Thirty years ago Eerdmans published my first book, The Riddle of Grace. In the book I looked at different aspects of God’s grace toward us and how it intersects with our lives. 

One chapter that drew a bit of attention—including some negative attention from people who embraced free market capitalism as the most Christian form of economics ever seen—was titled “Grace and Capitalism.” I argued that particularly in the United States, our fierce love of rags-to-riches, Horatio Alger narratives by which all of life is about personal achievement and pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps had infiltrated the church and infected our theology. The ethos of everything being about effort and rewards undercut our appreciation for grace and perhaps also our need to be Christ-like humble servants who put others ahead of self.

So as I look back on that three-decades-old book, this month I am led to Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. In this month’s Sunday blogs I want to look at each of the four chapters in that epistle to highlight all the ways by which Paul incarnated and called others to incarnate a selfless willingness to give up achievement or any selfish “me first” attitudes.

We begin naturally enough in the first chapter. Paul was aware that this friends in Philippi knew he had been put into jail. So he strives to tell them the reason why. Paul had done nothing wrong, had committed no crimes, had violated no civil laws. Paul had been put in prison because of his proclamation of and defense of the holy Gospel.

But then in an arresting passage, Paul writes this:

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.

It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

As ever when we read someone else’s mail—which is what we are always doing with the various epistles in the New Testament—we have to infer some things that get mentioned. Here, we cannot know precisely what Paul means when people “preach Christ out of selfish ambition.” 

Were some mocking Paul by imitating his (to their minds) silly preaching?  Were some trying to top Paul, to “out-preach” Paul? Possibly. Were some just trying to take some of the spotlight off Paul as a famous prisoner for Christ so as to get a bit of the limelight for themselves? Possibly again.

But what is striking here is that the words Paul uses to describe the motives and actions of these people are some of the same words you can find in Paul’s various vice lists of behaviors that cannot characterize followers of Jesus. Envy. Rivalry.  Selfish ambition. These are the things these other preachers were guilty of. 

So how in the world could Paul find it within himself to say, “What does it matter?” I would think Paul would deem this to matter very, very much. I can certainly think of preachers—mostly people who have had their own TV shows past and present—whose vainglorious preaching has bothered me a lot.

Yet Paul says it does not matter, at least not compared to having Jesus preached and the Gospel proclaimed no matter how shoddy the proclamation vessel may be. He even rejoices over it!

As I have noted when preaching on this passage, this is the humble, servant-like posture of a man who is head over heels in love with Jesus and with his Gospel. If along the way to getting the Gospel word proclaimed more and more Paul is ridiculed, made fun of, or made to put up with odious behavior from unkind people, so be it. When Paul wrote “What does it matter?” he meant it.

Adopting such an attitude is a challenge for most of us. But if a man who was already in prison as it was could put up with people who were intent on making his situation even more miserable, surely we can too. We also should find it in ourselves to display as much grace and humility as Paul did. Or at least we keep trying!  

When faced with certain people and situations, rejoicing may well be the last thing we think we could muster. Yet the Gospel calls us to put Christ first and self last as Paul so clearly did.