Introduction of the Gospel into Philippi

Notes

1. In order to become perfectly familiar with any epistle, it is necessary to understand as much as possible of the circumstances attending the writing of it, and the people to whom it was specially addressed. In studying these lessons, the student's aim should be to acquire not only such a knowledge of the epistle under consideration that he can think through it as a whole, giving an outline of each chapter, but also to become acquainted with the circumstances of the people connected with it, so that he can in imagination live them over. Help in this line will be given in the notes. The thorough teacher will find in the notes suggestions for many questions that are not written in the lessons. He will also find it expedient sometimes to expand one question into two or three. Care should be taken, however, not to carry this so far as to depart from the direct line of the lesson.

The principal facts which throw light on the epistle to the Philippians are found in the epistle itself, in the sixteenth chapter of Acts, and in 2 Cor. 8:1-5. In Luke's narrative we learn that Philippi was "the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony." Acts 16:12. By the term "colony" is meant that the city was founded, or at least occupied, by Roman citizens, who had gone there under the direction of the Roman Government, and who possessed all the privileges of the inhabitants of the city of Rome.

2. The sixteenth chapter of Acts gives in a graphic manner the history of the founding of the Philippian church. Lydia, evidently a woman of some wealth, readily embraced the gospel, and provided in her house a home for the missionaries. But Satan could not allow the work to go on unmolested, and the way in which he sought to bring it into disrepute was by identifying his own work with it. The damsel who followed Paul and Silas, saying, "These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation" (Acts 16:16, 17), is said to have been possessed with a "spirit of divination," margin, "python." This means that she was a priestess of the Pythian Apollo, whose chief temple and oracle was at Delphi. To this celebrated oracle people flocked to receive information, just as people nowadays go to consult famous Spiritualist mediums. The damsel was really a Spiritualist medium, whom Satan controlled, and through whom he worked. The effect of her testimony concerning Paul and Silas, which was the exact truth, would be to cause people who were favorably impressed with their preaching to think that they were in harmony with her. Paul's course with her was in harmony with his injunction, "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." Eph. 5:11.

3. The miracle which Paul wrought deprived the men of the gain which came to them through the girl's soothsaying. This enraged them against Paul and Silas. The student will recall that on a later occasion, at Ephesus, a great uproar was made against Paul and his fellow-laborers, by men who thought that their unlawful gains were endangered. Men who have no religion at all will often become apparently very pious when they are made to think that the preaching of the truth will interfere with their business. Observers of the signs of the times cannot fail to see that this spirit still is working. Paul and Silas had not troubled the city. They had gone quietly about their own work, and all the trouble had been caused by the men who had brought the accusation. Satan's work is always to charge upon the servants of Christ the trouble which he himself originates.