I, Paul, write this letter to all of you who are God’s people at Philippi. May God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord bless you.
1Verse 1I, Paul, and Timothy, who is with me, are men who serve Christ Jesus. I am writing this letter to all of you who are pastors and deacons in Philippi city and to the rest of God’s people there who have a close relationship with Christ Jesus.Verse 2We both (OR, I) pray that God, who is our Father, and Jesus Christ, who is our Lord, will continue to be kind to you and will continue to cause you to have inner peace.
I thank God and rejoice because you have been working together with me to make known the good message from when you first believed until now.
Verse 3I thank my God whenever I think about you.Verse 4Every time [DOU] I pray for you, I joyfully pray [DOU] for all of you.Verse 5I thank God and rejoice because you have been working together with me in order to make known the good message about Christ. You started doing that when you first [MTY] believed it, and you have continued doing it until now.Verse 6I am completely confident that God, who has begun to do in you what is good, (OR, that since God has begun to do in you what is good, he) will continue to do that until he finishes doing it on the day Christ Jesus [MTY] returns.Verse 7During this time that I have been a prisoner [MTY] and during the times I was previously able to defend the good message about Christ and proved/confirmed to others that it is true, all of you have been sharing with me (OR, have helped me) in this work that God kindly gave to me to do. So indeed it is right that I feel joyful about you all, because you are very dear [IDM] to me.Verse 8God can verify that Christ Jesus causes me to love and long for all of you very much, just like Christ loves you.
I pray that God will enable you to know how to love one another more and more appropriately and to completely understand how you should believe and act.
Verse 9And what I pray for you is that God will enable you to truly know and learn how to love one another more and more in every situation.Verse 10And I pray that he will enable you to completely understand how you should believe and act. I pray this in order that you might be spiritually pure and faultless (OR, completely faultless [DOU]) on the day that Christ returns [MTY],Verse 11and in order that you might conduct your lives [IDM] completely righteously as a result of Jesus Christ enabling you to do so, in order that people will honor God and praise him (OR, people will praise God very much [DOU]).
I want you to realize that as a result of my imprisonment many more people have heard the good message about Christ.
Verse 12My fellow believers, I want you to know that the troubles I have experienced have not prevented me from proclaiming the good message to people. Instead, these things that I have experienced have enabled even more people to hear the good message about Christ.Verse 13Specifically, all the military guards who are stationed here in Rome and many other [HYP] people in this city [HYP] now know that I am a prisoner [MTY] because I proclaim the good news about Christ.Verse 14Also, most of the believers here now proclaim the message from God more courageously and fearlessly because they trust the Lord more firmly to help them. They trust the Lord more because they have seen how the Lord has helped me while I have been a prisoner [MTY] here.
Even though some believers proclaim the message about Christ because they are antagonistic toward me, at least they are proclaiming Christ, and so I rejoice.
Verse 15Some people proclaim the message about Christ as I do because they are happy with my work. They proclaim the message about Christ because they love me and because they know that God has placed me here to defend the message about Christ [CHI].Verse 17Others proclaim the message about Christ because they envy me and oppose me. They proclaim the message about Christ because they have wrong motives. They wrongly assume that because they are causing many people to follow them, I will be jealous, and as a result, I will feel more miserable while I am a prisoner [MTY] here.Verse 18But it does not matter whether people proclaim the message about Christ because they have wrong motives, or whether people proclaim the message about Christ because they have right motives. The important thing in either case is that the message about Christ is being proclaimed {people are proclaiming the message about Christ}. And because of that I rejoice! I will continue to rejoice because I know that I will remain completely victorious spiritually. I earnestly expect to boldly honor Christ whether I live or die. Philippians 1:18b-26 Furthermore, I will continue to rejoice,Verse 19because when I experience troubles, I know that some day God will say that he approves of what I have done (OR, that the Roman authorities will set me free). This will happen as a result of your praying for me, and as a result of God’s Spirit, whom Jesus Christ gave me, helping me.Verse 20I know that this will happen because I very confidently expect [DOU] that I will faithfully honor Christ. I expect that like I always have done, Christ will be greatly honored {I will continue now also to very boldly honor Christ} by means of all that I do [SYN, MTY], whether by the way I live or by the way I die.Verse 21As for me, I live in order to honor Christ. But if I die, it will be better for me than if I continue to live, because then I will be with him.Verse 22On the other hand, if I continue to live, that will enable me to continue to serve Christ effectively. As a result, I do not know which to choose.Verse 23That is, I am not sure which of those two I prefer. I long to leave this world and go to be with Christ, because that will be very much better for me.Verse 24Nevertheless, it is more important that I remain alive than that I go to be with Christ because you still need me to help you.Verse 25Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain alive and that I will go/come to be with you all. As a result, you will believe in Christ more firmly, and as a result of that, you will rejoice.Verse 26That is, you will be able to rejoice very greatly because of Christ Jesus bringing me to be with you again.
Conduct yourselves just like you learned in the message about Christ, unitedly and fearlessly resisting those who oppose you and the gospel, since God is helping you in all your struggles.
Verse 27Most importantly, as fellow believers in Christ, conduct yourselves just like you learned you should do when you heard the message about Christ. Do that in order that whether I come and see you, or whether I am away from you and people tell me about you, what I hear or see will make me happy. They will tell me that you are unitedly and cooperatively resisting those who oppose the message about Christ (OR, oppose you). I will know that you are not allowing others to influence you to believe a message that is different from the gospel about Christ.Verse 28And I will know that you are not at all frightened by {afraid of} the people who oppose you. This will show/prove to those people that God will destroy them, but this will show/prove to you that God will save you eternally. It is God who is doing all this.Verse 29Remember that he has not only kindly enabled you to believe in Christ, he has also kindly allowed you to suffer for the sake of Christ.Verse 30As a result, you are having to resist those who oppose the good message, just like you saw that I had to resist such people there in Philippi, and just like you hear that I still have to resist such people here now.