Living Truths: A Thematic Exposition of Philippians

The church at Philippi was a missionary church. The church was one of Paul’s missionary success stories – a church planted in a pagan area that grew and flourished. In addition, the congregation at Philippi developed into a missionary sending and supporting church. The church supported Paul as a missionary, in his ongoing ministry of planting additional churches and spreading God’s kingdom. The church also sent Epaphroditus to help support Paul do his missionary work.
Thus when we read the Book of Philippians, we are reading about Christian missions at work.
We see missions on the front end and back end.
We see the beginning of missions and the maturity of missions.
We see the birth of a church and we see the birth of missionaries.
We see the missionary and the missionary supporter.
Because Philippians is a missionary book, a careful study will provide insights for all who are interested in missions, including those who go as missionaries and those who stay behind and support missionaries from their homes. That should include practically all Christian believers. Because of the missionary nature of the book, I speak directly to missionaries some times and, in fact, it might sound like a missionary book.
In this book, I will be looking at a number of themes and principles from Philippians roughly in the order in which they appear. This is not an exhaustive commentary on the Book of Philippians but is what I call thematic exposition. I will not attempt to address every theme or topic or even every verse in the book but will attempt to address the major themes as they naturally develop throughout the book.
It is my prayer that the missionary spirit that was part of the lives of both the writer and recipients of this epistle will become a part of everyone who reads this book.