Session 1 – Philippians; An Epistle of Friendship: David Capes, 06/29/25

Philippians: An Epistle of Friendship - Dr. David Capes
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David Capes: [00:00:00] Well, good morning everybody. Good morning. It's been a little while since I've been here. I am David Capes. I am the, uh, the Director of Academic Programming at the library. And, it is my privilege to fill in some time for Mark. So apparently you didn't hear Mark was not gonna be here. Is that right? Is that what it was?

I'm just kidding. No, you're, you're the people who knew he wasn't gonna be here and you came because of Jesus. You're Jesus people. Right. And that's a good thing. We're all to be Jesus followers, Jesus people. And I'm grateful that you're here this morning. Grateful that you're watching I many of you in other, other locations, or maybe someday in the future.

We're gonna be talking about, the book, [00:01:00] profil eu. Can you say that? Nevermind. You don't have to Filus. I, we've got some people here who study in Greek and Greek starts again this fall, by the way. If you've never studied Greek, you'd like to study Greek with us. Starts again this fall, as well as Hebrew coming back, uh, this year in person, not online, but in, in person.

But we'll be studying Profil is, which means simply to the Philippians, and I am referring to it. I'm not sure what David's gonna do, and I'm not sure what Brent's gonna do, but I'm referring to this as an epistle of friendship. Maybe you've heard it called an epistle of joy before because the word joy occurs over and over and over again in the letter.

And that's a very important kind of theme. But I think that is in service to the idea of friendship that we're gonna see in the letter here today. Now, when Mark left town, uh, he, he didn't leave us many directions. Many, many. He didn't say much. He just said, I'm going, [00:02:00] I'll see you later. But he did send us a message and that is.

Don't mess with Romans. So, uh, so I'm gonna try not to say anything about Romans. It's gonna be hard. But I'm gonna try not to say anything about Romans. Uh, during my time here. I may say some things about Second Corinthians and other places as well, but Mark is teaching on Romans that we want to give him kind of a clear runway on that and such.

But all the letters, in a sense, belong together and are, are, and are helpful for interpreting one another. Her and understanding one another. So we're not gonna mess with the Romans. We're gonna mess with Philippians. I don't not mess with. We're, we're, we're going, we're gonna kind of look at Philippians and spend some time together trying to get up close and personal with this book.

That's this amazing book. It's one of my favorite books, quite frankly. I, uh, I am the editor for the word biblical commentary. That is published by Thomas Nelson, or it used to be published by Thomas Nelson. Now Hal Harper Collins. And I am [00:03:00] sort of waiting for a moment to insert my own name to the publisher and say, I really would like to write the next commentary on Philippians.

So we'll see if they'll let me do that. I'm not sure. I probably would be too old by then, but they say, uh, well, who knows? We'll see what happens at that point. Alright, so we're gonna look at Philippians, this epistle of friendship. Now let's get a little bit. Familiar with some, uh, geography here. Uh, this is the Mediterranean Sea, the, the sea that is between the land, the land, Mediterranean here, the south here is Africa.

Up here is, this is Asia, and this is Europe moving this way. So you have three continents in view. Now you don't have the whole continent, of course, but you have part of the continent here and you've got the Middle East here, which belongs to the Asian, Asian side of things. And here, over here is little [00:04:00] bitty Israel, and that's the Sea of Galilee.

And up here is where Paul was born, Tarsus. Now this today is modern Turkey. And some of you've probably even been there. You've seen maybe you've gone to Tarsus. I've been to Turkey, but I've never been had a chance to go to Tarsus. That's someplace I'd like to go over here is Colossi, which is the only city that has never been excavated until this year.

Excavations have started for the very first time. And Colossi. We've been getting letters about that. We've been getting notices from the archeologist and others, so it's gonna be really interesting to see what happens. Here's the Galatian area up here. Uh, kind of the central part. This is the city of Ephesus, and as we continue to go this way, when you move from here to over here, I'm not tall enough.

When you move from here to here, you move to Europe because there's just a little bit of distance between the two. And you go over the [00:05:00] Bosporus and you go over the Bosporus. And here at the very top of the map is, is is Phillip Powell. Let's get a little closer here. We can see it a little bit better.

Over here is Thessalonica. You know, Paul wrote to them as well, and in the city of Corinth, Paul wrote, we know at least four letters to, uh, to that city and to that church. We only have two of them. Two of them have have been lost probably. Uh, are we gonna find them? I don't know. I don't think we probably will after all this time.

So this is the kind of the geography and Paul has moved from, uh, Antioch of Syria, which is over here all the way from Galatia. And then he comes to the city of Philippi and establishes this church. Paul is the one who moves east, excuse me, who moves west. There are disciples that move and, and just as strongly and just as significantly.

Uh, to the east, over to India, and there are apostles that go [00:06:00] south and one of the most exciting Christian communities is on the continent of Africa, down on Ethiopia, what we would call Ethiopia today. And great work is being done by historians, by by, by Philologists. Uh, trying to figure out the, sort of the movement of the church.

You and I, because we're Western people. We're kind of interested in that Western move as it moves toward Rome, as it moves toward Spain, as it moves toward France and toward England and some of these other places as well. Alright, so that's kind of that little pitch of our map. Let's see. I think I have another one here, which, but it's not moving.

Let's try that once again. Let's see if that'll work. Yeah. Okay. There we go. Here's the map. Once again, I'm gonna zero in and focus in upon the, I don't know if you can see this or not, but there's a little red line that does this. Can you see that? Yes. Alright. That's called the, that's the Roman Road. [00:07:00] It's called the way of, of, uh, the Ignatian Way.

And it's, it's, it's a main East west route that goes through here. Connects Philippi to Minneapolis on the coast over here to Amphiphiles and, uh, and, and onto, uh, Apollonia next. And then continues on and on it goes, continues to go, uh, over to the, uh, toward, toward Italy, toward the boot, the boot of Italy.

Now, one thing we can say about the Roman. World, uh, that Paul finds himself in and the church finds itself in the one, one thing that we can say about it is that they established colonies, and Philippi was one of those colonies, Roman colonies. There's a reason for that. But the other thing that I want to know, we will talk about it in a minute, the other thing is, is that it, it was a very raw, even though it was in [00:08:00] Greece.

Macedonia. It was a very Roman kind of place. If you had been in the city of Rome itself, it couldn't have been even any more Roman than it was in Philippi, and that was because so many of the people had been granted citizenship and so many Roman soldiers had been settled there after some conflicts that we'll talk about in just a second.

So we're gonna round up the usual suspects. One of my favorite movies. Do you like that movie? It's a great movie. Round Up the usual suspects. And so when you talk about this particular period of time, we've gotta talk about Octavian and Mark Antony. They teamed up together against Brutus and Cassius in a big battle that took place near Philippi.

In fact, it sort of devastated the area. In and around Philippi. It was a big battle, and the guys that won the [00:09:00] battle were these guys, Octavian and Mark Antony. Those were the victors, but it wasn't. 10 years later before there was another conflict on this side. Octavian down here, Mark Anthony went to battle on the other side of Greece in the Battle of Actium.

Yes. And does anybody know who the victory of that was?

Does anybody know? Could it be that man? Could it be Mark Antony? No. Um, it was in fact, the one that we call today and know today is Caesar Augustus. And that was this man, Octavian. So he is the one who becomes the next Caesar by virtue of having defeated Mark [00:10:00] Antony by virtue of now taking upon himself the name Caesar Augustus.

And he was Caesar, he was emperor for a long time. He was emperor into the time of the, the birth of Jesus. He was emperor into the time. Of perhaps even the, the birth of Paul. We don't know exactly what year Paul was born. When we go to Philippi, one of the things that you see today, archeological items is this place.

Here's amphitheater. It's very famous amphitheater is Dieter Tishler here, by any chance, Dieter. Dieter has stood there and recited the book of Philippians by memory, right? Am I right? He had memorized the book and on a trip. How long ago was that dear? 23. 2023. So two years [00:11:00] ago he was in this place. Did you stand at the center?

No. Kind of off to the right. Off to the right. They wouldn't let you stand in the center? Huh? There were other groups there. Oh, other groups, okay. You're just being kind. But you recited for them for the group that you were with. The entire book of Philippians. That sounds pretty remarkable, doesn't it? It is pretty remarkable.

We don't, yeah,

we don't memorize much anymore. Do we memorize scripture? We don't memorize books. We, we, we might memorize. I think you're moving on next to John 1127, right? Jesus wept. Is that right? Do what now? 1135. 1135. Okay. I was off by a few verses. Yeah. 1135. Jesus wet. No, I mean, it, it, it's remarkable that when we commit these things to memory and they take on in a [00:12:00] sense, uh, they are the words of God that come to us from and through the Apostle Paul.

Indeed. And yet they have a way of giving us life and, and, and, and help. In times when we need it and, and when those times come, those texts come to our mind. Some of you have probably memorized scripture at some point in the past. Maybe it was as a child, and that verse is still with you, right? Maybe his King James version, maybe it's New American standard version.

Doesn't really matter. What matters is that it's in your brain, it's in your mind, it's in your consciousness, and even when it's not sitting there in front, it's there in the back so that when moments come,

you can bring those texts to mind. It's very important that we can do [00:13:00] that, and I, I honestly am, am not happy. The fact that we sometimes take Bible, that kind of Bible study, memorization off. Off the table say, well, we have these, all these modern bibles and we have different translations. And we have, yes, all that's true, but pick one.

Just pick one. So here it is. A couple of things about the Philippian Church. The Philippian Church, probably it was maybe 50 to 80 people wasn't big. We could put three or four Philippian churches, maybe five or six in this room. This is not a big place. It was a house church. It met in a person's home because there were not separate buildings, and it was usually the home of someone who had a house that was a little bigger than everybody else.

They could be the patron of the church, they could assist the church with, with, uh, some, some, you know, food perhaps when people gathered or they could assist just by having [00:14:00] space for people to gather. And this is what the Philippian Church did. The other thing too is that most of the people in the Philippian Church were blue collar type people.

From what we can tell, they were slaves. They were women, they were craftsmen. They were small business people.

They were the salt of the earth and it was headed all by. Well, we don't know. We, we, we think. Uh, we know a few things about the constitution of the church, but let me show you how it all got started. We go back to the book of Acts, chapter 16, kind of set the stage for this few verses, so setting sale from the city of Troy.

As that's close to the city of Troy,

we made a direct voyage to Sam of race. Now there is a big question about who is the we. We'll come back to that. [00:15:00] And the following day we went to Minneapolis, which is the coastal town about 11 miles away from the city of Philippi. Philippi is on the road Ignatian Way. Minneapolis is kinda like the port city.

And from there we went to Philippi, which is a leading city in the district of Macedonia, and it is a Roman colony. Now we know it's a Roman colony, not only from the New Testament, from other sources as well. We remained in the city for some days and on the Sabbath day we went outside, outside the gate to the riverside where we supposed there was a place of prayer.

And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. Now the question, one of the questions of this passage is, who is the we? Because if you read the book of Acts, it'll say things like, Paul did this and they went here and he said this, and, and, and, and Barnabas said this. And so it's always talking in the third [00:16:00] person, but all of a sudden we have a change from third person.

He, she, it, he. To first person, plural. We, what we think is happening here is that Luke, who is the author of this letter, he's the one who wrote it down. He's the one who researched it. He also wrote the gospel called the Gospel Kata luan, according to Luke, that he had actually joined Paul. And this is, these are his travel notes.

It was not uncommon for people of education and of means, and when they traveled, they would keep a travel diary. You maybe some of you do that when you travel and you remember, oh, that was the day we didn't, we go to this place first and then that place. No, you, you find the [00:17:00] notes and you get clarified.

Yes. We went to Minneapolis first and then we went to Philippi. I thought it was the other way around. No, here's my diary. My diary tells me. So we think that there are sections of this, of this book, book of Acts where, where Luke actually refers to his travel diary and he pulls it out and he says, this is what we did and this is what we did.

And it's a, we, we, we, us, us, us. It's always in the plural. It's always the first person. Now, now the whole book of Acts is not like this after, after all. But Luke comes and goes through the story. But he's with Paul a lot of times as he is going through this. I want you to notice, too, the other thing, what happened, they go to Philippi and what does a good Jewish rabbi do?

Well, he looks for a synagogue. Right? Where would you do that? In Houston. How would you know to do that? Philip Houston's, by the way, is bigger than Philippi, but how would you, how would you go about doing it? [00:18:00] How would you go about finding Jews, people like you? Right Where? Where would you go? Huh? Google. Go to Google.

No. Ra Rabbi Google. Not quite yet. Where would you go? You go to public places. You go to the market, you start listening. You start listening for your language. You start looking for certain styles of clothes. Do, do the men's have little Tali, uh, uh, fringes on their guard, uh, on their, uh, shirts that's Jewish.

How, how are they wear? Do they have, do they have beers? See, see, you listen for your language. You listen, you look for people who, who, who are sort of like you and you engage them in conversation. Say, are you from around here? So, yeah, I said, well, is there a synagogue? I'm, I'm a rabbi and I'm coming from Jerusalem and [00:19:00] Antioch and would love to meet the community.

They said, no, in Philippi. It was a little odd. Well, it wasn't odd. It was, it was not like a lot of the cities because there, there weren't enough Jews to have a synagogue. I mean a proper synagogue. But what they did is they established a group of women, apparently. A group of women established a place of prayer by the river.

So on the Sabbath day, which day is the Sabbath day? Seventh Saturday. Right? Friday night, going into what we call Saturday on the Sabbath day, the seventh day, that's what Sabbath means. Seventh, we went outside the gate of the city to the riverside down by the riverside. Where we supposed, where we were thinking that there was a place of prayer.

They probably heard that [00:20:00] in the market there was a place of prayer. You got, what do you do? You go outside the gate and you go down the river here and you'll, you'll see 'em. And so Paul and his entourage, including Luke, met up with this group and we sat down, we spoke to the women who had come together.

Apparently there are no men or there are very few. According to Jewish tradition, it takes 10 Jewish men to constitute a synagogue. Don't have 10, don't have 10 men. You could have a thousand ladies, no synagogue, just the way it was. Now, I, I doubt that would be the same thing today, but that's how it was in those particular days.

Well, let's fi finish the story. One who hurt us. Speaking was a woman named Lydia. She was a small business owner. She was from the city of Thir [00:21:00] Tower, which is to the east. It's over off the coast of, it's over in Asia, and that's where it was. She was a seller of purple, purple goods, dyed goods, dyed colors.

She was a worshiper of God and the Lord. Probably hear a bit. The Lord Jesus opened her heart to pay attention to what was being said by Paul. And after she was baptized, she became a convert right there. Was it that day or, or maybe a day after. We don't know. I said, but after she's baptized and, and her whole household is baptized.

That's pretty fascinating. What does that mean? That's another day, another occasion. Shes is saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And they did. They went and stayed with her and spent time with her in the city of Philippi, and she was apparently not married, [00:22:00] but she had servants, she had workers, she had a business.

She was a business owner of that day. A woman of means, a woman, perhaps educated. We, we don't know, uh, a lot of details about those kinds of things. Well, what I wanna show you and talk, talk to you about next is sort of Paul's relationship to the church. That's how it got started. That's, that's where the, the women who who were gathered together.

So it was, it was a church primarily of women at first, and the people in Lydia's household and a few others, a handful of others that began to grow slowly and grow and grow. So here's Paul's relationship to the church. First of all, he founded the church on what we today called the Second Missionary Journey.

Okay. That's our shorthand to try to understand his missionary travels. This is the very first church to be established in Europe. First one city of Philippi. Now, if others [00:23:00] were started earlier in other places, but other people we don't know about it. There's no record of it. The Philippian church had been very supportive of Paul's mission.

Of all the churches that Paul had, this was the one blue collar, not a lot of wealthy people in it. Who had been supporting Paul's work. We'll look at a passage where Paul talks about that in, uh, in Corinthians here in a minute, but it's a very friendly letter. The friendliest letter that Paul writes, friendly tone to the letter, the words that he chooses, the phrases that he has, the things that he says.

He has a special relationship with this church. They have a special place within his heart. And so as you read the whole letter, there's four chapters. As you read the whole letter, you'll get a sense that Paul is very close and, and very warm with these people and, and so it is a letter that teaches you [00:24:00] and me a great deal about something we have very little of today, and that's friendship.

I talk to therapists, psychologists, and they say that PE young people. Have hundreds, maybe thousands of friends on the internet, but they don't really have friends. Do you have friends? I mean, good friends. Good friends. If you do count yourself, indeed, very fortunate because fewer. And fewer and fewer people today have friends.

They have acquaintance acquaintances, people they know, people they admire, maybe from a distance, but they don't get up close and personal. And this letter is a lot about getting up close and personal, having. [00:25:00] Good mentors and, and people who are close to you. Well, this is, uh, known, uh, Philippians is a prison letter.

There's a lot in here to indicate is a prison letter. Paul talks about being in change. He talks about the torian guard here. Uh, other people will be discussing that, but just a few things about it is that Paul wrote this letter, the letter called the Philippians from jail. He is incarcerated. More about that in a minute.

He expected, according to the letter. Now, Paul was a bit of an optimist. Uh, he expected to be released and I think he was, but there were moments that he wasn't so sure he had doubts. In fact, the the letter itself probably took more than just one sitting to write. It may have taken days or weeks and you know how your mood can change and you get this news and that news, and.

Well, you can get high and you can get low, particularly if you're in a situation like that. He, but he expected to be released according, according to the letter. Now, the traditional, uh, imprisonment, where was he in prison? [00:26:00] When Paul went to a city, wherever he went, he checked out the jail first. He didn't look for the Holiday Inn.

He didn't look for four Seasons. 'cause he probably wouldn't end up there. He is gonna end up in jail. He was in jail this time and that time and that time. I mean, over and over again. We know according to the Book of Acts, he was in jail for two years in the city of Cesarea Marmo, which is on the coast not far from Jerusalem.

We know that he was in jail for two years in Rome. We know that he was in in prison jail, uh, occasionally here and there for an undetermined period of time. This could be the Roman imprisonment. It could be the cesarian imprisonment, or it could have been imprisonment that we don't have any direct knowledge of through anything other than his [00:27:00] letters.

And so the traditional answers being, well, he was in Rome. Maybe, maybe not. More recently though scholars have begun to think. That probably he was imprison in Ephesus because of some things he says in other letters. And because of the proximity of Ephesus to Philippi, you see the letter implies a back and forth between, between Paul being in prison and the church in Philippi.

And they hear about they, they hear somehow he's in, he's in jail. And so they, they, what are we gonna do? When we don't know how long that took? They figured out they were gonna take up an offering for him. They figured out that they were gonna send EP ROIs over with him to encourage him. And so they had a journey.

So you have a journey there. You have a journey back, and the aphrodites gets sick and he gets sick under death, as it were, but he survives and Paul sends [00:28:00] him back. So you have to think about how long would it take for all these journeys to take place. To go from this place to that place? Well, the travel distance from Ephesus to Philippi is about 430 to 500 miles, depending upon which route you took.

But this was all over land, walking mainly right? That'd take about 35 days. But distance from Rome is even greater. 800 to 1300 miles depending upon whether you went by sea or by land. You could go by land up the nation way most of the way, but you usually would get on a boat and go maybe across the Adriatic.

So we're not really sure, but we have to, we have to think about the fact that there's coming and going and coming and going to the prison where Paul is from the [00:29:00] Philippian Church and they are continually trying to help him. And to, to work with him. And they send him a great deal of, of, of encouragement through the time.

So we're not exactly sure. Now, here this is the prison letters. There are three levels, really four levels of incarceration. Number one, the most severe was called the carer, which is where our word incarceration comes from. This is, this is where you went to prison and you may not survive. You weren't expected to survive.

Second was military custody. These are, these are Latin terms that have been, we've translated into English military custody. The last one's a little bit strange entrustment to sureties. That's how it's translated. That seems to be the kind of the la, it's almost like almost like you released on your own re recognizance in a way.

Roman Persin was kind of interesting if you were a person of means, if you were wealthy and you were sentenced to go to jail for a [00:30:00] time. Then you could say, you know, I really don't want to go, I, I don't really want to go. I'm gonna send my wife. And so the wife would go to prison for her husband. Yeah.

That happened. If you were a person of means and you had slaves and you were sentenced to go to prison for a time, he said, I don't really want to go take him. And they'd send another guy. And that person would be in prison for you for a time. Now, that wasn't available to everybody, but it was available to some people that way.

And in, in the Roman world, you didn't go to prison as a, uh, as, as a judgment against you. You went to prison to sort of sit there until they took you to court, until you had a chance to go to court. You, you might be exiled, you might be put to death. You might have to pay a huge fine when you got there.

[00:31:00] That wasn't going to jail was not the sentence, the judgment against you. You just went there until you either bribed somebody if you had enough money, which is what some people think, Paul, they were trying to get Paul to do. Why don't you just pay get out? Not sure that was really the case, but some of these guys were just looking to make a little bit of money.

I'll look the other way. Go ahead and go. It's not a big deal. Your trials doesn't come up for four years anyway. You just sit here and be pain in my neck for four years. I mean, that, that's the kind of things that happened in a Roman prison situation. So based upon everything we, we, we know, we think that Paul is probably under, this is kind of middle form of mil of military custody.

Uh, the, the Roman military or the, the regional military would take, would take control of Paul. He would be in, in prison until such time that there was some sort of a, [00:32:00] a, a trial and sort a judgment made against him, which could be a variety of things. Very often it was exile. You would be just cast away and you'd be taken to an island that nobody.

Ever wanted to buy real estate on And that's where you would, you would say the rest of your life that happened, that happened to a number of people? Well, uh, there's a number of other things we should say. Paul wrote Philippians from this kind of military custody. And what we know is that people could come and go to see Paul, the Christian community there, whether it was Ephesus or Cria or Rome.

They supported him some and that that means they brought him food. 'cause they didn't give you three hots and a cot. They didn't, you, you, you didn't go and get meals, is it? Well, we'll prepare your meals. No, they, they said, you've gotta have friends here. They gotta bring you food. If you don't bring you food, you starve.

'cause the Romans aren't gonna give you that. So you go to jail and you sit there and you hope that there are people out there who know you're in [00:33:00] jail and who, who are your friends. And they start cooking for you and they bring you food and they bring you a blanket when it gets cold. That's the kind of thing.

'cause you didn't sleep on a very comfortable bed if there was a bed at all. He was able to communicate. We know outside the jail, we see that in a variety of ways and people were able to come and see him and bring him what he needed. Now, the fact that he wrote the letter means that people brought him materials to write with.

It also means that he probably had, uh, he probably had access to a secretary. In the Greek world, that's called an emanu. And Emanu was there to sort of take the dictation of a letter, write it down usually on wax tablets, and then it was transferred over to papyrus after you after the, the letter was complete, but they started on wax tablets first, and it took weeks to do it.

It wasn't something you just dash off on a Friday night, whereas as you wanted to. [00:34:00] Imprisonment. His imprisonment, there must have lasted quite a bit of time. It wasn't a short period of time wherever he was, and that's why people have said, well, it's probably CEA two years there. It's probably Rome two years there, but it could well have been a three or four month period, maybe longer in Ephesian jail.

We just do not know that. Paul wrote a number of letters from prison. He wrote Philippians as we we've been talking about. He wrote Colossians. He wrote, uh, he wrote Ephesians. He wrote Philemon a little letter to Philemon, and he also wrote from jail, though it's not classified as a prison letter. He, he wrote this letter from jail and it's the very last letter that we know that he wrote to second Timothy.

A lot of people refer to it as his swan song 'cause he's, by now he's pretty convinced that he's not gonna make it out of this imprisonment. He thinks this is the end, and it could, well, could well have been. There are, we don't know a lot of the chronology there. [00:35:00] I wanna talk about friendship. The, uh, this is a friendship letter, rhetorical analysis of the letter.

When you start looking at, at what people say in a letter and how they say it, when you analyze it, it belongs to his genre of letters. Paul, you know, Mark's big about talking about his genre, right? This genre and that genre. That's very important to kind of understand what kind of letter this is. It comes from the ancient world and there's a whole group of them called friendship letters, and it's probably the most common thing.

Now I wanna talk a little bit about what that meant in the ancient world, and I want to begin pressing in upon you and ask you, are you a friend? Ask you, do you have friends? Friends? Are people. Well, let me, let me give you a couple. First here, it was an important topic for philosophers and throughout the book we see these, these things arising and coming up, but here's what friendship involved according to the, the, the, the culture of the day, the time of the day.[00:36:00]

Number one, friendship involved, fellowship. Now that's the word that sometimes translated the word coin. Onnia. Which means better means it's a sharing in each other's lives. I mean a sharing in your life, not somebody who is just sort of aware of what's going on, but these people share your life.

Bonhoeffer refers that as So having life together. We do life together. Who are you doing life with? Your husband, your wife, boy, that's great. Chances are pretty good. You need some other people. If you're a guy, you need some guys. If you're a woman, you need other women. It's part of what ministry here is, is all, is all about having that sharing of life where you do life together.

[00:37:00] Who do you do life with? I'm just asking you. Do you wish you had more people in your life that you could do life with, that you could share things with, that you could, you could hurt with that would share your hurts? Another thing is equality. Equality's a big word these days. E equality being equal and the ancient world, it was not considered possible to be to be friends outside of a certain.

Group, if you were really wealthy, you couldn't be friends with somebody who wasn't wealthy. I I, if you were a woman you really couldn't be friend with, with a man. Right. And, and people still wonder, can men and women be friends? Right? We still talk about some of these things today. Uh, if, if you were of a certain ethnic group, you couldn't be friends with somebody who's in a different ethnic group.[00:38:00]

That's the way they thought. But the church comes around and says, wait a minute. Let's rethink some of that. Yes, we can have equality and that. Equality could be men and women. It could be Jew and Gentile. It could be rich, it could be poor and real friends, not just sort of people that know a little bit about you.

Deep abiding friendship. Friends, hold things in common. Friends hold things in common. This is true of the ancient world. True today. Um, I was going back through a coin collection that I had when I was a kid and I had a, I had a friend, his name was Tim McKay. Tim and I would just do stuff together. We'd share, share everything.

And I was going through my coin collection 'cause I'm gonna pass it on down to my, my kids and grand, I mean my grandkids. And, and, [00:39:00] and I noticed that there were a few coins in my collection that had beside the coin, Tim and the coin was still there. And I realized I got some of his coins. He's probably got some of my coins.

No they're not. It was just stuff that kids do right. It. But as kids, we shared life together. Kids are much better at doing this than adults are. We've got all these walls up. We don't want people to really know us. We don't really put people to really know what's happening in our heads, what's happening in our lives.

Kids, it seemed move right through that you and I. With our years and our history and in some of our guilt and some of our shame, some of our achievements, some of our mis achievements,

we have these barriers up. [00:40:00] So making good friends, abiding friends, lasting friends, but the Christian Church is all about friendship. This room should be filled with friends. Who share life deeply, who share joys, who share sorrows together, who buoy each other up when the storms come and they come, don't they?

Friends often have the kind of the same mind. If you have friends long enough, they kind of know what you're thinking, right? My wife's my best friend. Glad to say that. But often I, I don't have to say a word. She knows exactly what I'm thinking. Does that ever happen to you? That's why sometimes guys never speak.

She already knows what he is thinking. Say, just get quiet. [00:41:00] Stay quiet. For years,

when they do speak, they get in trouble. Not true, not true, but, but a good friend is a is a person who shares the sort of the same mind as you. Same thoughts, same. Same understanding of things. That's what friendship's about. Lemme show you a few things in the letter, um, that I think are exhibiting this.

One of the words is, I, I, it's translated here in this translation partnership, but I translated on the other side is fellowship. It means a sharing, sharing of life together. And I thank my God and all my remembrance of you. This is from the very beginning of the letter, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy.

My boy, I butchered that. Sorry. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. Always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your [00:42:00] partnership in the gospel. From the first day until now, we have shared together in this mis mission, this message, we have shared it together.

It has changed my life. It has changed your life. It has changed our lives together, and you are supporting me now in this mission. I am in prison. I can't make money. I need help. I'm not gonna admit it, at least not too loud, but friends just know. You don't have to say to a friend, what can I do for you?

Right. You just know. You. You know what to do. Sometimes they'll tell you, but, but you don't have to say if they're going through a crisis or a tragedy in their life, well, is there something I can do for you? No, because a real friend just knows what to do because you have the same mind and they know what you're [00:43:00] going through.

So we have been partners in the gospel from the first day until now. There's that word, you and I, he doesn't say this about any other church really, except the Thessalonian church. He does. I think he uses some of the same language. Here's that word, koinonia, because of your partnership, the sharing in common of life.

Here's another example. One soul. This is the literal translation of that yellow there. Mia Que only Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and, and, and see you or whether I'm absent. I may hear that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel that you together have one mind, one brain.

We share one brain in a way. At least we should friends do [00:44:00] that. You have one. Mind you, you think the same thing. You value the same things. You hope the same things. You fear the same things. You have one mind today, we would maybe translate this as maybe soulmate, right? You're my soulmate, you're the church that understands me.

You get me like no other church gets me, and we have together this one mind favoring and faithful to the gospel here else. He says, you can. I want you to complete my joy. By being of the same mind, notice how much is. It's about thinking how you think, having the same love being in one accord and having the one mind having one mind.

Here's another one, one of my favorites. Simple. Yet, it was kind of you [00:45:00] to share my trouble. Share my trouble. You just didn't say, oh, that's that's really unfortunate. I'm sorry. Sorry for that. No, you, you took my trouble upon you. You took my weariness upon you. You took my financial loss upon you. You shared my trouble.

Not just say, oh, that's I'm, that's a bad thing. I'm so sorry. Now that's important. I, I don't wanna say it's not, but it's not doing what Paul here says, sharing in trouble. Who do you share their troubles with? Who shares your troubles? I hope it's a husband or a wife or some family members. But what about beyond that?

I wonder, I wonder. [00:46:00] Here's another friendship language. It's a little bit obtuse, I have to admit, but it's about sharing together with Christ right as our partner, because we are in Christ. Paul says it this way, I want to know him and the power of his resurrection and may be and may share his sufferings, share his sufferings.

What does that mean exactly? Is Christ still suffering?

Is he or is just suffering over becoming like him in his death? That by any means possible I might attain to the resurrection of the dead, becoming like him in his suffering, sharing the same form as he has in his, in his suffering. Even if I'm to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith.

In other words, Paul said, even if I [00:47:00] don't make it outta here, even if I'm gonna be poured out and I'll become a sacrifice, I'll become a martyr for the cause. If, even if that's the case, I am glad, and I still rejoice with you all, Paul said, yeah, that's, it's a real inevitability that I am not gonna make it out here.

I hope I do. I'm planning on it. But if I don't, I'm still going to rejoice with you. 'cause that's what friends do. Regardless of how bad things are in their own life, regardless of what's going on for them. When you have joy, they will share that joy. Who do you share joy with? I mean, real joy, not just momentary little.

Oh, that's great. That's wonderful. Glad that happened. Glad you got a new car. Uh, whatever. You really share joy with. This is friendship. It's the way the Bible tells the story. At least there's a lot more. We could look at the book of Proverbs a lot about that this [00:48:00] fellow, fellow workers, you ask all, uh, and and this is a little bit again, uh, hard to translate.

Yes. I ask you also true companion. I think that's probably not the right translation. Help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers. Paul was the apostle. He was way up here, and yet he would say, we are fellow workers. We're on the same level.

Yes, I'm a, in fact, Paul doesn't even say in this letter, he's the apostle doesn't use that, just says, I'm a servant of Christ. He didn't pull rank. He has to, in some cases, pretty important that he does. But with this church, he has a different disposition. He just says, we are fellow workers. We are fellow soldiers in the cause.

We are, let's see, there's a couple more here. Fellow imitators. We all are imitating, we all are watching, thinking about Jesus and watching Jesus [00:49:00] and watching and thinking about Jesus. And we are going to conform our lives to his life. That's our goal. That's our goal. Well, um, my time has gotten on here today.

Wow. I've got, oh, I've got so much cool stuff. I gotta come back. Yeah, please, mark, please Mark wherever you, if, if you're watching it there. Okay. We're gonna go straight to the, straight, to the kind of the end, the end of all things here. Um, and that is points for home. Um, that's, I like Legos. You like Legos?

Well. Points for home. Number one, friendship is central to the gospel and there is a tremendous lack of friendship and probably in your life you don't have the kinds of [00:50:00] friends that you would like. You, you don't have the kinds of friends that you would like to be for others, there are holes in your life because there's supposed to be a friend there.

You've fallen because there was supposed to be a friend there to catch you, and there was not somebody like that. We live in a world today of separation. We live in a world today where we drive into our neighborhoods. We park in our garage, we go in the house, and we don't know who's next door or the next door, or the next door, or the next door.

I, I wanna encourage you today. To think about what it means to be a friend and to seek a friend, and to be a friend, and to, and, and to, to, to, I guess that's where it starts. You don't say, you don't look for somebody, you, you start being that person. Friendship is rare in this world. [00:51:00] It doesn't have to be, but it means that we share life together.

It means we share the ups and the downs and the ends and the outs. The highs and the lows. We just do life together. Have meals together. Who's been at your supper table in the last month, six weeks, two years? Who's been there? Some great people I hope. But sometimes it starts with us just inviting somebody to come over to be with you or you going to do something for someone else.

It it, it starts small, but it gains us great, great benefits in life. And the gospel's all about friendship. There's a passage in, in John's gospel where, where Jesus says, you know, I used to call you students disciples, but now I'm gonna call your friends. It's pretty cool. [00:52:00] When Jesus calls your friends, there's a moment when you get a PhD.

I was 34 years old. You're down to the very last wire and you have a thing called oral exams and you walk into that. My, my doctor father was very formal. His name was Earl Ellis got his PhD at University of Edinburgh, very formally. He always called me Mr. Capes. Mr. Capes, Mr. Capes, Mr. Capes. All the time. I never really understood it exactly.

Went in my oral exam, three hour oral exam, several professors around the room giving you questions, asking you things, giving you a Greek text. They read that Greek text

and then they send you out. I send you out to the other room. It's 30, 45 minutes, something like that, where they discuss is this person worthy of having a doctor, a philosophy degree, and they, they have to vote. They have to decide. [00:53:00] It's an interesting moment. Some of you understand this, if you've gotten a PhD or any kind of degree, I guess, where you get a knock on the door, and it was doc, my doctor, father Earl Ellis.

And he extended his hands to Dr. Capes. We are so glad that you passed your oral exam from then on out. Now that was, that was a sweet moment. It's half a lifetime ago for me. Right. But there comes a moment when somebody moves from just being an acquaintance to a real friend. I was having breakfast the other day with a former assistant of mine.

And she and her husband were in Utah. We were in Utah together for a conference of Veritas Forum Scholars. It was an amazing event. Condoleezza Rice was there. Um, David Brooks was there from New York Times, who's by the way, has recently become a Christian, [00:54:00] um, Jewish guy. Jewish guy from New York.

Interesting story. But, but we were having breakfast. She, she used to call me Dr. Capes. Dr. Capes. And I, and I, and I came to a moment and said, look. You've known me long enough. Call me David. Don't call me Dr. Capes. We are friends. I care about you. I'm proud of you. We've moved to a different place. We are sharing life together.

She had shared a lot of her griefs and a lot of her sorrows and things that had happened in her life last couple of years. So we've moved to a different place. I am no longer to you, Dr. Capes. That was appropriate for a certain time, but now I'm a friend. Call me David. I try to get Pastor Jarret to do that.

Pastor Jarret, he always called Dr. Capes. Dr. Capes Dr. Don't call me that. Call me. David said, I can't. I can't. [00:55:00] That happens. I love this slide here. I love this slide. I'm not sure who said it. I think I said it. It's 'cause it's smart. Uh,

if we had friends, we wouldn't need therapist. Right. I'm not, I'm not. If you're a therapist, I, I value you. I, I, I really do. I I don't wanna say, listen, I might be, I may be maybe knocking on your door soon and say, I gotta talk to you. But I'm just telling you that there is something about having a genuine friend that you do life together,

where you tell them things that, and you share things that are deep and intimate and important to you and, and, and speak to your soul. That's what friends do. [00:56:00] This is a letter about friends. Here's another thing.

God is gonna complete what he started as a passage we didn't get to Philippians one, six. It's really kind of a complicated passage. It's, it's not exactly what it seems to be on the surface, I don't think. And if I get a chance, I'll come back and share like, but it says that I, I am confident of this, that the one who has begun a good work in you will complete it at the day of Christ.

That's essentially what the passage says. Now the question really falls around what does that word or good work, what does he refer to as good work? And, and how does, how does that work within that particular context? But the point is, is that God has started something in you. And if you're a Christian, if you've been baptized, if you suggest to Jesus, he started something in you and he's still working on you.

I used to wear a button. Please be patient with me. God has not finished [00:57:00] with me yet. Has anybody ever seen one of those? Anybody ever warned any of those? Yes. If you're an employee of a JC Penny, I suggest you not wear that. I, uh, my, my, my boss told me to take it off, but it says, please be patient with me.

God's not finished. He's still gotta work to do, but it's not just in me. It's in you. God is still working. Gospel's still moving. The gospel is moving in some amazing ways. Not necessarily in my neighborhood, your neighborhood, this city, but in a lot of places in the world. And as saints do persevere, if you're a Christian, you're gonna persevere.

You'll be there at the end. I think it's more about, uh, Baptists have this saying, once saved, always saved. Right? And, and I think that's true. There's no doubt about it once we are saved. But what? But it also means that we will persevere through ups and downs. Strong, strong moments of life, hard moments of life [00:58:00] valleys.

We will persevere and God is faithful. And the last thing is last point from home is this,

Paul can teach us to pray if we, one of the things that you do for friends is you pray for them, you love them, and you pray for them. And Paul can teach us to pray. And, and in just a moment as we stand, I'm gonna ask you to stand. I'm gonna pray for you. I'm gonna pray for you. In a sense, the same prayer that Paul prayed for the Philippians.

It's a version of that, but inspired by Paul's words himself as he spoke these words to this church. What I, this is what I pray for you, and if we will read Paul's letters, we will understand what it means to pray for friends. Let's stand together. And if you would bow your heads, close your eyes. You could look to heaven if you'd prefer.

This is the prayer that Paul [00:59:00] prayed and I pray it for you. May your love for God and for one another, and for your enemies grow and abound more and more. May your knowledge increase. And may you discern between right and wrong. What is good, what is better, what is best, and what is God's will in every situation?

May you be found pure and blameless on the day when Christ returns. May you be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus, our Messiah King, the glory and praise of God. Amen.