Christ Proclaimed

In the Army, physical training (PT) was not only an important tool to measure combat readiness of soldiers, but also a bit of a way of life. Competition between soldiers on PT Tests in which they would measure their strength and endurance ranged from good-willed friendly rivalries to down right ruthless.

Whatever the reasoning a soldier had for training hard, good or ill motives, the mission was being accomplished, and there was a greater physical readiness in the unit. For this readiness, the commander was pleased (and often incentivized good results!)

In our second lesson from Morning Prayer today, Paul shares that this mentality was present in some of the churches and preachers of his day.

“Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” (Phil. 1:15-18)

Paul is writing this from a place of imprisonment, and the message that he has been sharing with the world was not always well accepted. He often had people angry with him and desiring to see his downfall, some of which it would appear from this text were from within the churches themselves. Knowing of Paul’s imprisonment, they may have thought that by preaching up a storm, they might bring greater penalty to Paul.

However, Paul was having none of it. He took the high road and looked at it from a providential standpoint. This was one which did not focus on his own suffering or become sullen because the motivations of those preachers was wrong. Instead he saw that although preaching from a bad heart position, the truth of the gospel was being preached nonetheless.

On one level we can all agree that we have seen some preachers who are preaching the gospel with questionable motives, whether envy or greed. I think Paul would give us the same advice that he gave himself—Christ is being preached, so that’s a start.

On another level though, I recognize something more universal to all of us. It is this thing that happens to us when we believe we know what somebody’s intentions and motivations are (usually in a negative way) and we allow that to dominate our actions. Paul could have said that he would not work with these people and get caught up with bringing them to correction or removed from the preaching ministry, but he didn’t. He knew God would handle things in a just way, and that he was to focus on the mission.

In the Church we encounter people, and are sometimes that person ourselves, who have a heart problem but continue to do the work of the church. While we can acknowledge that heart problems do exist, we ought to press on into the good work that God has created for us to do, allowing the Holy Spirit to work on others (and most of all us!). What we cannot do is allow the work to stop because of perceived issues in other people’s motivations! Let’s take the example of Paul to heart today and continue on in the work of loving God with our whole heart, mind, and soul, and loving our neighbors as our selves.