I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Philippians 1-4.

    The first thing in this passage I want to write about is what Paul says about those who are preaching the Good News for base motives. Paul’s response about those who preach the Gospel out of selfish ambition in order to make him feel bad was the he did not care why they were preaching, so long as more people heard the Good News. I often turn that about. I do not care why someone chooses to come to a Church which preaches God’s Word, I have faith in the power of God’s Word to change people. This does not mean that it is OK to mislead people about what Church is about, or what some other program is about. If our purpose is to preach the Good News, let us be upfront about that.
    Whenever I think about this I think of a story from years ago. Some time back the Mennonite Church had an automobile insurance program. As a result of some of the beliefs of the Mennonite Church regarding lawsuits and other insurance related matters, the cost of this insurance was a lot cheaper than any other insurance that was available. However, one of the conditions of this insurance was that you had to be an active member of a Mennonite Church (active meant attending Sunday services on a regular basis, at the minimum). A man I know who was married to a woman who grew up in the Mennonite Church heard about this and said, “I can sit and be bored for two hours a week in order to save that much on insurance.” His Mother-In-Law said that was the wrong reason for going to Church. I agree with her in principle, you should go to Church services because of your faith in Christ, but I do not really care why you go to Church. I have faith in the power of God’s Word to transform people. On the other hand, if that insurance program had been set up in order to get people to go to Church, or if I had tried to convince the man to go to Church in order to get cheap insurance, that would have been wrong as well.

    The next thing I want to touch on is what Paul writes in the beginning of Chapter 2. I much prefer the NIV translation to the NLT here (although the NLT adds a nice twist to part of it). The NIV tells us to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. The NLT translates that as “Don’t be selfish and don’t try to impress others.” Let us do things because it is the right thing to do, not because we benefit from it or because others will think well of us for doing so. It is in the next phrase that I prefer the NIV. The NLT tells us to be humble, so far, so good (actually more than good, great), and think of others as better than ourselves. That last is where I disagree. I do not believe that God wants us to think of others as better than ourselves. He wants us to do as the NIV translates it and value others above ourselves. And the next sentence really sums that up. Rather than “looking out for Number 1, and Devil take the hindmost,” we are to look out for other people’s interests.

    For this last paragraph I am going to just quote from the passage:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.