Lecture XXVI · Brotherly-Kindness

IN these verses we have an interesting glimpse of several prominent members of the Philippian church, and of the apostle’s wise and affectionate dealings with them as their spiritual father. Paul had learned, probably from Epaphroditus, that between Euodias (or rather, more exactly, Euodia) and Syntyche, two of the female members, there had unhappily arisen a quarrel or coldness, which, as we may infer from his reference to it in this public letter, had become well known among the brethren, and had in various ways done harm to the good cause. They were both excellent women, and, as the apostle remembered, had shown their zeal in former years, when he himself was labouring for Christ in their city, by working diligently along with him. The position of influence in the church which we may reasonably suppose them to have thus acquired, made their dissension peculiarly painful to the right-minded. At the same time, it gave them a peculiarly strong claim on the friendly offices of their brethren, to bring about a reconciliation. Accordingly, the apostle not merely appeals to Euodia and Syntyche themselves to return to sisterly affection, but also requests a brother in the church, whom he calls ‘true yoke-fellow,’ to do what may be in his power to remove difficulties out of their way.

It is not necessary to seek for any close connection of _ thought between this reference to the quarrel of these good women and the preceding context. A familiar letter allows much freedom in passing from one subject to another; and towards the close, in particular, observations of an isolated kind are to be looked for. In the case before us, however, it appears to me most natural to regard these verses as some- _ what closely connected with that immediately preceding. The apostle has called on his dear children at Philippi to ‘stand fast in the Lord.’ Whilst he writes the words, he feels his heart burdened with the thought of the dissension between his two friends, as a painful illustration of the way in which believers may fail to ‘ stand fast in the Lord’ clearly and firmly ; and thus, really, though not formally put as such, we have in the verses before us a practical application to a special case of the general counsel given in the first verse.

The passage, then, suggests to our minds the transcendent importance of the grace of love, as the grand evidence of our *standing fast in the Lord.’ ‘God is love.’ To be without love, therefore, is to be without God; whilst ‘he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God.’ Love is, the chief purifying and ennobling element of Christian feeling. Under its genial influence, faith and hope—spiritual wisdom and strength and joy— flourish in luxuriance. This fact is strikingly brought out in a prayer of Paul for the other great Macedonian church, that of Thessalonica,—‘ The Lord make you to increase and abound in Jove one towards another, and towards all men, 2 the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness.’

To the importance of ‘ brotherly-kindness,’ the love which it becomes Christians to cherish ‘especially to them who are of the household of faith,’ the reference made by the apostle to _ the relations between Euodia and Syntyche draws our attention particularly. Christians are, in a sense altogether peculiar, the family of God. From the far country of sin, into which as prodigals we had wandered, our Father’s gracious influence .

has brought us home ; and now, not merely through the fact of our being His moral creatures, but by the new spiritual birth, we are ‘sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.’ All His ‘sons and daughters’ are our brothers and sisters ; and ‘every one that loveth Him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of Him.’ Discerning in all our fellow-believers something of those qualities which, as they appear in infinite perfection in the character of our common Father, have won for Him our supreme love; we find ourselves drawn to them by common sympathies and interests, with respect to the matters which have come to be felt by us as of greatest moment. Wherever there is true love to God, next to it, and necessarily resulting from it, stands love to the godly. This affection of complacency and delight is an image of that ineffable love which reigns between the Father and His Eternal Son ; for the prayer of Him whom the Father heareth always was, ‘that they may be one, as we are, I in them and Thou in Me,—that they may be made perfect in one.’ Surely, my brethren, when we think of this wondrous ideal of brotherly love, and look abroad on the Christian church as it is, we have much reason to hide our faces in shame; for, ‘ whereas there is among us envying and strife and divisions, are we not carnal, and walk as men ἢ

The /aw of brotherly love is not far to seek, nor difficult to bear in mind. ‘A new commandment I give unto you,’ said the Lord, in the last tender hour of communion with His sorrowing disciples, ‘that ye love one another as I have loved you.’ This commandment was old in its general principle, old as the first inculcation of religious duty ; but it was ‘ new,’ sublimely new, in its example, showing with a new clearness the vastness of the breadth and the length of the love required, ‘as I have loved you,’—new, too, in the motive exhibited to en-_ force it, ‘because I have so loved you.’ But who is—who can be—sufficient for these things? Who can love like Him who left the bosom of His Father to dwell as a servant among sinful \

men, and suffer and die for their salvation? Yet in 4kind our love may resemble His; and with such love our finite hearts may be full. The drop they contain may be kindred to the ocean of His love. The practical application of the Lord’s rule by the Christian heart will always be somewhat on this wise: when the icy fingers of worldliness chill the soul, and the whisper rises, ‘Have I not loved my brother enough?’ answers the still small voice of conscience, ‘ Hast thou loved him as thy Saviour has loved thee? Hast thou done for thy brother what your common Elder Brother has done for thee ?’ The remembrance of the love of Christ is the only thing which can sustain brotherly love in vigorous exercise ; and in exact proportion as our spirits go on to know more of the love which, in its fulness, ‘passeth knowledge,’ does its image on earth become brighter and truer.

To the cultivation of love to the brotherhood very peculiar importance is attached in Scripture. It is constantly set before us as the most distinct evidence of the possession of vital religion. ‘We know,’ says the Apostle John, ‘that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us.’ The Master Himself tells us, ‘ By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.’ In the early days of the church, nothing so impressed ‘them that were without’ as the strong mutual affection of the believers in Christ. The observers said with wonderment, ‘ Behold these Christians,—how they love one another!’ In our time, alas! brotherly love has in many waxed cold ; and, in so far as the church has thus lost its great ornament, the world has been deprived of one main quickening power. Not till the daughter of Zion arrays herself again in the ‘beautiful garments’ of brotherly-kindness, will she convince the world that her Lord is He whose name is love.

The ground of the dissension between Euodia and Syntyche is

not mentioned. It was possibly something altogether frivolous, for even mature Christians act sometimes like silly children. Perhaps, however, seeing that they were both active servants of Christ, the origin of the coldness was some difference of opinion with respect to the best modes of carrying on the Lord’s work. In an unguarded soul, zeal often opens the door to unholy anger. When men believe themselves to be ‘doing a great work,’ their enthusiasm tends to produce impatience. When thwarted, or, as they think, unreasonably hindered, their souls strike fire against the obstacles, and, tormenting themselves at the disappointment, they are apt to break out in language they will regret afterwards. To a thoughtful mind, perhaps no element in the character of Jesus more impressively shows that character to be absolutely unique, than His sublime equanimity, while prosecuting so great a work with so great enthusiasm, counting it His ‘ meat,’ and pouring into it all the energies of His life. ‘He is as serene and even in all His hindrances from foolish unreasonable men, and in all troubles of every kind, as if He had nothing great on hand to do. He is clothed with an armour of holy patience, through which no weapon can pierce. He is never disheartened, fretted, or ruffled.’

Whatever the ground of dissension, their wise friend Paul can have but one advice to them, with regard to their relations to each other. To the Colossians he gives it very fully, in this form: ‘ Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long - suffering ; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye; and above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.’ In the present passage, his entreaty is that his dear friends would ‘ de of the same mind. ‘This is not by any means an injunction to have the same views on everything. Differences of tempera- —

’ Bushnell.

‘

ment, training, intellectual power, acquirements, and surroundings, might render that, or even any very close approach to it, impossible. Paul’s favourite phrase, which follows, explains the thought. His wish is that they should ‘be of the same mind in the Lord.’ They are to ‘endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,’—to remember the transcendent importance of the matters in which their views accord, —to consider how utterly unsuited quarrelling or coldness is for those who are united ‘in the Lord,’—and therefore, with regard to any matter on which they fail to see eye to eye, to ‘agree to differ,’ and follow out their separate views lovingly and with mutual helpfulness. The praise which Christian lives send up to heaven cannot be a song in unison; but it may be and should be a song in harmony, which is far richer and deeper than unison.

How gloriously catholic and tolerant is the love to us of our divine Elder Brother! Glance at His relations to those He gathered round Him during His earthly life. There were many varieties of temperament, many different degrees of capacity for clearness and breadth of view, many varied measures of natural loveableness, among His followers ; but for all of them —for Peter, the frank, ardent, impulsive ; for John, the meditative, poetical, spiritual; for Thomas, the slow-minded, moody, difficult to influence but immediately through the senses ; for Martha, the bustling and practical; for Mary, whose one desire was to sit at her Lord’s feet and drink in His words ; for all, differing in everything except love to Him, His heart had ample room. He loved them all. You and I too should embrace with warm brotherly affection all who give evidence of loving our common Lord, whatever differences there may be in many things. But imperfectly sanctified humanity is deplorably prone to sectarianism. Hardly had the nations which had sat in darkness begun to see the great light, before rancorous dissensions saddened the hearts of the apostles and primitive teachers,—nay, before they found their own names

employed as instruments to bring dishonour on the name of their Lord, and ‘ Paul,’ ‘ Apollos,’ and ‘ Cephas,’ rung out as the gathering cry for the battle of sects. Even Christianized human nature loves to be angry, when with any plausibility it can flatter itself that it ‘ does well to be angry,’ and is ‘jealous for the Lord God of hosts.’ But the spirit of Christ is eminently an unsectarian spirit. It is natural and not wrong that the love of a believer’s heart should go forth with special intensity to those of his brethren whose souls are most kindred with his own. Jesus, though He loved all His ‘little children,’ had yet a specially tender love for Peter and James and John; and even of this inner circle there is one who is called with emphasis ‘ the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ But there is something far wrong, when any Christian’s love is hedged in by denominational bounds or ecclesiastical forms, by points of criticism or peculiarities of temperament. For all who ‘love the Lord Jesus in sincerity,’ our hearts should have room, as His has. And the nearer that; by the gracious influence of His Spirit, we are brought to Him, the nearer continually we shall be brought to each other.

No attentive reader can fail to be struck with the mode in which Paul intervenes between Euodia and Syntyche, to set them at one again. For one thing, he makes not the slightest reference to the particular cause of dissension. In a vast proportion of cases, attempts at reconciliation will be more likely to succeed, if the original matter of difference be allowed to sleep among dead things, than if it be roused to life and subjected anew to examination. Again,—from his apostolic authority, and the nature of his relation to the church of Philippi in particular, Paul might most reasonably have been ‘ much bold in Christ to enjoin them that which was convenient ; yet for love’s sake he rather deseeches them.’ He beseeches them separately too. Possibly the one was more to blame than the other for the origin or the continuance of the coldness ; but the apostle

treats them with exactly the same consideration: ‘ Z beseech Luodia,—and 77 beseech Syntyche.

In the 3rd verse he goes on to ask a friend of influence among the believers at Philippi to help the ladies he has been pleading with to come to a reconciliation. ‘ And’ (or, according to a better supported reading, yea, introducing another request which, yet more clearly than the preceding, shows Paul’s earnestness of feeling with regard to the matter in hand) ‘J entreat thee also, true yoke-fellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel.” The rendering of our translators here is, if not inaccurate, at least likely to mislead. It seems to mean, ‘ Help my female fellow-labourers’ generally, whereas the apostle’s request really refers simply to Euodia and Syntyche, and to his wish that their coldness should be brought to an end,—‘ Help them ’—to be of the same mind in the Lord,— ‘seeing that they laboured with me in the gospel.’

It thus appears that women were zealous and efficient workers for Christ at Philippi. These two ladies had ‘laboured with Paul’—‘ shared with him in his strenuous contendings,’ for the primary reference of the original word is to athletic contests—‘ in the gospel. This fact accords exactly—and the obviously undesigned coincidence is very interesting — with the account given in Acts of the first visit of the apostle to Philippi, when, as you remember, the gospel was first proclaimed to, and accepted by, women. ‘On the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river-side, where prayer was wont to be made, and sat down and spake unto the women which resorted thither ; and a certain woman named Lydia heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there,—and she constrained us’ (Acts xvi. 13-15). Lydia, Euodia, and Syntyche, appear to have been representatives of a very large class of women in the early church, who

not merely for themselves ‘chose that good part which should not be taken away from them,’ but also ‘did what they could’ to bring others to choose it. Again and again we find special mention made of such,—for example, ‘ Mary, who bestowed much labour on us ;’ ‘ Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord ;’ ‘the beloved Persis, which laboured much in the Lord.’ It was obviously felt by the believers generally, that Christ’s call was not simply to the enjoyment of peace in Him, but to exertion, as in His providence He gave opportunity, for the extension of His kingdom; and that women had their sphere of Christian work, which they could fill better than men. In all society they of necessity exercise an extensive and powerful influence; they have peculiarly free access to their own sex; and for ministrations in time of trouble, when the heart is frequently most open to religious impressions, they have a special aptitude. To do efficient service to the Master, it is not, as a rule, either necessary or desirable that women should step out of the domestic.and quiet social spheres within which it is plainly the will of God that they should ordinarily move. Any mode of action which brushes off the beautiful bloom of female modesty and gentleness is not likely to commend the gospel. The wise female Christian worker will always resemble her already named, who, while ‘labouring much in the Lord,’ remained ever, for all who knew her, ‘the deloved Persis.’ Few features in the Christian life of our own time are more pleasing than the activity of pious women, and the sweet and beautiful womanliness with which they commonly do their work.

The friend to whom Paul addresses himself in the 3rd verse is requested by him to ‘ #e/p’ Euodia and Syntyche to become reconciled. ‘The duty might be felt by these good women to be a hard one. Even if they both clearly saw the sinfulness of their dissension, and longed for the pleasant intercourse of former days, pride was apt to interpose obstacles. A thoroughly discreet friend of both, on the spot, could do not a little, in various ways, to smooth the path to unity. This is a form

of Christian work, my brethren, to which God in His providence may occasionally call you or me. None needs more delicacy of handling ; and, from consciousness of this, and a fear lest through interference the alienation be widened, and the friend who interfered brought in to share somewhat of its discomforts, there is perhaps no field of Christian love from the cultivation of which believers generally are more prone to shrink. But none, when lovingly and prayerfully tilled, yield richer fruits. It cannot but be, that on efforts to restore interrupted brotherly affection, the Saviour who said, ‘ This is My commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you,’ looks down with peculiar tenderness and complacency.

Regarding the person addressed as ‘ true yoke-fellow, there have been various conjectures. A common use of the original word in classical writers is in the sense of ‘spouse.’ By some interpreters, accordingly, it has been thought that the apostle here refers to his wife,—supposed by them to have been at this time, for some reason, living at Philippi, and, both from her relation to him, and her own character, a person of influence among the Christians there. This view is in no wise natural ; hardly accords, to say the least, with the grammar of the original ; and is inconsistent with Paul’s language elsewhere,— all his allusions to his own position leading us to believe either that he had never been married, or that he was a widower. Others again have thought of the husband of Euodia or Syntyche. This also seems wholly unnatural. Had such been the reference intended, the language employed would almost certainly have been more specific ; and besides, after such distinct evidence of the apostle’s determination to remain entirely impartial, as we have had in ‘I beseech Euodia,—and I beseech Syntyche,’ an appeal for aid to a person inevitably interested on the one side is utterly improbable. There can be little doubt, I think, that Paul here addresses an eminently pious and judicious member, and probably office-bearer, of the Philippian church, who, from some circumstances unknown to

us, was specially fitted to help the apostle in his endeavour to reconcile the sisters in Christ who were unhappily at variance. But in a letter superscribed ‘To all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons,’ ‘true yoke-fellow’ seems a curiously indefinite way of addressing an individual member, bishop, or deacon, however prominent. This very early suggested to some interpreters the thought that perhaps Synzygus, or Syzygus, the original word rendered ‘yoke-fellow,’ was in this case a proper name, on which Paul plays with a little affectionate pleasantry,—‘ true, genuine Synzygus,—‘ Yoke-fellow, whose character accords with thy name.’ This view seems to me highly probable. It is evident to any student of Paul’s writings in the original that he loved an occasional play upon words ; and in one case at least he plays upon a proper name. ‘ Onesimus’ means ‘profitable ;’ and the apostle says to Philemon, ‘I beseech thee for my son Onesimus,—which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me.’ The fact that Synzygus is not known to occur elsewhere as a proper name, presents no difficulty whatever in the way of our holding it to be such in the passage before us,—considering how small a proportion the names preserved in extant literature must bear to those which were actually in use. The word is certainly one quite likely to have been employed as a name; just as, among ourselves, we find such surnames as Friend, Dear, Goodfellow, Goodman, and the like, more or less common. The view that we have here a proper name, removes all indefiniteness from the address ; gives a peculiar pointedness to the epithet ‘ true’ or ‘genuine ;’ and accounts perfectly for the use of this particular word Synzygus, or ‘ yoke-fellow,’ which occurs nowhere else in Paul’s writings, or indeed in the New Testament.

The thought of the loving and efficient aid which the apostle had received in his work at Philippi from Euodia and Syntyche, brings with it pleasant memories of other helpers; and to these, most naturally, he makes now a brief reference,—‘ with

Clement also, and with other my fellow-labourers. In the latter part of the first century there was a distinguished minister of the church in Rome, named Clement, the writer of two letters to the church of Corinth, which are still extant. With him early tradition identified the Clement mentioned here. There is nothing impossible, or improbable, in the supposition that they were the same. But the name was by no means an uncommon one.

Clement had perhaps held some kind of acknowledged precedence among the helpers of Paul in Christian work ; and thus we find the others alluded to more generally, ‘ with my other fellow-labourers, —as we might name a minister, and add ‘with his elders,’ or name the superintendent of a Sabbath school, and add ‘with the teachers.’ But though not naming them, the apostle well remembered them and their earnest work, and gives his impression of them here in words signally fitted to gladden their hearts, and cheer them on to continued exertion in the Lord’s service,—‘ whose names are in the book of life’ Having had ample opportunities of judging of them, Paul felt convinced that their profession of faith in Christ expressed a reality,—that they had in truth

‘passed from death unto life,’ and were safe for ever. Their zeal and perseverance in the service of Christ proved to him that what the Lord, employing the same figure used here, had said of the seventy disciples, was true of these brethren also,—

‘their names were written in heaven.’ ‘This honour have all the saints ;’ and earnest and patient continuance in well-doing gives assurance of it with growing distinctness, both to the Christian himself and to spiritual observers of his life.

By the figure of a dof, in which the names of God’s people are recorded, is plainly and most gladdeningly set before the believing heart the perfect knowledge He has of all them that are His, and thus the certainty that to every one of them His

‘exceeding great and precious promises’ will be fulfilled. This image presents itself pretty frequently, both in the Old Testa- Ζ

ment and the New. The thought specially intended seems to be of a register of the citizens of the heavenly city. This is, in the amplest sense, a ‘ book of life.’ Those who are ‘ written among the living in Jerusalem’ have true ‘life’ in Christ even here, while as yet afar in the wilderness. Yonder its strength, and beauty, and blessedness are enjoyed in fulness. And this enjoyment is for ever. The life is ‘ e¢ernal life.’ They that dwell in the city of God ‘go no more out.’ ‘Their sun shall no more go down, neither shall their moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be their everlasting light, and the days of their mourning shall be ended.’ 1

The use of this particular image here may not improbably have been suggested to the apostle by the reference he had made a few verses before (iii. 20,—-see the exposition of the first clause) to the fact that the believer’s ‘ citizenship is in heaven.’