Philippians begins today, and after Ephesians' cathedral prose the change of register is immediate. This is a thank-you letter to a congregation Paul plainly loved, written from prison, to people who had been sending him money.
What happens
"Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus, to all the holy ones in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the overseers and ministers… I give thanks to my Theos at every remembrance of you, praying always with joy in my every prayer for all of you, because of your partnership for the gospel from the first day until now. I amconfident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus… And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ."
What to notice
The opening is the first surprise: Paulos kai Timotheos douloiChristou Iēsou, "Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus."He does not call himself an apostle.Philippians is the only undisputed letter where he omits the title in the greeting — almost certainly because there was nobody at Philippi disputing it.Galatians opened by defending the office; here he does not need it.Syn episkopois kai diakonois, "with overseers and servants," is the earliest reference in Paul to anything like church offices, and the plural matters: overseers, not an overseer.Epi tē koinōnia hymōn eis to euangelion — koinōnia is the word from the handshake in Galatians 2:9, read on October 7 — and in this letter it is not an abstraction.Philippians 4:15–16 says plainly that this congregation, alone among the churches, sent him money more than once. And then Philippians 1:6, the day's find: ho enarxamenos en hymin ergon agathon epitelesei, "the one who began a good work in you will complete it."Enarchomai and epiteleō. Those are the two verbs from Galatians 3:3, read on October 8 — both sacrificial terms: to inaugurate a rite and to bring it to its finish.In Galatians the pair is an accusation, and the subject is the Galatians. Here the pair is a promise, and the subject is Theos.Same two verbs, twenty-two days apart in the lectionary, with the agency moved.Dia to echein me en tē kardia hymas is ambiguous and both readings are good: "because I hold you in my heart" or "because you hold me in yours."En splanchnois Christou Iēsou — the splanchna again, the Samaritan's reflex on October 5. Paul says he misses them with somebody else's insides. And the prayer is specific about what love grows into: en epignōsei kai pasē aisthēsei — aisthēsis occurs only here in the New Testament; it is sense-perception, the faculty of discrimination, the root of aesthetic. Paul is praying that their love acquire taste.Eis to dokimazein ta diapheronta — dokimazō is the metal-testing verb from October 23, and ta diapheronta means both the things that differ and the things that matter. And eilikrineis carries an ancient etymology worth having: heilē, sunlight, plus krinō — that which has been examined by holding it up to the sun.
Psalm 111 for the third time this month — October 5 with its later verses, October 9 and today with these. The lectionary keeps returning to it, and today's first reading explains why.
The selected verses
Psalm 111:1–2."I will give thanks to Yahweh with all my heart in the company and assembly of the just. Great are the works of Yahweh, exquisite in all their delights." Psalm 111:3–4."Majesty and glory are his work, and his justice endures forever. He has won renown for his wondrous deeds; gracious and merciful is Yahweh." Psalm 111:5–6."He has given food to those who fear him; he will forever be mindful of his covenant. He has shown his might to his people by giving them the inheritance of the nations."
What to notice
The psalm is an acrostic — aleph to tav, twenty-two half-lines — and its subject is ma'aseh, work, always with Theos as the one doing it.On the morning Philippians says the one who began a good work in you will complete it, the psalm has been saying for twenty-two lines that the works in question are his.Psalm 111:3's hod v'hadar po'olo, "splendour and majesty are his doing," uses po'al, a completed deed — the noun for a finished piece of work. And tzidqato omedet la-ad, "his rightness stands forever," uses amad, to stand — the verb Ephesians spent yesterday on. And Psalm 111:5's terefnatan li-re'av, "he gave prey to those who fear him," is the line from October 9: not the ordinary word for food but the torn meat a predator carries off.On a day whose Gospel is set at a dinner table, the psalm's word for provision is a kill. The verse the psalm is building toward is its last, which the selection stops short of: reshit chokhmah yir'at Yahweh, "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of Yahweh."A psalm about a work begun ends on the word reshit, beginning.
Another meal at a Pharisee's house — the third in Luke. This one is a formal sabbath dinner given by a leading man, and Luke says at the start what kind of evening it is going to be.
What happens
"On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy. Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking, 'Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?' But they kept silent; so he took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him. Then he said to them, 'Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?' But they were unable to answer his reply."
What to notice
Ēsan paratēroumenoi auton, "they were watching him closely."Paratēreō is surveillance — to keep under observation with an eye to catching something; Luke uses it again at Luke 20:20 of the spies sent to trap him.The verb tells you the meal is a set-up before anything happens.Anthrōpos tis ēn hydrōpikos emprosthen autou — hydrōpikos occurs only here in the New Testament and is a medical term, the accumulation of fluid in the tissues. And here is the detail that makes the scene bite.In ancient moral writing, dropsy was the standard emblem of greed, because the condition's cruel paradox was well known: the dropsical man is swollen with water and cannot stop being thirsty.Polybius uses the comparison; so do Ovid, Horace and the Cynic tradition.The man placed in front of Jesus is a walking illustration of pleonexia — and the very next paragraph of Luke 14 is about guests grabbing the best seats at a dinner.The disease is a diagnosis of the room.Jesus asks before he acts: is it permitted to heal on the sabbath, or not? — put to the lawyers, in their own house, before touching anybody.Hoi de hēsychasan, "but they were silent."Given the chance to state the rule, the experts decline. Then three verbs, the last worth catching: epilabomenos iasato auton kai apelysen, "taking hold of him, he healed him and released him."Apolyō is the verb from October 26, said to the woman bent double — to set free, to discharge, to let go. And then the argument. There is a textual variant worth knowing:some manuscripts read onos, donkey, instead of huios, son — and donkey or ox is the expected pair, since Deuteronomy 22:4 uses that couple. But son or ox is the harder reading and the better attested, and it is more effective. And this was a live dispute with actual parties: the Damascus Document from Qumran explicitly forbids pulling an animal out of a pit on the sabbath.Ouk ischysan antapokrithēnai — the room is silent twice: once before the healing and once after.
How They Fit Together
Work somebody else finishes — and a room that would not say the rule
The day is about work that somebody else finishes, and about a room full of people who could not say what the rule was.
Philippians opens with a man in prison thanking a congregation for money, and inside the thanks is the sentence that has kept more people going than almost anything else Paul wrote. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.
And the two verbs are not new this month.Enarchomai and epiteleō were the pair in Galatians 3:3, twenty-two days ago, where they were sacrificial terms and an accusation: having inaugurated the offering in Spirit, are you now finishing it off in flesh?There the Galatians were the subject and the point was that they were making a mess of a rite they had no business completing.
Here the same two verbs appear with Theos as the subject.The problem in Galatia was that people had taken over the finishing.The comfort at Philippi is that they have not got to.It is the identical verb-pair and the identical concern, and everything depends on who is holding the tools.
And the prayer that follows says what growth actually looks like, and it is more interesting than more love.That love may overflow in knowledge and in every kind of perception.Aisthēsis is sense-perception, the discriminating faculty, the word from which aesthetic comes, and it appears nowhere else in the New Testament.Paul is praying that their love develop a palate — eis to dokimazein ta diapheronta, to assay the things that differ.
And then the Gospel puts a room full of experts in front of a test and they fail it by saying nothing.
Luke tells us the terms before the scene starts:they were watching him closely — a surveillance verb. And there is a man with dropsy positioned in front of him. Whether he was placed there or simply came, the effect is a case laid on the table.
And the disease is not chosen at random, or if it was, the coincidence is remarkable. Dropsy was the ancient world's standard image for greed — a body swollen with the very fluid it cannot stop craving. And the paragraph that follows immediately in Luke 14 is about dinner guests competing for the good seats, and the one after that about who should be on your guest list. The man's body is a picture of the appetite in the room.
Then Jesus does the thing that makes the silence damning: he asks first.Is it permitted, or not? — put to lawyers, in a lawyer's house, before he touches anyone.They could have answered. The strict position was genuinely held; the Qumran community wrote it down.They say nothing, and then he heals the man and releases him — the same verb used of the woman bent for eighteen years — and sends him out of a house where nobody had spoken up for him.
And then the argument, which is unanswerable for the same reason as October 26's: it is built out of what they already do.A son or an ox in a well, on the sabbath — who waits?Nobody waits.They have already decided, in practice, that some things cannot be postponed.He is only asking them to say which ones out loud.
They had not the strength to answer.Twice in six verses, a room of people whose profession is stating the law declines to state it — not because they do not know, but because saying it would settle something they would rather leave unsettled.
Philippians says the work will be completed by the one who began it.Luke shows what that looks like on a Friday evening: somebody takes hold of a man nobody would speak for, finishes the job in one sentence, and lets him go home.
A Question to Sit With
He asked the question out loud before he did anything, and they said nothing — not because they lacked an answer but because either answer would have committed them. And a man swollen with the disease of never having enough stood in the middle of a dinner party where the guests were about to start competing for seats. I know how to keep a principle general enough that it never quite obliges me. What have I declined to state plainly, because stating it would settle what I do next?