The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the PhilippiansRainy, Robert
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Philippians
Rainy, Robert
Bible. Philippians -- Commentaries
Arrogance and selfishness--perhaps disguised in fairer forms--had bred
the disturbance at Philippi. The same baleful forces are present
everywhere in all the Churches to this day, and have often run riot in
the House of God. How shall the ugliness and the hatefulness of the
every-day selfishness, the every-day self-assertion, the every-day
strifes of Christians, be impressed upon our minds? How are we to be
awakened to our true calling in lowliness and in love?
_THE MIND OF CHRIST (Continued)._
"Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being
in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality
with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being
made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man,
He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the
death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave
unto Him the name which is above every name; that in the name of
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on
earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father."--PHIL. ii. 5-11 (R.V.).
CHAPTER VII.
_THE MIND OF CHRIST (Continued)._
It proves hard to make us aware of the sin and the misery involved in
the place commonly allowed to SELF. Some of its conspicuous outrages on
Christian decency we do disapprove and avoid: perhaps we have embarked
in a more serious resistance to its domination. Yet, after all, how
easily and how complacently do we continue to give scope to it! In forms
of self-assertion, of arrogance, of eager and grasping competition, it
breaks out. It does so in ordinary life, in what is called public life,
and, where it is most offensive of all, in Church life. Hence we fail so
much in readiness to make the case of others our own, and to be
practically moved by their interests, rights, and claims. There are
certainly great differences here; and some, in virtue of natural
sympathy or Christian grace, attain to remarkable degrees of generous
service. Yet these also, if they know themselves, know how energetically
self comes upon the field, and how much ground it covers. Many among us
are doing good to others; but does it never strike us that there is a
distant and arrogant way of doing good? Many in Christian society are
kind, and that is well; but undoubtedly there are self-indulgent ways of
being kind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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