Message of the Month: The Believers at Philippi from Philippians
Racial, ethnic, and social segregation are as old as society itself.
Wherever people live, they form groups along these lines, then put up walls around them to keep others out.
In Philippi, as elsewhere, Paul offered the gospel first to the Jews.
There must have been very few Jews in Philippi because the city did not have a synagogue, and in first-century Judaism it took only ten Jewish men to
justify building a synagogue for worship.
The Jews who did live in Philippi went outside the city gate to the banks of the Gangites River for worship and prayer.
Yet the Christian church to which Paul wrote must have flourished, because in his letter he referred to the levels of leadership in the church, such as
overseers and deacons.
Philippi was a culturally diverse Roman city on the main highway (the Egnatian Way) from the eastern provinces to Rome, and the church at Philippi
had a diverse group of believers.
The New Testament specifically mentions an Asian, a Greek, and a Roman.
On the surface, these people had little in common.
One was a businesswoman who sold purple cloth to the rich; one was a slave girl who had been possessed with a spirit of divination; the third was a jailer.
Three different races, three different social ranks, and probably three different religious loyalties before encountering Christ.
But Paul taught them that all were equal in the body of Christ; all were sinners saved by God's grace.
They were to humble themselves as Jesus had done, and be unified in the love of Christ.
In a world segregated along class and ethnic lines, the church at Philippi broke the rules: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,...for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).
This church was one of the most integrated places in the Mediterranean world.
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