Faithfulness Despite Suffering: A Sermon on Philippians 2:19-30

My church is going through Philippians at the moment and I was asked to preach on Philippians 2:19-30. (I will also be preaching on most of Philippians 3 (the exact passage evades my memory at the moment), but not until the end of the month/beginning of December.) When preparing for the sermon, I noticed that a few scholars suggest that all was not entirely well with Epaphroditus and so I sought to play around with that, leading me to the plausible, however unlikely, conclusion that Epaphroditus’s near death could have been a failed suicide attempt. None of the commentaries I looked at suggested this possibility, though I’d be interested to know if anyone else has floated the idea. And please note I do not argue for the possibility, though I might, if I can pluck up the courage to do so, write a brief article on it. Anyway . . . enjoy!

Matthew 5:1-12; Philippians 2:19-30

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Today’s New Testament reading from Philippians isn’t terribly exciting, is it? When Nick told me which passage I’d be preaching from, I must admit I was rather underwhelmed. This part of Philippians sounds a little like a Christmas letter—you know, the sort of letter you send with a Christmas card to people you haven’t seen for a while telling them news they probably don’t want to hear: ‘Tarquin has had a good year: he opened his ninth corned beef processing plant, this time in Greenland, and his boils have finally cleared up.’ Not very exciting at all, really. So what can we do with a Bible passage like today’s one from Philippians?

First of all, let’s remind ourselves that Paul’s letter to the Philippians . . . is a letter written by Paul to the believers at Philippi! It was written by a particular person to a particular group of people in a particular place at a particular time. It is not surprising that occasionally there are names and situations hinted at in the letter that mean almost nothing to us. It’s like we’re listening in on matters that don’t concern us. As a result, it’s tempting to think that today’s passage has nothing to say to us: in a world where Covid-19 has the upper hand, in a country where children are going without meals and people are losing jobs, in a situation where so many are struggling with physical and mental and emotional health, it’s tempting to think that a passage like this one from Philippians has nothing relevant or important to say to us.

Well, that’s the temptation. But if we truly believe that ‘all Scripture is God-breathed’ (2 Tim. 3:16 niv), as Paul writes elsewhere, then we probably shouldn’t rush through today’s passage to skip to the good bits. And actually, there’s a lot we can say about this part of Philippians.

Let’s begin at the surface level of the passage. As we know, Paul is writing from prison to the believers in Philippi. In his letter, he notifies the believers about his intention to send a man called Timothy to them. Timothy is like Paul’s son: he thinks the same way as Paul and has the same love for the Lord Jesus: he is therefore the perfect person to go ahead of Paul and represent him to the congregation. And as they have already met Timothy, the Philippians know that what Paul writes here is true. Paul needs Timothy to run a few more errands for him, but Timothy will leave for Philippi as soon as he is ready.

And what of Epaphroditus? Epaphroditus was a Philippian believer sent to work alongside Paul in his ministry. Epaphroditus became seriously ill at some point—so ill, Paul notes, that he almost died. It seems Epaphroditus is now well on the way to recovery but needs to rest back home in Philippi. Paul wants the Philippians to know that despite his illness, Epaphroditus did all he needed to do. The believers at Philippi should therefore welcome Epaphroditus back with open arms.

This is the surface level of the passage: all well and good, but still not very exciting. But what happens if we dig a little deeper and make connections with other Bible passages or tease out possible implications of the words Paul uses? What lies buried just beneath the surface of Philippians 2?

Let’s look first at Timothy. Paul doesn’t say too much about Timothy in his letter to the Philippians other than Timothy shares Paul’s vision and passion for the gospel of Jesus. But other Bible passages do say more about him. The book of Acts, for example, notes that Timothy is of mixed heritage: his mother is a believing Jew and his father is Greek (Acts 16:1-3). It’s quite possible that Timothy might have grown up in a household with religious tensions, tensions which may have affected the way he handles conflict as an adult. And elsewhere, in Paul’s first letter to Timothy, we can infer that Timothy is a young man (1 Tim. 4:12), possibly in his early-to-mid 30s, and that he had recurring stomach problems (1 Tim. 5:23). We don’t know precisely what these problems were, but I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t see these as aggravated or even caused by the stresses of his adult ministry. Perhaps Timothy suffered from irritable bowel syndrome! But even if Timothy’s delicate constitution wasn’t affected too much by stress and his ability to handle it, we are nonetheless left with the impression that he was a young man with some obvious physical health issues.

And what of Epaphroditus? We know Epaphroditus was so sick he almost died, but Paul doesn’t say anything else about this other than God had mercy on Epaphroditus and, by extension, on Paul himself. But it’s possible that Epaphroditus had some serious mental and/or emotional health issues. Notice the words Paul uses: Epaphroditus ‘has been longing for all of you’—perhaps no more than a bout of homesickness; but coupled with the word ‘distressed’ in verse twenty-six and his apparent concern with what the folks back home were thinking, I think it’s quite possible to hold that Epaphroditus’s poor health had led him into depression, or even that the illness itself was depression and that his near death could have been a failed suicide attempt. We just don’t know. But Paul commends Epaphroditus all the same: he doesn’t write Epaphroditus off as a failure, but instead is concerned that he should be received with joy and honour.

So when we dig just beneath the surface of this part of Philippians 2, we see that Paul is commending two people who haven’t had it easy despite being faithful Christians and being involved in Christian ministry. Timothy is perhaps prone to stress-related illnesses; Epaphroditus perhaps struggles with depression or other kinds of mental health or emotional health issues. And as someone who has been on anti-depressants for years and who has often been disillusioned by his experiences of Christian ministry, I find Paul’s attitude here fairly encouraging. Paul neither hinders Timothy from doing his ministerial duties nor abandons Epaphroditus or puts him down when things get on top of him. Instead, Paul praises them both despite their troubles and holds each up as a role model for Christians at all times and in all places, including for us today. And why is this? It’s because by remaining faithful through suffering, Timothy and Epaphroditus are actively following in the steps of the Lord Jesus Christ who himself remained faithful to his Father even at the cost of his own life. Timothy and Epaphroditus aren’t role models because they are successful, living-the-victory Christians; rather, Paul holds them up as role models because they are ordinary Christians faithfully serving an extraordinary God—and more than this, an extraordinary God who knows in and through Jesus precisely what it means to be an ordinary and suffering human person.

Today happens to be All Saints’ Day, the day when the Church remembers anyone who has lived and died as a faithful Christian. One of the traditional readings for All Saints’ Day is Matthew’s account of the Beatitudes, which was our Gospel reading today. The Beatitudes—‘blessed are the poor in spirit’, ‘blessed are those who mourn’, ‘blessed are the meek’, and so on—these are not descriptions of people living ‘successful’ Christian lives. The Beatitudes indicate that those who remain faithful to Jesus in the face of suffering, whatever this means in reality, are blessed—not because their troubles are over, but because their troubles will be over, and they trust God now for this future. And by this, I don’t mean to say merely that everything will be alright in the end, though I suppose there is an element of that. What I mean is that the future God has for us because of Jesus has the potential to shape our lives now so that no matter what we have to deal with, we can fix our eyes firmly on the risen Jesus and know for sure that his present is our future, even as in some sense that future is already the present for Wendy and for Jean and for anyone else who has died trusting in Jesus.

To conclude: If you have found the past few months difficult for whatever reason, Covid-related or not; if you have health concerns, physical or mental or emotional; if you are worried about how you will make ends meet; if you despair over the state of this world in any way; let Timothy and Epaphroditus—and Paul as well—remind you and convince you that no matter what this world throws at you, no matter how you cope or struggle to cope with it all, Jesus is Lord and by God’s Spirit will strengthen you and strengthen me to follow him every day until God in Christ makes everything new.