Monday, December 06, 2004

Philippians 1:16

1:16
Textus Receptus:
οι μεν εξ εριθειας τον χριστον καταγγελλουσιν ουχ αγνως οιομενοι θλιψιν επιφερειν τοις δεσμοις μου

King James:
The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds:

Comments:
This verse is swapped with the following verse in the eclectic Greek text. So it is verse 17 in most of the contemporary translations.

preach Christ: The redeeming quality of these declarations is that the content of the message is Christ. The truth of that message and the reality of its content is apparent in the fact that Paul is able to rejoice in the message while condemning the motives of the messengers.

not sincerely: The adverb "sincerely" in this verse is from the adjective translated "clear" in 2 Corinthians 7:11 and "pure" in Philippians 4:8. Preaching or teaching for motives not transparent is unholy. In other words, Christians cannot justify preaching to promote selfish interests of any form. Jesus delivers a parallel lesson in Luke 14:12-14. The teacher's motive must be subject to the message's content (Christ) in order to be right.

supposing: These malevolent preachers intend to make Paul's imprisonment worse by creating a more negative environment for him, either in prison itself, among his Jewish accusers, or in the Roman judicial system. But their supposition is nullified by Paul's commitment to trust Christ. They cannot add affliction to him if what he says in Philippians 4:11-13 is true.

Paraphrase:
On one side there are those who preach Christ not because the message is holy and they are committed to it, but in order to promote their own selfish agenda. They believe they can add misery to my imprisonment by so doing.

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