themselves (must build an innate power source, so to speak) in order to do the hard things of life and to succeed—by our modern standards, anyway. The thing was, though, if such innate “power” (such grit) already did exist within me, listening to this book just left me feeling that I must not have enough (or any) of this “power”, since surly my mother wouldn’t have had me listening to this book if she though I was gritty enough already, right?
Now I tell you this story because I believe it highlights just how much Stoicism (yes, that Stoicism of the first century CE) has managed wriggle itself back into being one of (if not) the most influential philosophical thought systems of our 21st century world. Let me show you!
Famed 1st century CE Stoic philosopher, Seneca, writes in his Moral Letter 91, Section 8: “Exile, illness, war, shipwreck—we must keep these possibilities in mind. Fortune may cast you out of your homeland, or tear your homeland away from you; […] Let us set before our eyes the full scope of the human condition. If we do not want to be shaken or stunned by misfortunes when they come—as though they were something unheard of—we must anticipate them in advance […]. Only by confronting fortune in its entirety can we hope to endure it.”
Now it might seem odd for Seneca to be recommending that one (for their own good) reflect on the worst possible scenarios that might happen to them. But within the internal logic of Stoicism, as Seneca implies at the end of this quote, how one gets through life’s challenges is by pre-thinking about how one would responded in said worst possible scenarios to essentially build a reserve of resilience (or a reserve “power”) within themselves. This doesn’t sound all that dissimilar to what the book Grit was advocating, does it…?
In both the passages of Scripture that we heard read this morning, Paul (as the author of both) highlights to the fellow early Jesus followers that he’s writing to that, rather than relying on a “power” within themselves to overcome life’s challenges (such as being imprisoned, like Paul is in the letter to the Philippians), they ought to rely on the “power” of God infilling them for perseverance. Let's look at the relevant verses from the passages together: Philippians 4:13 and 2 Corinthians 4:7.
In the Philippians verse, Paul writes he can do all things through Christ who empowers him (or gives him strength) (endynamóo), and in the 2 Corinthians verse, he speaks of the power (dynamis) of God within us humans, who are like fragile clay jars. These words share the same root—the word for power in Greek (dynamis)—and together, they remind us that our ability to endure and overcome all life throws at us doesn't come from some innate store of “power” (or grit) within ourselves, but from God's “power” which is at work within and through us.
This message of Paul’s (to rely on God's “power” rather than on our own resilience) is just as radical in our 21st century world as it would have been in the 1st century CE. Just as much now as then, Paul’s teaching here in these verses is a direct reversal of Stoicism’s emphasis on one’s strength coming through internal stores of grit.
Considering the book Grit made it to number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list (and is frankly not that dissimilar in message to much of the rest of the self-help genre), I can’t have been the only one who’s anxiety was left more elevated after encountering this book as compared to before it. But as Paul says earlier on in our Philippians 4 passage for today, verses 6–7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
As Paul conveys here to us, his ability to be at peace despite his imprisonment (his ability to not be filled with worry and anxiety despite his situation) comes through him continuing to stay in a posture of openness to God—by staying plugged into the outlet of God like lamp, so to speak.
Considering how many members of our present day highly secularised society are deeply struggling with anxiety and depression, I can’t help but wonder if at least part of the antidote to this could come from learning of the power source outwith human kind that would love to be able to work in and through all of us.
And whilst I’m not saying that the Christian walk will automatically offer one freedom from all anxiety and depression (gosh, do I really wish it did!), what it can offer, though, is a resource for when the anxiety and depression is starting to bubble up within us. The contentment (the peace) Paul seemingly has in his imprisonment, that we see communicated by him throughout the entire letter to the Philippians, very likely won’t have come on immediately in the act of being thrown into a jail cell! Of course not! He was human after all, and probably feeling deeply panicked, as the cell door slam behind him! But what having a posture of openness to our all-loving and sacrificial God can offer us in our scariest and most heart-wrenching moments is a divine “power” (a strength, a peace, a hope) coming from outwith ourselves to infill us.
What a mercy it is that we don’t have to muster the “power” (or the grit) within ourselves to keep going when things are at their most difficult! I love the analogy Paul uses in 2 Corinthians, that we humans are like fragile jars of clay, because so often we humans are just so breakable and vulnerable (and on the verge of shattering into a thousand little pieces, whether physically and/or emotionally). But despite how actually vulnerable Paul was sitting in a Roman jail cell (without food or drink, other than what was brought to him by his friends), here he is deeply at peace with his situation, despite the fact that things weren’t looking pretty good for him.
So as we close this series on Philippians, may we remember that our strength is not something we have to conjure up from within ourselves, but (rather) is a gift we receive from a God, who wants nothing more than to infill us. May we live not as people trying to prove ourselves resilient, but as those who are held, sustained, and empowered by God—like fragile clay jars filled with divine strength. Let us stay open to this “power”, and let it carry us together, through whatever may possibly be thrown our way.
