Main Point
Godly men and women can be good examples for us to practically follow Jesus
Passage
NIV
I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare. For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel. I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.
But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.
Overview
Fee
The section is in two parts. First (2:19–24), Paul hopes to send Timothy as soon as the outcome of his imprisonment has been resolved, which he expects to go in his favor. Thus he is confident in the Lord that he himself will come soon, but after he has heard back from Timothy (v. 19). Meanwhile, second (vv. 25–30), he has sent the now-recovered Epaphroditus on ahead with this letter. He owes that to them out of friendship—between him and them, and between them and Epaphroditus. It also gives him opportunity to send this letter in advance.
But why send Timothy at all, given Epaphroditus’s return and Paul’s own hope to come as soon as possible? And why this order of the two paragraphs, since they are chronologically in reverse? And why “commend” to the Philippians two such well-known brothers? Answers to these questions could tell us a lot about the reasons for the letter.
Commendation of the bearer of a letter was a frequent component of first-century letters. Both the length and the language of these two “commendations” (Timothy is not even bearing a letter) suggest that these men also serve as exemplary paradigms for the two central concerns that emerged in 1:27–2:4. Timothy models serving the gospel by caring for the needs of others; Epaphroditus models the suffering that accompanies serving the gospel.
Motyer
The Lord so consecrated himself in obedient service to God that he poured himself out for the benefit of others. They so consecrated themselves to God that self was subdued in the service of other Christians. The Lord is the Christian’s model; they are model Christians.
Timothy
Fee
True friendship, especially between Christians, can have a fragile side. On the one hand, one of the reasons for friendship is personal, the need to have someone close with whom to share joys, sorrows and everyday events. On the other hand, the goal of all truly Christian friendship is growth in Christ on the part of both parties. And that’s the fragile part: how to be gently honest with a friend without jeopardizing the relationship.
The reason for sending Timothy is expressed in terms quite the reverse of Paul’s ordinary reason for sending one of his coworkers to a church. In most cases it is for their sakes—to straighten something out or to bring something started to completion. But here it is expressly for his own sake, that “I for my part” may be cheered by good news about them. What will cheer Paul will be to “learn about your affairs,” probably having not so much to do with their affairs in general as with those addressed in 1:27–2:18. This, after all, is a primary reason for the letter. This way of putting it also implies that he expects Timothy to return before he himself comes, which makes the soon in Paul’s case problematic (see commentary on v. 24).
What happens next catches us off guard. Not only is Timothy not the bearer of the present letter, but he is also well known to the Philippians (see comment on 1:1); yet Paul proceeds to “commend” him. Moreover, and significantly, the commendation does not speak first about their own long-term knowledge of him but about Paul’s having no one else like him (literally, “of like soul” = like-minded). This sounds so much like the appeal in verses 2–4, one must assume it to be intentional—and for their sakes.
When he arrives, therefore, they can count on it: “he will genuinely show concern for your affairs” (repeating from v. 19), especially with regard to their standing firm in the one Spirit in the face of opposition in Philippi (1:27–30).*
* 2:20 The NIV divests this sentence of much of its punch and purpose by generalizing Paul’s future tense, “he will show genuine concern for your affairs,” into who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. Some recent commentators (O’Brien 1991:319; Silva 1992:155–56), while recognizing the future, consider the present tense adequate for conveying Paul’s meaning into English. But that seems unlikely. While the generalized present would have been true of Timothy, Paul’s point is case specific: when he comes to you, you can count on him to “show genuine concern for your situation.”
The word isopsychon (“like-souled”) echoes the sympsychon (“together-souled”) in 2:2. These two words, along with eupsychō (“well-souled”; thus “refreshed”) in verse 19, occur only here in the New Testament and are rarely found in other extant Greek literature. This is what suggests an echo of 2:2 here and a bit of wordplay with 2:19.
With an explanatory for, Paul contrasts Timothy’s like-minded concern for the Philippians’ welfare with the mindset of others who are looking out for their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. That they stand in direct contrast to Timothy, with language reminiscent of verse 4, indicates that “looking out for the interests of Christ Jesus” equals “looking also to the interests of others.” This is what the preceding section was all about, Paul’s own seeking the interests of Christ Jesus, by appealing to the Philippians to work out—among themselves and in Philippi—the salvation that Christ has brought them.*
* 2:21 Some have considered this sentence to reflect the situation Paul describes in 2 Timothy 4:10–12, especially referring to people like “Demas who abandoned [Paul], having loved this present world” (my translation); but that is dependent on one’s reconstruction of the history behind the Pastoral Epistles. What makes the equation difficult is that Paul is there writing to Timothy, apparently informing him of something that had more recently taken place. Here Timothy is with Paul; and Philippians 4:21 indicates that he is not there alone.
The contrast, therefore, is not between Timothy and other coworkers who could make this trip but are too self-serving to send, but between Timothy’s character qualifications and those of some other people who came to mind as Paul was dictating. These people are condemned precisely because they lack the two essential qualities noted of Timothy in verse 20: (1) like-mindedness with Paul, which expresses itself in (2) genuine concern for others and thus exemplifies the character of the gospel that was presented in 2:3–4. Probably, then, this aside looks in two directions at once. What prompts it are people like those already mentioned in 1:15 and 17, who preach Christ but “not purely/sincerely,” and who therefore are not truly doing so for Christ’s sake. But as verse 20 has already hinted, Timothy is being set forth as yet another model of one who “thinks like Christ” and is therefore being singled out for the benefit of some in Philippi who are otherwise-minded (2:3–4).
From his denunciation of the self-seeking, Paul returns to the commendation of Timothy, reminding the Philippians of their own knowledge of him: you know that Timothy has proved himself. The word “proven character” (NIV proved himself) has been coined from the verb “to put to the test.” Because of long associations with Timothy, they know his worth, that his character has been put to the test and thus he has proved himself.
But as with other matters in this letter, Paul’s interest in Timothy’s “proven character” is not with his character in general but in particular by the way he has served with me in the work of the gospel. As the Philippians well know, that relationship is like that of a son with his father, the apprentice son who exhibits the mind and concerns of his father, alongside whom he has served for so many years
Would that all of us were like Timothy, putting the interests of others as the matter of first importance! Here again the way of humility, taking the lower road by way of the cross, is on full display; and here alone, as the gospel affects the people of God in this way at the core of our beings, can we expect truly to count for the gospel in a world that lives the opposite, not only as a matter of course but for the most part as its primary value. One must “look out for number one,” after all. Agreed, as long as the cross dictates that “number one” is one’s neighbor and not oneself.
Motyer
These verses are a veritable window into the heart of Paul. He was a complex man. From other passages we know that, when necessary, he could stand on his proper dignity as an apostle of Christ, and on this issue he would brook no contradiction, or allow his authority to be diminished. In Philippians, however, we find, not a different Paul, but another facet of the same Paul. His proper dignity and authority as an apostle who could ‘magnify (his) ministry’1 is divorced from self-assertive haughtiness. The two things went together in a completely harmonious personality: the dignity and exaltation of office, and the humility and self-forgetfulness of one who modelled himself upon Jesus Christ
One turn of phrase in verse 22 aptly reveals this. Paul is speaking of Timothy, and offering proof of his excellence as a Christian. They are like father and son together. If we could close our eyes for a moment to what we know is written here, and try to predict what the parallelism requires, it would come out like this, ‘as a son serves a father, so he served me’. They were father and son together. The one was the natural leader, the other the natural subordinate. But Paul does not say, ‘so he served me’. To do this would be to exalt himself, to make himself a man to whom others ought to be subordinate. He says instead, ‘so he served with me’. We were ‘co-slaves’.
Submission did not carry implications of inactivity, as when a defeated army submits and is consigned for the duration of the war to prison camp. Paul’s was the submissiveness of obedience, submitting to do the Lord’s will. And so, along with Timothy, he ‘slaved for the gospel’, matching the example of Christ who ‘took the form of a slave’.3 Those who are his must accept his pattern. The Lord Jesus became a ‘slave’ for obedience’ sake to his Father and carried his obedience as far as death in order to serve us with the blessings of salvation; Paul’s slavery was directed upwards towards Jesus in perfect obedience and outward to people in the slavery of the gospel. Obedience and evangelism are the normative poles of Christian slavery.
In the first place, Timothy possessed a genuine care for other Christians. We might translate the latter part of verse 20 to say that he will be ‘naturally and genuinely painstaking’ for your welfare. The word genuinely contains the idea ‘as a birthright’, something possessed by spiritual parentage.5 There was nothing forced or artificial about Timothy’s concern: it was the genuine product of a regenerate nature and found expression in a true anxiety. The strength of this word can be felt by noting that it is used to describe both the excessive worry which beset Martha and the weight of care necessarily carried by Paul.6 Timothy was a proper child of his spiritual father.
Secondly, we learn that Timothy outstripped all in his devotion to the Lord Jesus. The all of verse 21 must be taken as a generalization. It could not, for example, include Epaphroditus, who plainly put Jesus first. But what a sad generalization it is! The general run of Christians, as Paul saw them, put themselves first and Jesus next. But it was not so with Timothy.
The third mark of Timothy’s character was his ungrudging acceptance of second place: as a son with a father. Paul, as we have seen, softened the relationship by the gentle way in which he said served with me, putting himself alongside Timothy in slavery for the gospel. But even so Timothy’s subordinate place is clear. In terms of slavery he was a second-class slave. His task was to be a second-in-command. And he was ready for it to be so. He never usurped.
The fourth feature is implicit in what has just been said, but may be mentioned for completeness. Timothy was a slave for the furtherance of the gospel. He, with Paul, stands in the succession of him who took ‘the form of a slave’. He was a person whose whole life was given to the gospel; but who accepted and obeyed its total claim upon himself.
But these four aspects of Timothy are not simply four separate items. They are one whole, and the passage makes them identical. Verses 20–21, by the parallelism involved, equate being genuinely anxious for your welfare with ‘looking after the interests of Jesus Christ’. Putting this positively, a Christian displays his pre-eminent devotion to the Lord Jesus by seeking the true welfare of others. It is necessarily so, for the Lord Jesus displayed his total obedience to God by pouring himself out wholly for others. Had he not done so, his consecration would have remained theoretical, if not hypothetical. Timothy was like his Lord.
Epaphroditus
Fee
From his plans to hear about their affairs (now in response to this letter) and to come himself as soon as possible, Paul turns to the more immediate matter at hand—the return of Epaphroditus, who is also the bearer of the letter. The paragraph is in two parts (vv. 25–27, 28–30), both of which (a) begin on the same note (Paul’s having sent Epaphroditus), (b) mention Epaphroditus as the Philippians’ “minister to my needs” and (c) note that Epaphroditus’s illness brought him very near to death. What is being explained in both parts are the reasons for sending Epaphroditus now and not waiting for the outcome of Paul’s trial.
The first part gives the reason from Epaphroditus’s perspective: his own deep longing for the community back home in light of their knowing about his illness (v. 26). Verses 28–30 then give the reason for sending him from the Philippians’ perspective: their own joy in seeing him again, which will lessen Paul’s present sorrow to some degree (v. 28).
But the whole should especially be read from Paul’s perspective, which helps to explain what (for us) is the most striking about the paragraph—that it takes the form of commendation, the kind of thing that regularly appears in letters from the Greco-Roman period to introduce the bearer of the letter to the one(s) addressed. Why such a commendation in this letter? Most likely it is another reflection of the “mutual affection” dimension of friendship, which pours forth regularly in this letter. This profusion of commendation is part of that affection. Paul has received the Philippians’ gift from Epaphroditus (cf. 4:18); now in sending him back he commends him to them as one of their own, and in honoring Epaphroditus, Paul honors them. That Epaphroditus should have risked his life on their behalf is reason enough for Paul to urge them to receive him back with joy. That God has spared him so that he could come back at all is all the more reason for joy—on everyone’s part.
Given the paradigmatic role of every preceding narrative to this point, that may well be so again. If so, the paradigm here moves toward the “suffering” theme in this letter. Epaphroditus models one who was ready to risk his life and thus to suffer for the sake of Christ on behalf of others. What makes one think so in this case is the unique phrase “unto death” (v. 30; NIV almost died), used elsewhere in Paul’s letters only in 2:8 to refer to Christ’s death on the cross.
First, he is my brother, the fundamental term of relationship within the believing community; he is to Paul what the rest of the Philippian Christians are as well. Second, he is Paul’s “coworker” (NIV fellow worker), Paul’s most common term for those who have labored with him in the gospel in some way, including Euodia and Syntyche and others in Philippi (4:3). But in this case, third, he further defines Epaphroditus’s role with a military metaphor; he is also my … fellow soldier. Whatever may have evoked this uncommon (for Paul) metaphor (his being surrounded by the Praetorian Guard, 1:13? or the fact that Roman Philippi originated as a military colony?), it images Epaphroditus as a wounded comrade-in-arms who is being sent home for rest. Since Epaphroditus was almost certainly present at the dictation of the letter, these words are probably in part for his sake; but they are surely for the community’s sake as well, to emphasize the role their messenger has played on Paul’s behalf.
Paul further designates Epaphroditus as your messenger (apostle) and ministrant to my needs. First, he was their “apostle,” sent on behalf of the congregation to perform a given task. That task is then expressed with a sacrificial metaphor: he offered priestly service (to God, it is implied) on their behalf for Paul’s needs. This is the first certain mention of their gift to Paul (although see comment on 1:5 and 2:17). Paul’s present point is clear: in a culture where prisoners were not cared for by the state but had to depend on friends or relatives for food and other necessities, this is no small thing the Philippians have done. This present word about Epaphroditus anticipates the full acknowledgment in 4:10–20.*
* 2:25 Leitourgos (NIV to take care of) is the personal noun for the priest who performs the sacral duties (leitourgia, vv. 17 and 30) in the sacrificial system. Some see this as supporting the “two mission” view noted above; but the use of the noun in 4:18 to refer specifically to the Philippians’ gift makes that a difficult position to maintain.
That Paul should call Epaphroditus “your apostle” (NIV messenger) is clear indication that the term served primarily to describe a function rather than an “office,” even as late as this letter. Which makes the whole concept of “apostleship” in Paul a tenuous one. He clearly also used it in a semitechnical way to refer to himself and others who were “sent” by Christ to found churches; but he never uses it in the later, more fully technical sense of, for example, “the Twelve Apostles” (who in Paul are simply “the Twelve,” 1 Cor 15:5).
Joy does not mean the absence of sorrow but the capacity to rejoice in the midst of it. Paul’s gratitude in the present case is for mercy, that he has not had sorrow of this kind—the loss of a longtime and dear brother in the Lord—added to the sorrow he already knows. As usual, therefore, Paul can hardly speak without reflecting on everything from a theological perspective. The God he serves is full of mercy, both in healing the sick and in sparing the heavy-laden from further sorrow. Note too that Paul simply would not understand the denial of grief that some express today when they rejoice over the death of a loved one. No, death is still an enemy—ours and God’s (1 Cor 15:25–26)—and grief is the normal response; but it is sorrow expressed in the context of hope (1 Thess 4:13).
The Commendation Itself (2:29–30) With another inferential “therefore” Paul comes at last to the commendation proper. Since Paul has sent Epaphroditus back for the triple reasons given (for Epaphroditus’s, theirs and Paul’s sakes), “therefore,” he concludes, welcome him in the Lord with all joy, and honor [people] like him. Having given the reasons for their welcoming him back with joy, Paul now concludes by urging them to do so (not all imperatives in Paul are correcting something that has gone wrong!).
Everything that believers do is in the Lord in some way or another. Their common existence, theirs and Epaphroditus’s, is predicated on the fact that together they are in the Lord, meaning they belong to him.
The final purpose clause gives the reason for Epaphroditus’s so risking his life, while at the same time offers the believers in Philippi their ultimate reason for holding him in high honor: he was willing to risk his life so that he might make up for the help you could not give me. But it is doubtful whether Paul intended to sound quite so pejorative. This combination of the verb “make up for” and the noun “lacking” is used in a similar context in 1 Corinthians 16:17 to refer to “making up for the absence of the rest.” That is almost surely the intent here. Thus the clause begins “he has made up for your lack” in the sense of “your absence.” Paul’s absence from Philippi has created a gap in his life, and Epaphroditus has filled that to a degree.
Having made that point, Paul then returns to the sacrificial imagery of verse 25. With a genitive qualifier he indicates that by the “lack” of their presence, neither could they minister to his needs as they would have liked; but now Epaphroditus has done so in their behalf. As in verse 25 he expresses their gift to him through Epaphroditus in terms of performing the duties of a priest in his behalf. Very much in keeping with 4:10, he thus acknowledges that their “lack” was not in the willing but in the opportunity. Though stated very awkwardly, the sense of the sentence goes something like this: “so that he might make up for your absence and thus minister to my needs as you have not had opportunity to do recently.”
Resources Used
Cohick, Lynn H. The Story of God Bible Commentary: Philippians. Edited by McKnight. Scot, Zondervan, 2013.
Edwards, Mark J., and Thomas C. Oden, editors. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. InterVarsity Press, 2005.
Fee, Gordon D. Philippians. IVP Academic, 1999.
Freedman, David Noel, et al., editors. The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, Doubleday, 1992.
Guthrie, George H. Philippians. Zondervan Academic, 2023.
Motyer, J. A. The Message of Philippians. InterVarsity Press, 1984.
Wright, N.T, and Mike Bird. The New Testament in its World. SPCK, 2019.
Wright, Nicholas Thomas. Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters : Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. SPCK, 2004.