Philippians 2:12-30

New Testament for Everyone

How salvation is worked out

¹² So, my dear people: you always did what I said, so please now carry on in the same way, not just as though I was there with you, but much more because I’m not! Your task now is to work at bringing about your own salvation; and naturally you’ll be taking this with utter seriousness. ¹³ After all, God himself is the one who’s at work among you, who provides both the will and the energy to enable you to do what pleases him.

¹⁴ There must be no grumbling and disputing in anything you do. ¹⁵ That way, nobody will be able to fault you, and you’ll be pure and spotless children of God in the midst of a twisted and depraved generation. You are to shine among them like lights in the world, ¹⁶ clinging on to the word of life. That’s what I will be proud of on the day of the Messiah. It will prove that I didn’t run a useless race, or work to no purpose.

¹⁷ Yes: even if I am to be poured out like a drink-offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I shall celebrate, and celebrate jointly with you all. ¹⁸ In the same way, you should celebrate, yes, and celebrate with me.

On Timothy

¹⁹ I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I in turn may be encouraged by getting news about you. ²⁰ I have nobody else of his quality: he will care quite genuinely about how you are. ²¹ Everybody else, you see, looks after their own interests, not those of Messiah Jesus. ²² But you know how Timothy has proved himself. Like a child with a father he has worked as a slave alongside me for the sake of the gospel. ²³ So I’m hoping to send him just as soon as I see how it will turn out with me. ²⁴ And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come very soon as well.

On Epaphroditus

²⁵ But I did think it was necessary to send Epaphroditus to you. He is my brother; he has worked alongside me and fought alongside me; and he’s served as your agent in tending to my needs. ²⁶ He was longing for you all, you see, and he was upset because you heard that he was sick. ²⁷ And he really was sick, too; he nearly died. But God took pity on him—yes, and on me as well, so that I wouldn’t have one sorrow piled on top of another.

²⁸ This has made me all the more eager to send him, so that you’ll see him again and be glad, and my own anxieties will be laid to rest. ²⁹ So give him a wonderfully happy welcome in the Lord, and hold people like him in special respect. ³⁰ He came close to death through risking his life for the Messiah’s work, so that he could complete the service to me that you hadn’t been able to perform.