Arresting Contentions in Churches⤒🔗

One of the leading designs of this epistle was the checking of a spirit of disunion and discord that threatened to mar the peace and interrupt the spiritual prosperity of the flourishing Church of Philippi. We gather this from the frequency and earnestness with which the apostle urges upon his brethren the opposite grace and duty of con­cord and mutual affection. Thus at the close of the preceding chapter, immediately after an exhortation to holiness in general, he presses upon them the particular duty of an unbroken harmony and unity – 'that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel'.

At the opening of this second chapter he resumes the subject; and with such an intense earnestness resumes it, as if he had gone upon his knees before his brethren, and with all the urgency of a man soliciting some mighty benefit for himself entreated and implored them. 'If there be therefore any consolation in Christ,' says he, 'if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy,' take compassion on my bonds, 'that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.'

The happiness of this noble-minded man being wholly bound up with the glory of Christ and the welfare of his people, he asks the Philippians, you perceive, to fulfil his joy, by consulting their own interest, and dis­charging their own duty – 'Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded.' He virtually assures them that neither his bonds nor the continual prospect of death could prevent his being joyful and happy, if only they were careful to maintain the 'unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace'.

Apostolic Example←⤒🔗

He condescends to throw himself as a suppliant at their feet. By every consideration fitted to draw forth the love and pity of Christian souls he entreats them – 'if there be any consolation in Christ,' by all the consolation that dwells in Christ for his people, and flowing from him, ought to dwell in them for each other – 'if any comfort of love,' by all the comfort which it is the office of Christian affection and charity to administer to friends distressed, 'if any fellowship of the Spirit,' by all the communion of saints, flowing from the one Spirit of love and grace dwelling in them all – 'if any bowels and mercies,' by all the deep and tender compassions that move in the heart either of Christ or of his people – by all these considerations he entreats them to compassionate his sufferings, to 'fulfil his joy, by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.'

How finely, brethren, do the views of the apostle here come out with respect to the real dignity of the apostleship and the whole Christian ministry together! He esteemed its highest honour to lie in the winning of souls by any means to the Lord Jesus Christ. If, by falling upon his knees before his brethren – if, by taking the attitude of the lowliest sup­pliant before them – if, by the 'washing of their feet' – if, by performing any office towards them, however humble and self-denying, he could but advance the welfare of their souls, he esteemed it his highest dignity and glory.

An Appeal for Christian Love and Unity←⤒🔗

So his Master had taught before him; I give his words literally:

Whoso­ever will be great among you, let him be your servant; and whosoever will be more than great, let him be your slave, even as the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for slaves...Matthew 20:26-28

What a rich variety of arguments, also, does the apostle here furnish for the exercise of Christian kindness and compassion! All the blessed consolations and sympathies of that High Priest, who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; all the comfort which it is the proper office of Christian love to impart to brethren in distress; all the fellowship of saints, springing from the com­munion and indwelling of the same adorable Spirit in all; all the bowels and mercies which the love of Christ should kindle in one Christian soul towards another – by all these considerations does the apostle ask the compassion of his brethren. By the same considerations are we called to cherish the deepest and liveliest interest in the trials and afflictions of our brethren and, by all possible means, to aid in mitigating and reliev­ing them.

But it is a rare solace indeed which the apostle asks at the hand of the Philippians, 'that ye be like-minded' – that ye care for your own welfare, perform your own duty, shun the most formidable of evils and dangers. Ah! a richer charity by far, this request, than the compassion which it craves! But let us see what the particular favour is which the apostle is so desirous of at the hands of his friends, what the danger he so anxiously warns them to avoid, what the duty he thus affectionately presses upon them, 'that ye be like-minded,' says he, 'having the same love – being of one accord,' that is, one soul, one heart, 'of one mind,' that is, one judgment, thinking the same thing.

There would be very little fear indeed of Christians differing from each other, in any thing of material consequence – any thing which they would find it necessary to make a matter of controversy in the church, if only they were thoroughly joined together in love and mutual affection. No doubt even the most attached and endeared Christian friends might differ in minor shades of opinion. But they would infallibly come to an agreement in things important and vital, so as to be, to all practical purposes, 'perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment'. It will be found to be the failure of love that principally, and in the first instance, gives rise to all formal and avowed differences and oppositions of sentiment among Christians.

Accordingly the apostle here has no sooner urged his brethren to be 'like-minded' than he points them to the true and only source of this – 'having the same love', loving one another with a pure heart fer­vently; and then, to enforce the injunction, he substantially repeats it, merely inverting the clauses, and altering a little the expression, 'being of one accord', of one heart, soul, affection, then 'of one mind,' of one judgment, flowing from that one soul.

The apostle was quite well aware that when Satan has once contrived to open the door of discord and jarring opinion in the church, he can without difficulty introduce every other mischief and evil whatever. He knew that 'the beginning of strife is as the letting out of water'; once begun, there is no end of it, and no end of its ruinous and devastating effects. He knew that contention at once eats into the vitals of the church itself, and exposes it to the ridicule and scorn of the world, stops the progress of the gospel in Christians themselves and paralyses all their efforts to make it known to others. Therefore is he so intensely desirous to crush this evil in the bud, to destroy it in the birth, if possible to anticipate and prevent its appearance in the Philippian Church at all. Therefore does he take up that remarkable style of entreaty which we have seen, beseeching his friends not to add tenfold weight to his bonds, beseeching them to take compassion on his sufferings, to 'fulfil his joy, by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind'.

The Spoilers of Love and Unity←⤒🔗

He is not contented, however, with simply urging his brethren to beware of discord and division, but proceeds, in the third verse of the chapter to lay open the sources whence those evils spring, together with their proper and most effectual antidotes and remedies. The sources whence they spring: 'Let nothing,' says he, 'be done through strife or vainglory.' At first view, it may seem as if strife were rather the evil itself the apostle desired to remedy than the source of it. In reality, however, it is both.

There is such a thing as a spirit of strife, which is one of the most copious of all the sources of contention and discord, an obstinate determination to stand by what a man has once propounded, just because he has given it forth, and he will maintain it: that is what the apostle here points to. Perhaps, with very little thought, a man has changed to hazard some opinion. Having once announced it, he deems that he must adhere to it. He clings to it with all the love of offspring. There is no dragging him off the path on which he has once entered. The spirit of strife, of obstinate, dogged adherence to his point, blinds him wholly to its intrinsic merits, blinds him to every thing that can be said against it.

Others, again perceiving this, grow angry, and oppose the opinion, much more violently, perhaps, than it deserves. Thus discord, having once fairly arisen, easily perpetuates itself; the spirit of strife perpetu­ates strife. Each party strives to prove the other at fault in as many par­ticulars as possible. Endless differences spring up among persons now anxiously in search of them. So well has the wise man said,

As coals are to burning coals, and wood to fire; so is a contentious man to kindle strife.Proverbs 26:21

The apostle, however, goes a step further down when to strife he adds here 'vainglory'. 'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.' Ambition, vain-glory, pride, is the parent of the spirit of strife, and of all contention together. This also Solomon tells us: 'He that is of a proud spirit stirreth up strife' (Prov. 28:25). 'Only by pride cometh contention' (Prov. 13:10). 'Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease' (Prov. 22:10). The reason is clear. Pride consists in the cherishing of an extravagant opinion of oneself, one's rights, opinions, talents, acquirements, whatever happens to be the subject of boasting. This cannot fail to produce perpetual strifes. Men feel compelled in self-defence to set themselves against the proud. Vain­glory makes men cling to opinions, altogether apart from their grounds in Scripture or reason.

Vain-glory leads men to form opinions often, and to propagate them for no other purpose than to acquire notoriety, to win a character for bold and free, original and independent thinking. Almost all the heresies that ever infested the church have sprung from this source. Vain-glory leads men to set up claims for themselves wholly incompatible with the peace and welfare of those around them. Perhaps, in opposing them, others are driven by passion to deny them even what is their due. Then revenge adds fuel to the flame. They become more obstinate than ever.

Ambition swells with every new assault made upon it. Former opinions are given forth in forms still more obnoxious and revolting. There spring up, to the joy of Satan and the unspeakable injury of the church, the most deadly animosities, and irreconcilable feuds, 'contention, and strife, and every evil work'.

Humility – The Remedy for Strife←⤒🔗

But the apostle proposes the remedy for all this, when he goes on to inculcate the opposite grace and duty of lowliness and humility of mind: 'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but, in lowli­ness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves.' In 'lowli­ness': The Christian grace of humility is something altogether different from mere natural gentleness and mildness of disposition. Christian humility lies in a certain temper of soul, springing out of a deep sense of the infinite majesty, greatness, and purity of God, and of our own dependence, meanness, and unworthiness. We often find a great deal of native gentleness and modesty of demeanour in men wholly ignorant of God, and who want, therefore, the principle out of which, humility springs; nor is it any uncommon triumph of the gospel, on the other hand, that men of a naturally fierce, proud and impetuous temper, once brought to a knowledge of the divine character and of their own, are subdued into a meekness and gentleness, to which formerly they were utter strangers.

Christian humility is characterized chiefly by a lowly reverential sense of the greatness and purity of Jehovah, and of the creature's utter nothingness and unworthiness before him. Thus David:

Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty. Now, therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glori­ous name. But ... who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.1 Chronicles 29:11, 13-14

Thus Job: 'Now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes' (Job 42:5-6). Thus John the Baptist: 'There cometh One after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose' (Mark 1:7). Thus the Centurion: 'Lord, I am unworthy that thou shouldst come under my roof' (Matt. 8:8). Thus the Seraphim: 'With twain he covered his feet, and with twain he covered his face, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts' (Isa. 6:2-3). Thus Isaiah, on the same occasion: 'Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts' (Isa. 6:5).

But much more widely still is humility distinguished from everything like base and servile meanness and pusillanimity. You may see this spirit in the wretched descendants of Eli, crouching before Samuel for a piece of silver, and saying, 'Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread' (1 Sam. 2:36). See it in the minions of the court of Herod, shouting before him, 'It is the voice of a god, and not of a man' (Acts 12:22). The humble soul lies prostrate before Jehovah. The base and sordid soul crouches before men.

The difference is immeasurable. The abasement of the one springs from a right apprehension of the infinite distance between the Creator and the creature. The abasement of the other rests in utter ignorance, or, more frequently perhaps, in hypocrisy, professing, for selfish ends, a reverence that is not felt. Take, on the contrary, Abraham: 'Behold, now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes' (Gen. 18:27). Nothing, evidently, more agreeable to right reason – nothing more ennobling to the soul than this. And if you would see (what is more, to the immediate purpose of our apostle) how lovely also and beneficial it is in its workings between man and man, you may find a specimen in the same Abraham:

Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herds­men ... Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or, if thou depart to the right, then I will go to the left.Genesis 13:8

Yes, brethren, it is the characteristic of pride to shut the soul up with­in itself – of humility to open it. Pride concentrates its whole desires and affections upon the one object of self-advancement and gratification. Pride, first setting itself against the Creator, next sets itself against the creatures. Pride acknowledges no love but self-love. Pride would take all and give nothing. The happiness of the proud lies in seeing others beneath them. They rise upon other men's ruins. Give any thing to a proud man, he thinks it is no more than he deserves; as for gratitude, you may as soon look for it from a stone.

Humility, on the other hand, carries the soul away from self. The more humility, the more room in the heart for others. Loosening the affections from self, humility sends them forth upon all around. Open­ing the mind first to the glorious God, it next opens it to his creatures, his children. Humility teaches the rich to compassionate the poor and the powerful to condescend to the weak. It leads a man to regard kind­ness to others as a privilege to him. It prompts a man to cede a great deal that he might justly claim, because his happiness lies not in grasp­ing every thing, but in seeing others happy.

Humility, in short, teaching every man what is his true place in rela­tion to others, and making him content and happy in that place, knits together those in whose hearts it dwells, by bonds of the sweetest and most endearing kind. It cuts the roots of envy, ambition, slander, scorn, strife, and all kindred evils that form the bane and curse of a fallen world.

No wonder if the apostle, in setting himself against the re-entrance of these evils into the Church of Philippi, entreats and implores his brethren to give themselves to the cultivation of humility, of lowliness of mind:

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but, in lowli­ness of mind, let each, adds he, esteem other better than themselves.

Here, brethren, he selects certainly one of the most trying of all the tests, and one of the most arduous and difficult of all the offices and exemplifi­cations of Christian humility. The main circumstance to be attended to, in explaining and endeavouring to practise it, is this, that every man both may and ought to know a good deal more of the evil of his own character than he ever can of his neighbours around him.

Humility, in proportion to its depth, makes a man willing to see his own faults. It leads him to dwell much upon them, to search and investi­gate them, and to mark carefully the various aggravating circumstances that attend them. The same humility makes him unwilling to dwell upon the faults of others. As for their hearts, he has no access to them. What good he knows of their lives he is disposed to make the most of and to interpret the evil as favourably as truth will admit. Such a man plainly, in place of esteeming himself better than others, will rather be disposed, like Paul, to reckon himself 'the chief of sinners' (1 Tim. 1:1 5 ), and to 'esteem others better than himself' (Phil. 2:3 ). He will enter into the spirit of an excellent person, who, when asked how she could sit down at the Lord's table with such and such persons, answered, 'Ah, anybody may be there when I am there.'

Then, along with the disposition to 'esteem others better than him­self', there will be a corresponding treatment of them – a desire to please and gratify them more than to please and gratify himself – a consulting of their feelings, wishes, and comforts in preference to his own – a hid­ing of their faults more anxiously than his own – a more earnest desire to make known their excellencies than to publish his own – a decidedly less severe condemnation of the real blemishes of their characters than those of his own.

I must frankly confess I feel but too little at home in expounding this precept. I am far from thoroughly understanding it. I understand a good deal more than I know well to practise. It opens up such a mass of frightful selfishness as one trembles to look upon. Well might Paul say,

I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covetRomans 7:7

 We may add, except the law had said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' (Luke 10:27). 'Let each esteem other better than himself.' Lord, teach us to look on our sinfulness, yet not to despair; to 'behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world' (John 1:29); to be ashamed and confounded, yet, in the strength of him who hath said, 'I will write my law upon their hearts, and put it in their inward parts' (Jer. 31:33), to press on towards the mark, striving to do nothing through strife or vain-glory, but 'in lowliness of mind', to 'esteem others better than ourselves'.

A Discipline-Producing Humility←⤒🔗

In the fourth verse of the chapter the apostle enjoins upon his brethren another of the offices of Christian humility – certainly by no means of so arduous a character as the preceding, and forming a kind of practical rule or direction, by way of aid in the discharge of all the rest: 'Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.' One of the most striking features of human selfishness is a habit of engrossing attention to men's own concerns, rights, interests, feelings, pursuits – scarce one thought in a hundred being ever given to those of others. In instances innumerable we see the feelings of men lacerated, their rights invaded, their interests compromised – not so much from any deliberate design to injure them as from mere thoughtlessness and inconsideration. Each man, bustling forward in eager pursuit of his own particular ends and wholly overlooking those of his neighbour, comes, perhaps for the first time, in contact with him on learning that he has given him serious and just offence and created a rupture not to be eas­ily healed. Of course this habit of inconsideration springs, in the first instance, from selfishness; it is the fruit and token of a very deep self­ishness indeed. But it powerfully, in its turn, confirms and strengthens the evil out of which it springs. It is equally the effect and the cause of selfishness. A man who will not look on the things of his neighbour is cut off from the only possible means of doing his duty by him.

He, on the other hand, will avoid a thousand acts of injustice, un­kindness, and positive cruelty who will but cultivate a habit of looking not upon his own things only, but on the things also of others. No doubt there is a kind of looking, a prying into other men's secrets, searching out their faults, watching them with an eye of jealousy and envy, which is mean and despicable. What the apostle speaks of is a habit of kindly attention and consideration of the circumstances, feelings, difficulties, rights, and interests of others so that we may not overlook the duty we owe to them, but discover the ways in which it may be in our power to serve them.

Most men are so taken up with themselves they have no time to think of anybody or anything else. Christian humility breaks up this miserable selfishness. It leads a man to place himself often in the cir­cumstances of others – to ask himself what he owes them – to consider whether he can render them any service – to sympathize with them in their sorrows, and rejoice with them in their joys – to please them many ways, 'for their good to edification' (Rom. 15:2). It is humility and love that, in the first instance, prompt him to 'look not upon his own things only, but also on those of others'. But this habit, in its turn, very powerfully confirms and strengthens the principles out of which it springs, as well as discovering innumerable ways of their wholesome exercise and manifestation.

A Defence of Practical Disciplines Increasing Grace in the Heart←⤒🔗

And now it may possibly appear to some people that all this is too legal preaching – too much of duties. They would have us to be always upon doctrine and to leave duty very much to spring up as the natural and inevitable effect of faith. Such thoughts betray either ignorance or hypocrisy–either a very raw and imperfect acquaintance with the divine life or a miserable and criminal jealousy of being touched on sore and tender places.

We must open up duty, and that minutely and particularly too, if we would expound the Scriptures, for they are full of it. It is most expedi­ent, moreover, and necessary at once for the convincing of the careless and the guiding of believers in the way in which they ought to go. Let a man be ever so much disposed, under the influence of Christian principle, to keep the law, he will overlook many things, to the injury of his own soul and the scandal of the world around him, unless he makes the law and its requirements a subject of distinct and separate consideration.

Let the precepts which have come before us this day engage our most careful attention. Let us strive after increasing brotherly love and unity. Let nothing be done through strife – through mere dogged adherence to what we have happened once to hold or propound. Let us shun vain­glory, as a pestilence. Let us delight ourselves in the opposite grace of humility and lowliness and seek to grow in it from day to day.

Let us cherish a habit of kindly benevolent consideration of the difficulties, and feelings, and interests of others; and, whensoever we are called, in the providence of God, to contribute of our substance to advance either the temporal or spiritual welfare of our fellow-men.

'If there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, any bowels and mercies' – let us feel con­strained, compassionating their condition, to give liberally as God has prospered us – in the spirit of genuine humility, esteeming beneficence to others a privilege to ourselves.