Quiet like it's time to begin here. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Bible Study as it is the last time after 19 times that we're going to come into the Book of Libyans here this morning. And if you're watching online, then you know that. Let's see. I know that every time I load my mic out to people, it's Bible school week and Madison messed it up. Thanks for all you did in Bible school. Those of you here in the room, you see some of Bible schools still here, but that will go away soon. But go to the fellowship, check it out, because we left that up for come Wednesday night. Anyway, I'm not supposed to be giving announcements now. I'm supposed to do Bible study for 18 times. We've come together in the Book of Philippians. Now we're going to come together this last time and finish up Philippians, chapter four, verses ten through 20 on this warm morning, which is why I don't have the preacher attire on. Well, this is I don't know, I saw a preacher last night on TV and I looked dressed up three times more than him. So maybe it is preacher attire. It is today for me. Anyway, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you very much for your blessings to us and the blessings that we've had in this journey through the Book of Philippians and the joy that it has been to us. And we pray that as we finish it out, there will be some new keen insights as well that would encourage us and give us insights into Paul's world, into the theology that is ours, and into the walk that we have with you. We pray this in Jesus name, amen. Now, Philippians, chapter four, and we are going to begin up here in verse 18, verses ten through 20 are Paul's expression of gratitude to the Philippians for the gifts that they had given to him, specifically the financial gifts that they had given to him. And he was praising them and celebrating the work that they had done in that financial work. And we've spent two weeks now going through those various verses, and now we come and going to finish it out with the last two verses and verses 18 and 19. I have these in green. Once again, that's my own color coding system that I look at it and say, okay, is this ours to take to the bank with us? If it was, I would have put it in blue. I think that Paul is speaking specifically to the Philippians in such a way that is so contextual that I can't put myself in their shoes. Now, there are some things that are theological that doesn't matter if you happen to be in Philippi 2000 years ago or you're in town 2000 years later, the theology fits. But this is not one of those cases. This is one of those cases where there is such a specific context that he's writing in that I would be a little leery for myself anyway about just taking that and making some doctrine out of it. However, I did put it in green. Green means if you do take this ball and run with it, you're not going to have a train wreck out there. It's not going to lead you somewhere like in the next verse or something like that, that is going to be problematic for you. So I put it in green. As he says, I have all and abound. I am full, having received of Aphrodites the things which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing unto God. I can't quite fit that whole verse there, can I? And so he praises them. I have all. I have all. In fact, there's a little marginal note right there in the King James. And by the way, I'll stop right there. If you don't have a King James that contains the marginal notes, you should get one because they really can be very insightful. I take the marginal notes as the King James translators and I am convinced that the scholasticism of the King James translators has not been matched since I've grown in that. Of course, you know, I have formerly Nasby stained fingers, but as I've grown in that and I used to correct them and then I used to say, well, it seems like it should be this. And now I just say, I think they got it right and here's the reason they got it right. And the longer I work at it, the more I say, yeah, okay, I see what they're saying. Now I've gotten to know them and so I know their personality and what they're talking about. But when you come to these marginal notes here, I take that as the best of scholarship over the last 2000 years as it relates to biblical languages saying, hey, we want you to know that there are two different ways to take this. And here's the issue. So I have all can be translated. We'll just pop up that marginal note. I have received all and gives a couple of other places where that is used. I kind of take this, as I put it, as received. I have received everything that a Paproditus sent to me. I don't know, it's kind of a receipt. He's letting them know, hey, Aphrodites didn't steal anything on the way. You all told me you were going to send $200 and I got $200. I received it all. Here is the receipt. I have all and abound. I am full. Obviously, he is celebrating here the gift that they had given to them. I am full. Having received of Aphrodites, we've talked about him a number of times through the book, but we believe that he was the one that was the delivery man bringing this gift to Paul received of Aphroditis. The things which were sent from you. And then he begins to speak we'll call it metaphorically. He calls their gift and odea. Now, it just seems to me like if we spelled that in the English odor that it wouldn't be a good thing. But if we put the U in there and make the British spelling, then ouda is a sweet smelling thing. I suppose in America. I don't know how this would be. Our British listeners could tell us. I don't know if British listeners would use the word odor today for something that smells good. We would not here in the United States. I think we perhaps would say the aroma. The aroma is very good, but obviously it's the same thing. The odor of a sweet smell is what he does. Now, he's not saying, oh, the sweet smell of money. He clearly is speaking metaphorically, and he clearly is speaking as a Jewish man because he's talking the sacrificial aroma that goes up and from the sacrifices. As a matter of fact, he says this odor of sweet smell, a sacrifice, acceptable, well pleasing to God, of course, that really even goes back, I suppose, to the days of Cain and Abel, where you've got an acceptable sacrifice is an unacceptable sacrifice. And it goes into the days of the temple, certainly when God lit the fires on the altar, and then they would use those fires to place the sacrifice. And we're told in the scripture that those sacrifices would just excuse me. The smoke of those sacrifices would always just go straight up to God. It wasn't like, here I smelled smoke this morning. Was there a fire somewhere? I don't know, but here it comes in from Arizona or California or Ohio. I just threw that in there for you all. But anyway, this metaphorical discussion here, a sweet smell of sacrifice, acceptable, well pleasing unto God now basically says, hey, God likes what you did, and I think we can get that. Now, let me correct myself just a little bit. As a matter of fact, just a few weeks ago, I preached a sermon on idolatry. And the beginning of that sermon was, let's use words for what they mean, right? And I didn't talk about sacrifice there. I talked about the altar, however, and I talked about the sanctuary and the house of God and some of those kind of things that we use in a different sense from what the Bible uses. And my point was, when we're using Bible terms, we ought to talk like the Bible talks about. And the Bible for the house of the Lord, for the Bible is the temple, not the local church. Now, I have said in the past that sacrifice, the word sacrifice, always involves something dying, because in the Old Testament, of course, you bring the sacrifice. And for the most part that is true. But I would have to amend my words here because I don't think anything died here. This was a financial offering. And he does call it a sacrifice. And I probably have somewhere along the way chastised preachers for talking about sacrificial giving and whatnot that sacrificial giving is when you bring your ox to the altar and the ox dies. Well, here Paul catches me on it and says, oh, well, you can use it metaphorically. We've done it metaphorically here. So there's not a sacrifice given to the temple. But he uses that picture, that analogy to bring that forth. This also tells me, and of course you know that I'm one that believes in this overlap between the, shall we call it, the Jewish system and the system of the body of Christ. And it tells us on the things of the Jewish system over here during this time of the overlap that Paul is living in. It tells us that he did not have a disdain for the Jewish things. He didn't speak of the sacrifices as odious, but rather odorous, as a sweet smell unto God. And he uses this again as this illustration, and he's grateful for what is given there. And as a Jewish man, and it was earlier in the chapter, he talked about third chapter, excuse me, he talked about being a Hebrew of Hebrews and whatnot as a Jewish man, there probably is not a better way to put this is a wonderful gift, thank you very much, than what he said right there going on into verse 14. Then he says, my God shall supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. Of course, there is one that we have heard many, many times and we do need to come and be careful on this on application. You remember that I am persnickety about pronouns and I look at it and I always say, okay, who are we talking about? My God shall supply your need. Now, of course, the average standard evangelical way of reading that is god is going to supply all my need according to his riches and glory, and we immediately apply it directly to ourselves. And I think that here we would want to be very careful. Even though I have put it in green, I would say let's be very careful in applying this. If I thought we could just take this as a promise to claim, then I would have put it in blue. I don't think we can take it as a promise to claim. I think we can take it and say, well, God did tell the Philippians that God would supply all their need. Does he mean that for the Tau senos as well or not so much? Well, I don't know. I don't have another passage to go on that just could build the idea that God is definitely going to meet all my needs. Now, again, the standard evangelical approach is god will meet all my needs. He will meet all your needs according to his riches and glory. But then the standard evangelical runs into a problem. And that problem is, wait a minute, there are some people out there whose needs are not met, and what do we do with that? Well, typically the thing that would be done since you could, if you go too far with this and this is one of those things in which the what do you call it in, I don't know, in mechanics, the tolerance the tolerance is very slim. You got just a little tiny room to work with here and you can go from absolutely that's only the Philippians to, hey, God is going to give us everything we ever desired in our hearts. And you can go in a centimeter space, you can get from one to the other. And so we really have to be careful with this. So because most evangelicals are not name it and claim it, there are some, but most of them aren't, then they want to take this, but they don't want to take it too far, and they got this very fine line into which to walk. So typically what the standard evangelical will do with it is say God will supply all your need. Now, that's the key word right there you need there's a lot of things you want that God is not going to supply, but he will only supply that which you need. And there he is with the word need. Now, to me, that seems a little artificial to me. For one, wouldn't you agree with me that needs really do vary based upon a lot of circumstances? And probably for those of us who live, say, in the Western world, our needs compared to someone who lived in a third world country would be very different? And why is it that if you're born in the United States and raised in the United States, god supplies more of the need than if you're born in the Congo or some African country or some third world country somewhere where the need all he's going to provide you there is a mud hut and a little bit of what do they eat in Africa? Sabza. Is that what it's called? Yeah, a little bit of corn mush to eat and every three weeks you'll get an old red rooster to go along with it. If we're just talking physical need, I don't want to go there because I want a lot more than just what I physically absolutely have to have in order to live. I would rather have more than that, wouldn't you? And for most of us, or at least our wives, we mean, of course we could get by with nothing, but for most of us, our wives would say, no, we got to have more than that. This is not the level of sustenance you go out and get another job or something. I find it a little bit artificial. It's just what you need that God is going to provide. Because I don't know, if you're a businessman and you've got two or three or five or eight or ten or 1000 employees and you need to meet payroll, well, God will supply what you need. That may be millions of dollars. And if you're, again, a what do they call it, a day to day farmer in Africa, your need is another cucumber, whatever it may be, to carry that out. I suppose if in Africa it's probably another bundle of tobacco, because I think they grow a lot of tobacco there. But anyway, you get the point. Now, the other problem I have with this is the issue here of God shall supply. Let me see if I can get two things here. Well, I can't really. Okay, notice how supply is lit up and I am full is lit up. That is because they're the same word. So I abound, I am full. Now, that doesn't sound like just barely the needs that God has supplied. I am full. And down here again, this very same word right here, god will supply your need. He'll fill you up, basically, is what you've got. So when we sort of chastise people for thinking god is going to provide them too much, well, then we have to look and say, okay, this is a word that doesn't really just mean sustenance. The very basics of it, it is kind of a full word. As a matter of fact, he said again in the previous verse, I am full. And even if we were to back up here, go to, I don't know, verse eleven where Paul says, not that I speak in respect of want. Okay, you could interpret that whole verse in a couple of different ways, but you could certainly say Paul is saying, I've got all my needs, Matt. I'm content. I know how to be content. So I'm not speaking because I wasn't going to survive if you didn't provide it. So it looks like what the Philippians provide through all of these verses. And again, you get down to verse 18. I have all, I abound, I am full. This seems to go beyond need into some of the extra blessings that were there. And then he says, God shall supply all your fullness, if you will, in that. So I think our little sermons that try to keep us from making this name it and claim it are problematic. I think it would be better just to say he's talking to the Philippians. Does he mean that he's going to provide all my needs? If so, I'd want to build that off another verse in which it's really much more of a blanket statement to all believers in the body of Christ. Here's one, if you go to Biblerest.org, which is one that I don't recommend because it's owned by Godquestions.org, and I don't really like Godquestions, but they have this thing if you type what does Philippians 419 means? You can put any verse you want. You almost always get to Bibleref.org. One of these days I'm going to get all of our stuff on there so that ours comes up first rather than theirs because I've got a comment on almost every verse of the Bible and so certainly the New Testament anyway and so we could beat them. So we just have to get all our stuff online. That's what we got to do. Nathan but anyway, you'll almost always get Biblerep.org, which is going to give you the standard evangelical glances. Here's what they say on what does Philippians 419 mean? They say Paul was confident that God would meet their needs because they were generous in their giving. This is not a promise of wealth or an easy life. Rather the concept of need has to be considered according to God's will. What we need and what we want are not always the same. That being said, God tends to bless those who would use the resources they have according to his purpose. Pretty standard kind of stuff which shies away from name it and claim it, but it sort of name it and claim it and gets right in the center there. And again, I think the best thing to do is apply that to the Philippians. Now Paul comes in and still in the same context where as he gives this little doxology now unto God our Father, god now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Just one interesting little thing. It's in a sense doxology that he closes with paul almost always closed with a doxology and an amen and then said something else. The something else is probably as he describes in a couple of other books where he took the pen and added a little note at the bottom. It's still not an unusual thing even today to do. If you have a type letter going out, you sign your name on it and you might say P-S-I love you. I think from verse 21 on probably is his own handwriting, though he doesn't say it here. But he gives this little doxology now unto God and our Father be glory and forever and ever. Not a lot of things that aren't just self explanatory there. But it is kind of interesting that he says unto God and our Father be glory. You have to then ask is he talking about two people who I don't know if people are the right word, but I don't know what other word to use there god and our Father. Is he talking about two or is he talking about one there there are a number of places where he speaks of God the Father or God our Father. So he clearly knows how to say now unto God our Father or now unto God the Father. Here he says unto God and our Father. Now typically the word and always remember Saturday mornings, conjunction Junction what's your function. And you remember, don't you? Land thank you. And it talked about what the function of conjunctions were. Well, normally the conjunction and adds to you've got this and that unto God and our Father. But in Greek, especially, but even in some senses in English, and especially in poetic senses, you can use the word and to be further clarification. I think that's what we've got here. I looked at all of them. I won't cause you to endure all of the times in which you've got this phrase, god and our Father. It is, I think, seven times or something like that. I may have the numbers in there. I don't remember seven times. And five of them are Pauline or something like that. I remember James had one and Revelation had one that had that same kind of construction. God and our Father. Mostly Pauline. But you do have James, and you do have John. I think what it is here is an emphasis, and there's even one place where you've got this same construction where I think it's in one corinthians where the King James translates it unto God, even our Father. And there are a number of times when and is an emphasis. So putting it as even, well, you've heard every now and then about, what is it, the tombstone that said, here lies a politician and an honest man. Someone went by and said, oh, my goodness, they're having to put two people in the same grave. Well, here, I think that this is what you've got. He's our brother and our friend. Okay? He's not two people, he's one. It's an emphasis kind of thing unto God and our Father. So he could have just said God our Father or God the Father, but for whatever reason, he wanted to emphasize the Fatherhood of God to hear a little bit, and maybe because he's been talking to them about supplying all your needs. And this is what fathers do, right? Supply all your needs. And so unto God, hey, he's our Father, the glory forever and ever. Amen. And then in verses 21 and 21 through 23, he gives again his own handwriting, completing the letter. Let's take verses 21 and 22 together. He says, salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me greet you. All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household. There's a couple of interesting little things here. One, you may know that I hold a minority opinion on the word saint right there. And I and the few of you that I have convinced I'm the only one in the world that doesn't believe we're all saints. Well, excuse me, the Catholics don't believe we're all saints. There's a Catholic view. But among the reformed evangelical views, saints, of course, are just me and you. We're all saints. Of course. I have noted a number of times that we are only comfortable using saints in a group setting welcome to all the saints this morning. Glad you're here. But we get a little uncomfortable when we say, St. Dan, we're glad you're here. Would you come and lead us in the song today? And St. Leslie, good to have you here too. We begin to get a little uncomfortable when we put it right with me, which I think subconsciously and this is psycho Bible but I think subconsciously that tells us there's something not quite right about this understanding of sainthood that just we're all saints. I think the saints are those who are set apart sanctified call to be holy. It comes from the same word as sanctuary. And a sanctuary is something that is reserved for typically a specific holy use in the English language anyway. Not so much in the Scripture, it's just the temple. But salute everyone who has specifically been set aside for a holy purpose called to be holy. Well, I think that's talking about the Jewish people and especially the faithful Jew, the remnant of the Jews, they are the saints. Now, that's my opinion. We've talked about it before. We won't try to build the case here. Let's call it Jewish believer. Just to do shorthand here. Salute every Jewish believer in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me, greet you. All the Jewish believers greet you. Chiefly. They are of Caesar's household. Now, what's interesting to me is why does he say, the brethren greet you? The saints salute you. Again, like we had in the last verse. Could you argue that? He's just emphasizing it? All the brethren greet you. The saints salutes you. The brethren and the saints are the same people. I don't know. I can see it in the previous verse where God and our Father. But here it looks like the brethren send greetings, the saints send greetings. And there is this understanding that you've got two groups of people. Both are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. Both are going to die and go to heaven. Both are in the plan and purpose of God, so to speak. But he recognizes there are some who came to Christ through this Jewish path and there are others who came to Christ through this gentile path. So you might in the book of Philippians well, in Philippi not in the book of Philippians, but in Philippi you have Lydia, who appears to come from a Jewish path and the Philippian jailer, who comes from a gentile path. So it's kind of like saying Lydia the saint Greek you. And the Philippian jailer didn't have a name, did he? Bubba the jailer, he greets you too. And really, though, it's different in English, the word salute. Here you might take all the brethren and greet you. And the saints, they greet you and they salute you. Sort of emphasizing. But in Greek, it's the exact same word. You notice that they all lit up there and it is salutations, salutations. Greetings. Greet you. Could change them all to greet, you could change them all to salute. However you wanted to do it, you could put it there. So I just think, as one who believes that saints and brethren are two different people, that it seems interesting here to me that either he's just being redundant in saying, the saints greet you, the brethren greets you, the saints greet you, or it just sort of builds my case. Yes, which side of that I land on. But nonetheless, then the only reason that matters here, it doesn't really matter that much, but there are places where there is instruction to the saints that if we think we're the saints, we would put ourselves in that instruction and take it. And so in some other places, it certainly matters. Now, another interesting thing here, all the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household. Now, that's interesting, because let's take it as we would understand it here to be the Jewish believers of Caesar's household. They salute you or greet you, and we might want to say, well, wait a minute, Paul, I thought you were in prison for your faith. And what do you mean? You're telling me that there are some people who believe like you do, who are in Caesar's household? That seems to be what he's saying. And we don't have time to get into why Paul was in prison and what the issues were there. But it is very likely in fact, I think it would be impossible to say there were no Jews in Caesar's household. Does anybody remember who the Caesar was? Then? This would be, say, 64 Ad. You're right. Nero. I knew you knew your Roman history. It's Nero. Well, so change that. Chiefly the saints of Nero's household. Now, normally, of course, we think, well, he's talking about his household servants, and he very well could be, but the word he uses is actually oikas, and Oikas is the word that just means house. So you could even understand this, the Jewish believers that live in Caesar's house. Now, there, of course, you would immediately begin to say, oh, he's talking about Nero's family. Well, inquiring minds want to know, right, did Nero have any believing Jewish family? And by that I mean, basically messianic Christians, where there are some messianic Christians in Nero's house. We remember that. I suppose the only thing we remember is that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, right from your ancient civilization class. And you may remember, of course, that he burned some Christians at the stake and sort of blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome. But Nero was kind of a political operative and would go with what suited him best. Were there believing Jews? So we go on a little investigation to see if there are believing Jews, and what do we come up with? We come to this guy named Josiefas. Remember him? Josephus, the ancient Roman historian. Jewish Roman historian. And. He comes and speaks about Nero's wife. I'm not sure how you pronounce her name, but we're going to go, Papia. And he gives a little story. I won't go into all the story, but it's a very pro Jewish story. And he says that Papa in this, she came to the aid of the Jews. And it says here that Nero's wife was a religious woman. Now it's in the context of Judaism and protecting the Jewish people. And Josephus just says she was a religious woman. Okay, I don't know how you would take that anyway, other than she's Jewish. He also tells I don't have the reference here on the outline, but he also tells how when she died, her dying request was to be buried as a Jew, not as a Romans typically burned on a what do you call it? Buyer deer. Pyre. P y. They burned them on a raised bed pyre. But she didn't want that. She wanted to be buried, and burial was really kind of just a Jewish sort of thing. Anyway, she got her dying wish. Nero agreed and had her buried. The Jewish encyclopedia says this Papia again, hopefully, I'm pronouncing that somewhere in the neighborhood, right? Papia, like many members of the prominent Roman and families inclined to Judaism, and her last wish was that she might be buried according to Jewish customs and was granted to Niro. So what I've already said there, and that comes again from the Jewish encyclopedia. So it would be very interesting. And we won't know till we die and ask Paul, all the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household. Is that a way of saying, hey, all the saints greet you, even Nero's wife? That's going pretty high up in the food chain there, isn't it? Is it the case? I don't know, but there's certainly some evidence that Nero's wife there's ancient evidence that Nero's wife was at least Jewish. And it's interesting again the way Josephus says she was a religious woman, that he didn't really say she's Jewish. Was there something about her Judaism that she even had accepted the message of Paul? Who knows? I don't know, but I'll put it out there, and you can lay awake at night wondering if Papia was a believer. And if you ever want to make a movie about Nero. Do we have any movie makers here, then? Are you guys movie makers? You look like movie makers. You should be movie makers. And if you ever want to make one about Nero, I would suggest that there be this interesting storyline about his wife, Papia. You can call her Papia if you want, if you want to modernize it, being a believer. And he closes out this wonderful word saying, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. And again, we would take that to be his own handwriting and the customary prayer of grace. And with that, we finished the book of Philippians, rightly, divided. And it's been a fun 19 weeks going through this. Next week I'm going to do a shorter series that will probably last about a month that will give kind of a bird's eye view of the Bible and we'll start that next week. I don't know what I'm going to call it yet, but that's what it is anyway, the bird's eye view of the Bible. And try to get I think it's helpful too, when you open up the Scriptures and land in there to know what's this book all about, why are we here and what's that? So we'll begin to look at that in just a few minutes. After we take a little break. We'll have the worship service and I am going to talk about the worst calamity of the biblical age. You can't wait, can you? St. Leslie, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gathering here today and for the beauty of this place that we live in. For those who have joined us from all around the world online today. And we're grateful for them as well. And we just pray that you would encourage us as we sing a few songs and have looked into the word of God here in just a moment and cause that to be honorable to you. Thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that is with us and is a free gift available to all. For this we are grateful, dear Heavenly Father, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you all. Thanks for being here. And we shall take a ten minute break. Be ready to go.