Thanksgiving

Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons:

For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me.

And this I pray, that your love may overflow still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,

so that you may discover the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ;

The Gospel Is Preached

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel,

so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the praetorian guard and to everyone else,

and that most of the brothers and sisters, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.

Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill;

the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking that they are causing me distress in my imprisonment.

for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,

according to my eager expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sakes.

so that your pride in Christ Jesus may be abundant because of me by my coming to you again.

Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;

and in no way alarmed by your opponents—which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and this too, from God.

For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer on His behalf,

experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

Be like Christ

Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,

make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves;

who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.

so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,