Philippians 1:12–18

¹² I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, ¹³ so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. ¹⁴ And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. ¹⁵ Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. ¹⁶ The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. ¹⁷ The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. ¹⁸ What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

A lot of inmates in prison have accomplished a lot of very impressive things over the years. Take, for instance, William Addis.

William Addis was an Englishman born somewhere around London in 1734. In 1770, Addis was imprisoned for causing a riot. While he was in prison, he washed his teeth with a rag, some soot, and some salt. This was the standard method throughout Europe and had been so for centuries. He watched a man using a broom to sweep the floor and decided that there could be a better way of cleaning teeth.

Addis saved a small animal bone from one of the meals that he was given. Then, he drilled small holes into one end of the bone. He obtained some pig bristles from his guards, tied them into little tufts, and stuck them through the holes with some glue. This was the original toothbrush invented in Europe.[1]

Or how about Jesse Hawley, a flour merchant from New York?

Eventually, in 1807, Hawley’s difficulties in securing reasonably priced transportation drove him in 1806 to debtors’ prison for twenty months. While in prison, writing under the name “Hercules”, he published fourteen essays on the idea of the canal from the Hudson River to Lake Erie; they appeared in the Genesee Messenger.

Considering his modest education and lack of formal training as an engineer or surveyor, Hawley’s writing was remarkable; he pulled together a wealth of information necessary to the project, provided detailed analysis of the problems to be solved, and wrote with great eloquence and foresight on the importance the canal would have to the state and to the nation. Though they were deemed the ravings of a madman by some, Hawley’s essays were proven to be immensely influential on the development of the canal.[2]

Or consider Robert Franklin Stroud, “The Bird Man of Alcatraz.” A dangerous man and a murderer, Stroud nonetheless made an amazing contribution to science and medical knowledge while in prison. His Wikipedia article states:

In 1920, while in solitary confinement at the federal penitentiary of Leavenworth, Stroud discovered a nest with three injured sparrows in the prison yard. He cared for them and within a few years had acquired a collection of about 300 canaries. He began extensive research into birds after being granted equipment by a prison-reforming warden. Stroud wrote Diseases of Canaries, which was smuggled out of Leavenworth and published in 1933, as well as a later edition (1943). He made important contributions to avian pathology, most notably a cure for the hemorrhagic septicemia family of diseases, gaining much respect and some level of sympathy among ornithologists and farmers.[3]

Amazing! How about one more example. A first-century Jew is thrown into prison because he will not stop preaching about Jesus. He is so passionate about Jesus that his presence and his preaching and the riots they sometimes cause are seen as positively dangerous by some of the authorities. While in prison, this first-century Jew wrote some letters that were so powerful they are still studied by groups of people all around the world who find in his letters the very words of God to mankind. That Jewish prisoner was named Paul and one of those letters was called “Philippians.” Paul’s imprisonment was not incidental to the writing of Philippians or to his life. In fact, it was quite important, and in verses 12 through 18 of this most remarkable letter, Paul talks about the role that his imprisonment played.

In prison, Paul learned to see what was really happening behind what appeared to be happening.

We begin with verse 12, a verse in which Paul reveals his perspective on his imprisonment. In doing so, he shows us something most interesting. What he shows us hinges on the word, “really.”

¹² I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel

This is amazing! “Yes, I am in prison, but that is not what is really going on here!” It is amazing to see how Paul’s perspective was able to penetrate beneath the surface to the deeper dynamics at play.

Most of us live life in perpetual reaction to the surface realities we face. We are wronged, so we respond in anger. Things go well, so we respond with happiness. Things seem scary, so we respond with fear. But Paul had clearly learned to think more deeply. This was because he had given himself to Christ and allowed the Holy Spirit to alter how he thought!

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul had developed the ability to say, “I know what this looks like, but what has really happened is…” In doing this, Paul was able to see God at work, especially in his most difficult circumstances!

What would it be like to be able to think like this and to speak like this?

“Yes, the doctor said three months…but what is really happening is I have three months to see a number of lives changed by the gospel as I share my faith with those around me!”

“Yes, they terminated my employment…but what is really happening is God is opening up a whole new mission field to me!”

“Yes, the Lord took him home…but what is really happening is he has now been healed and set free from his struggles!”

“Yes, I do have what the world calls a ‘disability’…but what is really happening is God is getting greater glory as the world sees me trusting in Him and His goodness!”

“Yes, we lost everything…but what is really happening is God is teaching me to depend on Him as He is preparing us for something greater!”

Church, what is really happening is the greater thing that God is doing behind what appears to be happening on the surface!

In prison, Paul learned that if he gave his imprisonment to God, God would use it to set other people free.

The specific good that was happening beneath the surface of the unpleasant events was this: God was using Paul’s imprisonment to set other people free through the gospel. The gospel was spreading as both the world and the church saw Paul giving his imprisonment to God!

¹² I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, ¹³ so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. ¹⁴ And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

“Instead of reporting how he was doing,” writes Frank Thielman, “Paul talks about how the gospel is doing.”[4] That is true and that is telling! Paul says that two general groups of people were benefiting from his imprisonment:

• the imperial guard
• all the rest
• the brothers

The first two groups likely comprise lost people around Paul: the guards and the other prisoners. And “the brothers” is a reference to the church and, specifically, to other preachers of the gospel.

All of these are affected by the “advance of the gospel.” Note the language: “so that it [the gospel] has become known…”

It was Paul’s faithful endurance in his imprisonment that opened the door for gospel advancement! Moisés Silva has astutely observed, “The apostle…did not merely say that the gospel had continued to make progress in spite of adversity; rather, the adversity itself had turned out for the advancement of the gospel.”[5]

Had Paul spent his imprisonment complaining about the injustice of it, he would have shifted the spotlight to himself and away from Christ! Had Paul fired off a letter to the Philippians complaining about his enemies, complaining about the legal system, complaining about the deprivations he was experiencing, then the gospel would not have advanced. Only Paul’s complaints would had advanced. But he did not! He kept it about Jesus!

The first step is to learn to see what God is doing beneath the surface events of life. The second step is to ask this question: How might what is happening to me advance the gospel? How may others come to see Jesus if I give this to Jesus?

As the gospel advanced, those imprisoned in sin and lostness were set free! God can work great good if we give our circumstances to Him!

In prison, Paul developed a kingdom perspective that lifted him above earthly despair.

This perspective also had a very real emotional impact on Paul. In short, as he developed a kingdom perspective on earthly suffering, his joy eclipsed his other emotions. There were two challenges Paul faced, one from outside the church and one from within. Outside the church, there was the harassment of Paul’s opponents leading to his imprisonment. Inside the church, Paul had to deal with men who were jealous of him seizing the opportunity of his imprisonment to promote their own ministries. This is made clear in verses 15–18.

¹⁵ Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. ¹⁶ The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. ¹⁷ The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.

The ministry, then as now, is rife with competition! Clearly, there were Christian preachers who resented Paul’s position, Paul’s fame, Paul’s success. Maybe they resented the fact that one who had earlier persecuted the church was now a great hero of the church! In this way, some preachers were acting like the older brother in the story of the prodigal son: They were pouting outside the banquet hall while Paul was celebrated…even though Paul never sought to be celebrated!

Some of these men thought, “Paul is in prison. This is our chance!” So they preached the gospel but they did so out of “envy” and “rivalry” and “selfish ambition” and insincerity. Not all, of course. Some did so “from good will” and “love.” Those who were preaching insincerely thought that they would “afflict” Paul while he was in prison. But they miscalculated. They miscalculated because Paul’s joy was not in his own advancement but in the gospel’s! So even though their motives were poor, he still found a way to rejoice that God was using their preaching to spread the gospel!

¹⁸ What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

This is astonishing! Paul could not be wounded by his Jewish opponents, by the Roman prison system, or even by the bad designs of other Christian ministers! He was truly free because he was singularly focused on Jesus and Jesus only! Gordon Fee writes:

Paul is a man of a single passion: Christ and the gospel. Everything is to be seen and done in light of Christ. For him both life and death mean Christ. His is the passion of the single-minded person who has been “apprehended by Christ,” as he will tell the Philippians in 3:12–14.[6]

This is kingdom perspective. This is being focused so much on Jesus that the arrows of your detractors simply cannot hurt you! What would it be like to live life like this! To be free! To be focused on only one thing! To be so enamored with the beauty and fame of Jesus that it no longer mattered to you what happened to you!

In his 1884 Early Baptist Persecution in Virginia, Richard Cook wrote:

The Baptist church at Culpepper now stands on the site of the old jail. Preaching began there long before the meeting-house was erected. James Ireland, a godly and eminent man while in prison, though greatly enfeebled by cruelties, preached through the grated windows, to the people, who had gathered outside to hear him. This noble man dated his letters while in prison: “From my palace in Culpepper.”…

He had much to endure during his confinement. Several attempts were made to murder him. They first put powder under the floor of his room to blow him up, then tried to suffocate him by filling his cell with the fumes of burning brimstone, and finally with the aid of a physician poisoned him; but his life was spared.[7]

There in a prison with assassins all around, James Ireland decided that all he cared about was Christ. He signed his letters from his miserable little cell, “From my palace in Culpepper.” Richard Cook wrote of this:

This reminds us of these lines:

And prisons would palaces prove,
If Jesus would dwell with me there.

Yes! Jesus transforms prisons into palaces! When we give our pain to Jesus, He steps into it and illuminates the darkest corners with His light and glory! With Jesus:

Prisons can become palaces.

Hospitals can become hallelujahs.

Gravesides can become gratitude.

Pink slips can become praising lips.

Terminations can become celebrations.

Tragedies can become “Do you see!”s!

Worry can become worship.

Depression can become dependence.

Fear can become faith.

Loneliness can become Lord-you-bless!

Disability can become “His ability”!

Anxiety can become “How great is He?!”

And the darkest night can give way before the sunrise of the greatness of God!

Give your “imprisonment” to Jesus…whatever that “imprisonment” is.

And watch what He does!

 

[1] https://historycooperative.org/who-invented-the-toothbrush/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Hawley_(merchant)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stroud

[4] Thielman, Frank S. Philippians (The NIV Application Commentary Book 11) (p. 63). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.

[5] Silva, Moisés. Philippians (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) (p. 62). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[6] Fee, Gordon D. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT)) (p. 125). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.

[7] http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/virginia.persecution.html