A Journey Through Philippi: Philippians 2 and the Descent

A poem or hymn about Christ features prominently in Philippians 2.  📜 It is easy to read it in its poetic setting and miss Paul's primary message.  💫 Discover how this poignant message intertwines with the essence of Philippians, portraying Jesus's humble obedience and divine exaltation. 🌟  As Jesus descends, God elevates him in the heavenly realm—a stark contrast to the societal pressure faced by most Romans to make one's name great . 🏛️ Join us as we unravel the profound layers of St. Paul's letter to the Philippians. 📖

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Chapters

• 0:00 Stories About Our Experience in Philippi
• 7:48 Introduction to Philippians 2
• 12:17 The Mindset of Christ
• 17:22 The Poem of Christ's Descent
• 28:18 The Exaltation of Christ
• 38:57 The Cursus Honorum
• 49:56 Which Path Will We Follow?

Transcript

Philippians 2 and the Descent

David: [00:00:00] Well, at the beginning, when we started doing all this podcasting, we talked about the show notes, and it was several episodes, and I'm thinking to myself, man, I don't know where the show notes are. We keep people ...

J.R.: Hey, we're learning as we go along here. Yeah, right. We're learning as we go. We're doing our best here. 

David: We're telling people to go to the show notes, and I'm asking you, I'm like, dude, where are the show notes? Welcome to the podcast. My name is David and with me is J.R.

J.R.: What's going on?

David: Yeah. So when we were in Philippi, one of the things that we did that was really, I was just remembering this, that was actually really cool is the guy at the hotel told us about this hike. He told us how to get there and we went on this amazing hike. 

J.R.: Yeah. I don't remember how we got there. It's usually that's a bad sign. I don't know how we ended up here, but no, I guess, I guess he kind of just gave it. I just gave a description the good old days. Because I mean, we didn't have cell service overseas. So it's not like we could just pull up a map or something, but yeah, he, told us

David: He [00:01:00] must've told us how to get there. He did drive us to one or two places. I remember that, but we drove there.

J.R.: Right. Yeah. The waterfalls of Kavala. That was it. 

David: Okay. The waterfalls of Kavala. <Yep. Yep.> Yeah. That was an incredible hike, mainly because it was, it was beautiful. It was this big valley almost. 

J.R.: Yeah. You're, down in a big gully. 

David: A big, yeah, a huge gully. Yeah. Massive. I mean, there's a, the walls on either side are like, I don't know, a hundred feet high. <Right.> With a forest that's all grown up around it. 

J.R.: Yeah, it looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. 

David: Yeah, yeah, Lord of the Rings or Jurassic Park. But I think what was interesting about that hike is that, you know, we started down that hike and the more we got into it, we started looking at the walls of the gully and we started to look at the pools of the river or the little stream. And we realized, I had never seen this before, we realized that this was an old cave that had collapsed. 

J.R.: Well, we kind of had an idea that that was what was going on because you remember we would [00:02:00] see the stalactites, kind of up in the walls? And then I remember looking at the, I forget what the deal was with the stream at the bottom of it, but it had these kind of built up calcium walls, you know, that you see in caves.

David: Yeah, yeah. And it looked exactly like these pools of water you would see in caves and leaves would ... 

J.R.: Yeah, and when we got back to the hotel, when we got back to our internet connection, we checked it out and we're like, yes, that whole thing was a collapsed cave. 

David: Yes, that was a collapsed cave. And it was a very long hike, but that whole gully, obviously, I don't know if you have to go back, you know, thousands of years probably, something like that, but that whole gully used to be a cave, and the whole thing collapsed. But they still, whatever the source of it is, is still carrying the minerals, the calcium, so that there would be these pools of water in this stream, and like the leaves and sticks that would fall into it would become totally calcified.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's what it was. Yeah. The leaves , would turn to have this stone coating around it. You'd pick it up and think, what in the world causes this? Yeah. It made sense if it was a, [00:03:00] an old cave stream. 

David: Yeah, yeah. I've never seen anything like that. That was, that was just something I was recollecting a little bit ago, and just an amazing hike. And then of course at the end of it, we saw a marble quarry,

J.R.: Oh yeah, that was cool. 

David: Which in and of itself was really kind of amazing to see. It was a modern quarry. I don't know if it , used to be an ancient one, but , I guess it'd been ...

J.R.: Well, picture Minecraft, you know, where everything's squared off. <Yeah.> There's just these massive cubes, and the cubes were like, I mean, some of them were 30, 40 feet tall. 

David: Oh, yeah. It was a huge area with all these cube platforms, you know, all just pure marble. 

J.R.: Yeah, we could climb up on them and work our way to the top. It was really, really cool. That was something.

David: And you can't see that, of course, I guess, without picturing all the ancient statues that would have graced Philippi and Thessalonica and Neopolis, you know, all the areas around there. They would have had to have a marble quarry. 

J.R.: Yeah, how many statues were made out of the stuff we were standing on.

David: Yeah, [00:04:00] yeah. And it didn't look to be in use anymore. I, I don't know what the deal was. But that was, that was interesting for its kind of own reasons, so. 

J.R.: Oh yeah. No, that was a lot of fun, man. 

David: Yeah, that was an amazing afternoon. nothing to do with biblical Philippi, but yeah, just an amazing hike the history, seeing formations that I've never seen before.

J.R.: Well, that's why, traveling is such a big deal. You get away from, you know, you said it has nothing to do with biblical history, but then you, there are times when that ties in to what you read into the Bible when you're actually there. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

J.R.: I know that I had that feeling when I was at the Dead Sea. I'm like, yeah, it's not like there's a Google pin in the ground that says, here's where this happened. But just being in that environment and sitting there and soaking it all in, you can see where certain metaphors that are given in the Bible, they just make a little bit more sense, <Yeah, yeah.> you know, when you're actually in the area. 

David: Yeah, that reminds me, so, in my book, A Journey Through Ephesus, there's an ancient story, about the guy who discovered a marble quarry outside [00:05:00] of Ephesus. <Okay.> And he's basically hailed as a hero, and I won't go into the whole story in the book . But he's basically hailed as a hero because now they can build the temple. As, you know, the whole temple is made out of marble, right? And so, to your point, that kind of makes that whole thing come alive when you're standing in the middle of a marble quarry and a place like Philippi would have said, yeah, man, this is jackpot. We can build our temples, we can build our columns, we can build the forum, we can build statues, you know, and we don't have to have it all shipped in somewhere.

J.R.: Right. The other cool thing, the other tie in that I remember was from that waterfalls of Kavala, we found a, I'm assuming pretty ancient aqueduct that went from that location. It carried water all the way to Kavala, the city, right? <Right.> That was on the ocean side and that the Romans built that because it was a Roman outpost and they wanted clean water in Kavala. [00:06:00] They had this neat beach town, but they didn't have any clean water and they had to duct it in all the way from, I mean, how far was it? 20 miles, maybe? 

David: Yeah, it was from far away. It would have been that mountain. Well, thinking about it, it would have been that kind of pure cave water. It would have been a great source of water. But yeah, they had to get it over that little ridgeline and down into the city, 10, 20 miles away. 

J.R.: Yeah. And it was, I mean, parts of it were still there. You could walk along and see the open. I mean, it's just an open. Oh, what would you call it? 

David: Yeah. Just a little trench kind of carved into the rock, a lot of places.

J.R.: Yeah, but it was lined in rock. And so, you know, you could kind of just look up and see that, oh, there's the aqueduct. 

David: Yeah, every now and then.

J.R.: And had to have the right drop and the right slope and to make it 20 miles, but you sit there and watch it. But that's another thing that you kind of ...

David: Yeah, you take for granted. But even something like, you don't think about talking about Philippi and the story of Philippi that, you know, they had to get their water somewhere. Every ancient city had to have a water source, right? [00:07:00]

J.R.: Sure, But that ties into the whole you're neither hot nor cold, and so I spew you out of my mouth.

David: Yeah, that's true. 

J.R.: We think about that as being on fire for God, or, being cold, whatever having a cold heart, something like that, you know. And it's like, no, you had to have functional water. 

David: Yeah, you had to have ...

J.R.: A bath, so spa, so that it would be a destination for people to come cleanse themselves in the mineral baths. Or you had to have nice, cool spring water so that people could survive.

David: Yeah. You had to have one or the other. What you couldn't have is just stagnant water. 

J.R.: Right. Ship it in. Cause, the only other option is to carry it in on some sort of vessels and it's just sort of like this lukewarm, <yeah.> nasty stagnant water. But that's what they had to do in certain cities that didn't have a water source.

David: Yeah. Yeah 

J.R.: All right. There you go. There's my rabbit trail. 

David: Yeah, okay well, I was just thinking about that as we are talking about our new series, A Journey Through Philippi we are gonna look at Philippians chapter 2 today. Chapter [00:08:00] 1 last episode we talked about that one little word that really I think is key to understanding a lot of what Paul writes in the letter is that word polituomai, which we see as conduct yourselves in a manner, but it really is talking about living out as a citizen, right? Conduct yourself as a citizen of a place. <Citizenship.> And how Roman citizenship played prominently into Philippi. That's chapter 1.

Chapter 2 today, we're going to look at a poem in the middle of chapter 2. And most people believe it's a poem. It's easy to just kind of read over it and go, Oh, that was a nice poem. But the more I looked into this poem, I think that poem is actually the centerpiece of what Paul's talking about in his entire letter. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. 

J.R.: Yeah, which is cool, because I didn't realize it was a poem. I kind of, you know, depending on how your Bible's formatted and the translation you're using, I looked at it like it's kind of bracketed off in a way, and I just assumed that Paul is [00:09:00] quoting some other scripture. But then of course in the footnotes, there's nothing, there's no reference to any place else. 

David: Right. It's not an Old Testament scripture or anything like that. 

J.R.: Right, right. And so yeah, once you know, it's a poem, it kind of opens up some different thoughts and well, I'll save that for the end.

David: Yeah, so in the original text, they didn't, like, separate out a poem, or they didn't footnote something as, hey, I'm borrowing these next couple verses, you know, from this source.

J.R.: And there were no ancient hyperlinks, right? <Right.> Like we're used to today. 

David: No hyperlinks, anything like that. So, as scholars study the original text you start to see a pattern emerge in the text. And that tells you that, you know, it's a poem. the words change. You start to see a pattern. We'll see this as we kind of look at this. But then that's what leads most people to say, Okay, then Paul is not just kind of writing his train of thought here. He's actually, something came to mind and he's writing that down. Right? 

J.R.: Right, right, right. I'm assuming in the ancient language, [00:10:00] original language, it rhymed, maybe? I don't know. 

David: Yeah, there would have been words that sound the same, you know. There would have been a couple of lines that as you read them, you're like, yeah, okay, there's some, what is it, alliteration going on or something like that.

J.R.: Yeah, some cadence that's lost when you translate it. 

David: Yeah, there's a cadence to it. And, there's also what some people call, like, a chiastic structure, which, You know, A, B, B, A type of thing. 

J.R.: Oh, right. Yeah, that's right. 

David: So, yeah, I don't know if you're kind of familiar with that. But that's evident to, like, one verse says something and then it leads to the next verse. And then the following verse relates to the previous verse. That would be the Bs. I know this is kind of hard to picture, but ...

J.R.: I'm not a poetry guy.

David: And then the next verse would actually refer to the first verse, which was A and they're meant to compliment or contrast each other. So that's kind of this idea of chiasm, but that's getting into technical terms. Really, in just a kind of a real life example, you know, if you and I are talking and I was kind of saying, man, J, I'm not, I'm feeling kind of down, you know, [00:11:00] when the lights out. It's less dangerous. Here we are now, entertain us. I feel stupid and contagious. Here we are now, entertain us. 

J.R.: There you go. Maybe I'm into poetry more than I realize.

David: Yeah, okay, so you would pick up pretty quickly that I just quoted ...

J.R.: I'm instantly gripped, yeah. 

David: You know, song lyrics, right?

J.R.: Yeah, there you go, that's right. 

David: Yeah, for the bonus question. 

J.R.: Yeah, revive Kurt Cobain.

David: Yeah, okay, you're tracking with me then. 

J.R.: Yeah, sure, man. 

David: Yeah, so, you know, it'd be something like that. You would pick up that all of a sudden I'm using words that I don't usually use, that my tone and my cadence changed. Some of the words might even not make sense or maybe be far more eloquent than you and I just sitting around talking about something, you know. <Right.> So that's how we kind of know this is a poem anyway.

J.R.: Yeah. To expose a pattern or to paint a deeper image. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing we don't know that again, we don't have really time to get into on this episode, but you know, the question is, did Paul write this or is he [00:12:00] borrowing it from someone else? Was this in existence circulating among early churches, or did Paul, maybe Paul was a poet, you know? And we don't really know. We don't really know. 

J.R.: Yeah, it might be a hymn. It might be something that was obviously lost because it's not found anywhere else in the scripture. <Yeah, yeah.> But yeah, that makes sense.

David: Yeah, okay. So before we get into it, it's found in Philippians chapter 2 verses, I think, 6 through 11. But in order to kind of kick us off here, we actually really need to read Philippians 2:5. Because there's another one of these words in here that's important, that doesn't jump out at us, okay? So, Philippians 2:5 says, "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus." Okay? So, pretty simple verse. In your relationships, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Well, that word for mindset is a really interesting word in Greek, and it's the word phroneo, some variation of phroneo. And, we translate, it's one of those words that we [00:13:00] translate into English several different ways. We might talk about the way you think, or your thoughts, or your mind. Depending on the context, there's a lot of different ways you can translate that word. But that word has with it this connotation of a mindset, right? The way you think, the way you view the world is probably a better word. 

J.R.: Right, I like the word, yeah, I like the idea of worldview. 

David: Yeah, a worldview, right? The way you view the world will affect how you act. And so, that's one of these words, then, that Paul uses, doesn't use it very often, actually but he uses it nine times in the book of Philippians. <Okay.> Which is another one of those indicators that, okay, Paul is picking out this word because he's trying to convey something to them, right?

J.R.: Right. Well, and when you look that word up it's primarily in Philippians, like you said, nine times, but it's also found a couple other places. I found it in Romans 8:5. <Oh, yeah. Okay.> Yeah. It says, "For those who are according to the flesh, set their [00:14:00] minds." There's that word. 

David: Okay. Yeah. You're setting your mind. Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. "On things of the flesh, but those who are according to the spirit, the things of the spirit." So, again, it's kind of saying that worldview. The way you view the world matters. <Right.> And the other cool, passage, where they use that word is Jesus actually used this word in the Gospels. And if you remember when he rebuked Peter, he said, "Get behind me, Satan." <Yeah.> He follows up and he says, "For you're not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's." <Okay.> Yeah. So, I mean, he's saying you don't have that right worldview. You're not seeing it the right way. 

I always thought that that was a pretty kind of harsh response to Peter who was just trying to help out, right? <Yeah.> Trying to trying to come to his defense, right? But what Jesus is saying there is you're not viewing things through the correct lens, right? And we've said this before the way you view the world matters, right? Because that's what actually well, that's what actually creates reality. And if you're well what if you're if you're self conscious about your height, then every perceived slight [00:15:00] is processed through that worldview, right?

If you or I run into like a rude employee at a fast food restaurant, you know, I would tend to think that, well, that person is just simply having a bad day, right? <Right.> But if you insist that society in general laughs and mocks short people, then you're going to see it everywhere, right? That becomes your reality. <Right. Yeah.> And so to carry that idea, if you insist that we should interact with the world as if material reality is all that exists, then you're going to live out that reality and miss the unseen spiritual realities that are taking place right in front of you. And that's why Jesus was so upset with Peter. <Yeah.> It wasn't, yeah, you know, and it helps explain that a little bit better. 

David: Yeah, that's a good example. It's much more than simply Hey, you had a random thought and said it out loud, you know, and sometimes ...

J.R.: You were trying to help and it's not you're not helping, right? <Yeah.> So I'm gonna scream at you, right? 

David: Yeah, you said something without thinking. That's not what this word is really getting at Yeah, I think you're right. It's more of this [00:16:00] whole worldview. It's your mindset that shapes the way you view the world and interacts with others and things like that <Right.> 

Yeah, so that word, in a sense, then links back to what we talked about last episode. Which is, so remember Paul used this one word that talked about "Conduct yourselves as a citizen," right? <Right.> So I think if you follow that thread through this letter I think the next question Paul is basically answering is, Okay, well, how do you do that? Well, Paul's answer is you have to have the right worldview, right? You have to view the world in a different way. <that's right.> Yeah, and that gets to this idea of phroneo. So, it's one of those words, I think when you see it in the original language, if you have, you know, like a document and you just start highlighting all those words. You start to see it everywhere and you go, oh, there it is again. There it is again. <Yeah.> Where in our English, we don't actually see the same word repeated over and over and over again.

J.R.: Yeah. I love when people point out the original language 'cause that's what I tend to do. I obviously don't speak it, [00:17:00] so I tend to, you know, highlight that and find out where else it's shown in the Bible. And it gives you just a clearer context of that word is something a little bit more than simply try to think like Jesus. Right? What would Jesus do? <Yeah. Yeah.> It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's clearly saying you got to have that worldview. You got to have this certain lens that you view the world through. <Yeah.> And hold that in tension with the physical world. 

David: Yeah. And so this worldview that Paul is going to talk about here, the mind of Christ, the mindset of Christ, apparently Paul thought it was best captured in what we'd call a hymn or a poem. So that's found in the next six verses. But again, think of this kind of chiastic structure. The first part is in verses six through eight, and then the second part is in nine through 11. So let's talk about verses six through eight. Actually, do you want to read that? Do you have it up? 

J.R.: Yeah, I got it up. <Okay.> All right. Verse six says, "Who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God, something to be used for his own advantage. Rather, he made [00:18:00]himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross."

David: Okay. So that's the first part of this poem. And the way I really describe it is it's really talking about the descent, right? The nature of Jesus Christ. But, it's really describing a downward descent. 

J.R.: Yeah, episode four. 

David: Episode, yeah, that's right. 

J.R.: I don't know if that's actually correct, I just, you know.

David: I actually think it's episode six.

J.R.: Okay, so I'm glad you, yeah, glad you clarified. Yeah, that's true. The ascent and the descent, right? 

David: Yeah, so the descent, yeah. In order to ascend, you have to descend. And so what he's talking about here is, okay, so how did Jesus Christ enter into this world? Well, he had to descend, right? <Sure.> And so, each verse kind of plays out another aspect of that descent, right?

So it starts out by saying, " Who being in very nature God, [00:19:00] did not consider equality with God something to be used for his own advantage," in my version. So, first of all, he's establishing the fact that Jesus is in his very nature God, right? <Right.> And in that way, it kind of ties back to that other poem in Colossians we talked about.

Where it talks about how Jesus, in the beginning, Jesus created, right? He was with God in the beginning. <Right.> So it kind of establishes who Jesus was. And he was with God, and he was God. In fact, John chapter 1. So again, that whole teaching that Jesus is not only the son of God, but he is an extension of God. So even though he's in the very nature of God - and I'll also say there's a lot of theological words. We mentioned that this is a poem because there's a lot of unique words in here. So there's a lot of theological words that really smart people like to sit there and dissect and kind of play out and then write whole thesis papers and textbooks on what this word means. And you know, there's a place [00:20:00] for that. That's an interesting exercise. But that's not really, I think if you go to that level, let me say this. If you go to that level initially, you're missing what Paul's saying here. 

J.R.: Well, just as, we read it, I, I'm glad you pointed it out that it's just clearly, like you said, there's three steps down. Every verse is a continued step down. <Yeah.> To carry out that idea, the narrative of the descent. You know, he started out as God and then he takes on the nature of being human. But not only does he take on the nature of being human, he takes on the nature of being a lowly human, a servant, a slave, And then of course he takes that on into death. And so you see this pattern going, obviously, clearly stepping down. 

David: Yeah, the three steps down of descent, yeah. <Right.> So first one is, even though he was God he didn't consider himself equal with the father. Rather he made himself nothing by taking on the nature of a servant being made in human likeness. So so it's the story of God becoming man. And what's interesting to me about that is, you know in Greek [00:21:00] mythology, remember because he's writing to Philippi, a very Greco-Roman city. <Yep.> You know, that would have not been a new idea, right? <Sure.> God becoming man. Yeah. God's becoming human. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. They often did that. 

David: Yeah. But what they didn't often do, if you kind of think about some of the stories, is they didn't take on the nature of a servant.

J.R.: Never. That's, that's correct. <Right?> Unless it was to their own advantage to fool someone. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. So in a lot of the myths, especially Zeus, Zeus takes on the form of like all kinds of different things. But, it's usually for one reason, and it has to do with the ladies, right? <Sure.> So, so, we know what Zeus' motivation for taking on some kind of material form, or human form. There's one myth that cracks me up. That where Zeus actually just takes on the form of another woman's husband . and I'm like, okay, now you're just getting lazy, you know? 

J.R.: Yeah. Pulls a fast one. Yeah.

David: Yeah. Because, you know, and other times it's a white bull or it's a, it's a [00:22:00] giant goose, you know. And I'm like, well, at least he's being creative and, you know, then he just gets lazy. Anyway, so you see that, right? You see the gods taking on human form. And sometimes they take on human form just to check out what humans are up to, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, I just finished Mythos, finally. It's a great book. 

David: Oh, okay, good.

J.R.: Yeah, at the end of that, I, had read a myth about Zeus becoming when you said that they never become servants or slaves, he actually did take the form of a lowly traveler. But again, it's for his own kind of test of human nature. And so he basically walks around this village and looking for hospitality, and nobody gave him any except for the poorest people, this poor couple in the village. Just to quickly summarize, he told them to get out of town because he's destroying the town. <Okay.> Yeah, so it, yeah, they will take on a lowly form, but it's often to fool us or to check us out or to experience sort of humanity on a different level. But it's never to[00:23:00] humble themselves, <Right.> certainly. That's never in the cards there. 

David: Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. So there are examples like that in the Greek myths. I know, I recall another myth where one of the gods - okay, so I think someone steals Apollo's cattle. And a farmer or a shepherd happened to see this go down. And so one of the gods, and I forget who it was at the moment. It might have been Hermes or something like that. But he says, Hey, you saw me do this. You can't tell anyone. And so, the shepherd says, Okay, I won't tell anyone. And so Hermes if I get that right, he goes back, but again, he's takes the form of a lowly shepherd. And basically test the guy, you know, hey, what's been going on? Did I miss anything? And of course the guy spills the beans, and ... <Sure.> So yeah, so there, there are examples of taking on a lowly form, but yeah, it's to test people. What you never see the gods in Greek mythology do is take on human form in order to model humility or virtue, right? 

J.R.: Right. [00:24:00] That's exactly right. 

David: And that's what Paul is actually saying that Jesus did here.

J.R.: Right. And so I think never benefits the humans. It always benefits the gods, right? In Greek mythology. 

David: Yeah. And you certainly don't have a case where, you know, now some of the gods looked favorably upon human beings and they wanted to help them out. But they didn't really go to the lengths that Jesus goes here in this poem to model humility and virtue. I just started reading The Odyssey, actually. And it's really interesting, because I just heard a lecture on it. I heard a podcast on it, and I was like, Ah, I should read that. So, in The Odyssey, one of the things that features prominently is Athena wants to help Odysseus. She thinks he's a good dude, and she's like, Look, we need to help this guy get back home, right? So, you see that kind of, maybe benevolence from the gods, but you don't see gods taking on the form of a servant in order to model humility, [00:25:00]right, for human beings. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's, it's always a, touch self serving. 

David: Yeah, yeah, there's a, it's always a little bit self serving. And even in a story like that, there's always kind of the motivation of, well, is the god doing it because he or she, looks favorably on that person, or he's doing it just to, you know, irritate another god.

J.R.: Another god, yes, exactly.

David: You know, like a bunch of squabbling siblings, right? 

J.R.: Right, get under their skin. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. those are the three steps we see here. Taking on the nature of a servant, and then even one more step "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." So that's the last step of descent, right? He obeyed the father even to the point of death. <Right.> And there again, you just don't see that in Greek mythology of a god willing to die in order to save humanity, right?

J.R.: Yeah. And I think this is just another great example of Paul overlaying the narrative of that time, as opposed to just debating them, right, and [00:26:00] arguing that they're wrong. <Yeah. Yeah.> You know, is, is he's taking the, context of what they understand and the narrative that their worldview, and he's just kinda shifting a little bit.

And so they would've understood the whole idea of gods coming down and taking the form of men. <Yeah.> Or women or animals. And so they're like, okay, I'm tracking with you. But then he kinda shifts it and , he fashions it in a way that would've caught their attention. They're like, oh, wait a second, he died? Did he die as a mortal? Like, that doesn't happen in our stories, right? And so it's just another example of Paul kind of overlaying that narrative. We talked about last week about the baptism of Lydia and its attempt to overlay the existing narrative of Hades pulling Persephone in the underworld. <Right.> And he wanted to kind of cover that up. anyway, yes, that's, super interesting, 

David: Yeah, and I think it allows us to step into how the first hearers would have heard this. And Paul knew this. I think we've said this before. Paul knew this, and so he's starting at a point that they would [00:27:00] understand. <Right.> You know,

We read this thing about, Christ Jesus taking on the form of a human, human likeness. And we go, Oh, wow, that's really fascinating. That's interesting. The first century hearers wouldn't have thought that. They would have said, yeah, that happens all the time. <Right, right.> But what, what would have blown their mind is when you said, he became obedient to the Father, even to the point of death. 

J.R.: Yeah, because another narrative all through mythology is the goal is to usurp and overthrow the Father. 

David: Right, right. And that comes out more in that Colossian poem, actually. 

J.R.: Right, yeah, that's right. 

David: That we talked about. That's right. You overthrow the Father. That's how you gain power, right? <Yeah, exactly.> And the last thing I'll point out before we start the three step ascent up is that he adds at the very end, even death on a cross. And again, not to be lost on a Roman colony that a Roman citizen was not allowed to die by crucifixion.

J.R.: Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, that's a relief. Yeah. But that's also interesting. [00:28:00] Yeah. They would have caught that. 

David: Yeah. They would have caught that. They would have thought, Oh, wow. Like, he doesn't even get the dignified death of a Roman citizen. Right? 

J.R.: Yeah. That's right. The death of an outsider.

David: Right. He suffers the death of an outsider. 

J.R.: Right, which would be kind of the culmination of humility, or humiliation. 

David: Yeah, yeah. Alright, so that's the first three verses, and then we get to verses 9 through 11. Because the story, of course, doesn't end there, right? So we have these three steps down, and then we have well, keeping with the theme we like, then we see the ascent. And that starts in verse 9. I can read these three verses here. So, therefore, verse 9 says, "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." So, there again, that's nice sounding language. But, you also [00:29:00]see three steps up here, right?

J.R.: Well, I think it's interesting that there's just a tendency, because I've read these verses I don't know how many times, I've heard sermons on it. But you read it through our 21st-century lens, our worldview, and it just sounds like nice flowery language. You know, Jesus became man. Well, yeah, that's fine. I mean, we all know that. And, and it's just hard to kind of break free of that, the way I normally read this and to try to put on the glasses that the ancient readers would have understood this. And once you do that, little things pop out at you left and right, and you can see so much more. And so it's just hard to, it's just hard to break free of that, of my worldview and reading it in my 2024 cultural lens, that I tend to read things through. 

David: Yeah. And I'm the same way, you know, I, I read, these verses were familiar to me, I probably read them numerous times throughout my life. And I just thought, oh yeah, that sounds nice, that's a nice, I think I realized it was a poem, because, you know, in some versions it [00:30:00] actually sets it off. And I think, oh, that sounds nice. But, man, it's only been recently that I realized just, man, how much is going on. And this is why Paul chose this, or wrote it, not sure which, but it's also why I say I think it's almost the focal point of everything that Paul's trying to convey to them in this letter of Philippians. 

So just to be clear then, you know, we talked about three steps up, the ascent, right? So the first one is just because they don't jump out at you, but therefore God exalted him to the highest place. Okay, so first of all, the first step up is he raised him from the dead, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, no, I didn't read into that. 

David: Yeah, so that's not explicitly stated in there, but that would be implicit, that okay, the first step is that he raised him up.

J.R.: Well, he ended up in death in verse eight, so Yes, that so, yeah, that is now obvious.

David: There's, there's nowhere further to go than death, right? <Right, right.> So the first step is that he raised him up. [00:31:00] And that's a little bit in that word exalted there. The second step up is he raised him to the highest place. So, not only he raised him in human form, but, he raised him and exalted him in the heavenly realm. 

J.R.: Yeah, spiritual form, sure.

David: Yeah, and then the final step would be that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." So, it's the three steps up to actually Jesus Christ being Lord. 

J.R.: Yeah, equal with God. 

David: Yes, back equal with God where he started.

J.R.: Right, which is another shocking revelation to the hearers at the time. <Yeah, yeah.> I mean, when we think of the Trinity, we're like, yes, he's equal with God, that's no surprise. But at the time they're like, they would have to be thinking, now, wait a second. He's equal? He's on the same level? First of all, why would the father do that? Because again, the father's goal is to thwart the attempts to usurp his power by the son, <Yeah.> [00:32:00] Again, we got into this in that other episode. But yeah, I think this would have been equally shocking to them. 

David: Yeah, that the father was actually pleased to raise him up, and re- 

J.R.: Right, is complicit in this. 

David: Yeah, you might say, like, re establish his position as the lord of the world, basically. <Right. Yeah.> And there's a couple other things in here that I just want to point out, and I don't know if you have any other observations here. But that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And there again, it's easy to read that and go, Oh yeah, but you know.

J.R.: That means everywhere.

David: That means everywhere. But, and when it says under the earth, okay, that's the underworld. <Sure.> And so then it raises the question, okay, so who is bending the knee? And, okay, it's all the people in heaven, it's the angels in heaven, it's people on the earth that will eventually. But it's also, right, the fallen spirits, <Sure.> in the underworld.

J.R.: Yeah, Hades.

David: Yeah, and that's something that I think doesn't always occur to [00:33:00] us, though, when it uses this word, you know, under the earth. It's really talking about the underworld, it's talking about the spiritual realm. 

J.R.: Right, all realms, it's basically saying not just the physical realm, not just the spiritual realm, but even the realm of the dead.

David: Right, even the realm of the dead, yeah. 

J.R.: Yes, it all bows to the elevation that God gave to Jesus. 

David: Yeah, yeah, exactly. 

J.R.: Well, I like the way you laid this out because, like I said earlier, I didn't realize that this was a poem. I thought that it was just a quote from something. But once you realize it, I mean, you just see this pattern and it pops out, you know, about the first three lines stepping down, and they're in the physical world, you know, there are three steps down in the physical world. You know, verse six stepping down from divine into human. So we're coming from the spiritual into the physical world, then human to slave and then slave to death. But then that's juxtaposed by the following three lines that step up in the spiritual world. And so his name is exalted. And then it's worshiped in verse 10, and then it's equal with God in verse 11, [00:34:00] you know. 

And I also like that, the other thing I was going to say earlier is that I like that it specifically says his name is elevated in verse 9 and 10. <Yeah.> But his name is elevated. Not the person. The person wasn't elevated because he wasn't actually in the spiritual realm at the time. Does that make sense? 

David: Yeah. Play that out a little bit more. 

J.R.: Well, I mean, we've just said it before that, you know, the spiritual realm mirrors the physical realm. <Oh, yeah. Okay.> While one thing is happening on earth, the opposite thing can be happening in it can have the opposite effect spiritually. You know, and so I think he's kind of - it when I break this poem down and look at it, I think he's kind of juxtaposing not just the descent with the ascent. Is he's juxtaposing one is the physical realm and one is the spiritual realm and they're actually happening at the same time. <Yeah.> And so, I may be reading in a little bit when I see that idea of His name is elevated. I just think it's interesting that he points that out because physically he was in the physical realm, [00:35:00] but at the same time this is happening, his name is being elevated. Obviously the person will be elevated, but his name is being elevated in the spiritual realm. And I think they would have caught that. <Yeah.> With the understanding of the three realms, the heavenly realm, the physical realm, and the underworld, and he tackles all three of those. 

David: Yeah, and actually, it just occurred to me as you were talking that those three realms are mirrored in the three steps down, too, right? Because he's with God in heaven, he becomes man to made in human, likeness, so that's the earth.

J.R.: Yeah, that's good. Yeah. 

David: And then he becomes obedient to death. Well, that's the underworld.

J.R.: Yeah, and then, and then the ascent, the same thing.

David: Yeah, and then the ascent's the same thing. So he's in the underworld. He's raised up, that puts him on the earthly realm, and then God exalts him to the heavenly realm.

J.R.: Right. Yeah. No, I like that.

David: No, that's really interesting. 

J.R.: I think you're on to something.

David: I'm gonna have to rewrite that chapter now. 

J.R.: Yeah, that's right. [00:36:00] Well, it is, it's just one of those things that you can see the pattern when you really dig into it, and you're looking for the pattern as opposed to focusing on a particular word, like you were saying earlier. But one of the things that he's pointing out is I think it's important to hold those two realities in tension at all times. We say this all the time. The tension between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. <Yeah, yeah.> Just like that previous idea of citizenship. Holding the reality of the local culture in tension with the glory of Rome. And so he's just carrying that narrative right through to this poem that see, now I'm convinced that he wrote it.

David: Yeah. Well, so that brings up another ...

J.R.: It's too brilliant. Too brilliant.

David: That brings up another one last thing that I want to point out in this poem, which may actually argue that Paul may have had some input in here. Because that idea of every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Actually, that is kind of mirroring a verse in the Old Testament, because Isaiah 45:23,[00:37:00] the prophet Isaiah writes, "By myself I have sworn. My mouth has uttered in all integrity, a word that will not be revoked." And then this is where he says it. "Before me every knee will bow, by me every tongue will swear." So, there again, someone is kind of pulling from Isaiah in these last couple of verses here, which may indicate that, you know, Paul had this in mind and he was fashioning this in a manner that the Philippians would understand.

But what I want to point out here, and this is something I've only recently realized in the last couple of years, I can thank someone else. It wasn't from my mind. I forget who at the time, though. But, in Isaiah ...

J.R.: They'll go unnamed. 

David: Yeah. In Isaiah this is actually God talking, okay? <Right.> Which is why he says, by myself I have sworn, right? <Okay.> And my word will not be revoked. Before me, this is again, Yahweh God talking, before me every knee will bow, by me every tongue will swear. Okay. <Hmm.> It's easy to miss what Paul does here. <Yeah.> Because Paul takes this verse from Isaiah [00:38:00] where Yahweh is talking, and he actually applies it to Jesus.

J.R.: Right, Yahweh God is the subject. 

David: Yes, yeah. 

J.R.: And so again, Paul is putting Jesus in equality with Yahweh. 

David: Yeah, and he does that a number of places, where he quotes something from the Old Testament that comes from the mouth of Yahweh, or is attributed to Yahweh, and in the New Testament, Paul attributes it to Jesus.

J.R.: Yeah, I'm gonna have to make that link in my Bible notes. 

David: So again, it's just one of those little interesting things that Paul's doing here that we can miss. And it's, again, a bit scandalous, right, from the Jewish world. Like, hey, hey, hey, that's Yahweh God you're talking about. In fact, they wouldn't even utter his name. And now you're saying, no, no, Jesus did that. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's interesting because it ties in with the every tongue will confess, the unconfessed, the name that you shouldn't speak.

David: Yeah, yeah, that's true. 

J.R.: That ties those two ideas together, too. 

David: Yeah, exactly.

J.R.: Yeah, no, that's interesting. 

David: So obviously there's a lot going on in this poem, [00:39:00] but then let's raise the question now of, so why did Paul think this was a fitting poem to, again, tie the words back, for this mindset to be the mindset that they would need in order to live out as citizens of heaven in this Roman colony, as citizens of Rome, right? 

J.R.: Right, yeah, the citizenship idea.

David: The citizenship idea. Right. So what's interesting is, this poem really describes the downward descent, right, and then Christ is lifted up,the same way. He ascends the same way, because God raises him up and glorifies him. And that whole idea would run very counter to a very strong theme, again, in Greco Roman world, specifically in the Roman Empire. And there's this idea in ancient Rome called the cursus honorum. I think I mentioned this last episode even. 

J.R.: Yes. Yeah, I actually looked that up. Okay. Yeah, I did. 

David: What'd you find? Well Good stuff? 

J.R.: [00:40:00] I'm better with pictures, and so it's just kind of laying out that here's how you start your citizenship at the bottom, and you work your way up.

David: Exactly, yeah.

J.R.: Yeah, it's, a path, or a ladder you know, of, of elevating yourself all the way up to 

David: All the way up, you'd be consul, right? 

J.R.: Consul, yeah, yeah. But even to Caesar, right? To that level. I mean, there's a path that takes you all the way to the top.

David: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Right. So that's a pretty good description. So, in Rome, the cursus honorum was the path that you know, the higher class, the elites, if you came from a reputable family if you were Roman citizens, especially a young man, it would be the path you would be expected to take in order to enter Roman politics.

And so, yeah, it starts with your citizenship, but then, you know, you'd get some military service. It's always good to get a couple military victories under your belt. And we can see accounts of that where, you know, some Caesar wanted his son [00:41:00] to, you know, go lead this army, like a young age. But you know, hey, at least you can say, hey, I'm victorious now, right? I've been in battle. Anyway, some form of military service, and then yeah, there are other roles along the path that you could work your way up. You'd become part of the Roman Senate. And if you kept working your way up, you would be something like a judge, and you could get all the way up to consul. <Right.> And, of course, Caesar ultimately was a consul before he consolidated power under himself, right? 

J.R.: Yeah, and consuls actually in emergency situations can step in as Caesar. 

David: Yeah, yeah. There were, there were always two consuls. Before, well, before Julius Caesar, and Caesar Augustus, there were always two consuls. And so one had veto power of the other, so they had to agree, and they served for one year. And then someone else would step in and be consul, unless it was kind of extraordinary circumstances in a time of war, then consuls could serve longer. 

J.R.: Right, something like a vice president, you've [00:42:00] elevated yourself to essentially emperor. <Yeah, yeah.> in an emergency situation. 

David: Yeah. So all that was kind of this cursus honorum. It's Latin for the path of honor, right? And it was the way that you were expected as a, usually a young man to kind of, now this is where it becomes important, to make a name for yourself, right?

J.R.: Yeah, and it actually coincides with certain ages, is what I was reading. 

David: Yeah, there, there are some age limits on some offices. So, you know, you had to have a certain amount of experience and be a certain age before you could hold certain offices, things like that. Is that what you're talking about? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. Well, just the idea that by the time, you know, by the time you're 20, you ought to be in the military. By the time you're 30, you ought to be, you know, and by the time you're 30 or 40, you ought to have the judge. And so it's sort of this expectation that that you can get behind the curve a little bit. There's this pressure, , man, I'm 30 years old, and I'm just finishing my military career. I'm behind everybody else. <Yeah. [00:43:00] Yeah.> And so there's this cultural pressure that kind of lays all this stuff out in that type of way. But you're right, it's the whole point of it is to make a name for yourself, an honorable name for yourself.

David: Right. And you see this in some of the positions and visiting some of the sites that we've seen, you see this where you see all the statues lining the main walkway, right? And you would see libraries and fountains named after people, right? And what are they doing? They're literally making a name for themselves. <Right.> And it, even if this occurred to me, so we even see this in Corinth with the Erastus Inscription. 

J.R.: Oh, yeah. 

David: And it's kind of written about that. I'm trying to think if it's somewhere. But, well, I can put a video. I'll put a video in the um, show notes. So you can check out the YouTube video. Because there is a video about that. But, right, Erastus he was Aedile in Corinth, right? And so that's one of those steps on the path, and he put a big inscription that said you know, hey, this I [00:44:00] forget what it was, a street or a building or something like that. This was done by me, Erastus, who was the Aedile of Corinth, basically. I'm summarizing it. And so there again, that's what enabled him to make a name for himself. Now, I forgot to say what's significant about that is Paul actually talks about the Aedile Erastus, in one of his letters. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it solidifies , the authenticity of Paul being in Corinth at that time.

David: Exactly. But that was typical of what you would do, right? You would attain certain positions. You would maybe, out of your own family's money even, maybe public monies, you would create art, you would create structures, and then you would put your name on it, because that got your name out. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, and just in, while we were in Athens, we hit that one walk where just hundreds and hundreds of busts of people names. Yeah, that's what we kept saying, we're like, who are these people? You know? <Yeah.> [00:45:00] I mean, there's some obvious names that we would recognize there'd be full statues of them. But just the carving of the bust kind of lining that walkway. And it's basically the significant people of the day. Yeah, exactly. And, and getting your name and face out there in that context. 

David: Yeah, no pressure there. Yeah, you're 30 and you don't even have a statue of yourself downtown? Man, what are you doing with your life? 

J.R.: And the great ones were clearly the elderly people that they had the robes on and they'd be, they were clearly, I, my guess is something in their seventies or eighties just by looking at their face, but they always had a six pack. <Yeah, yeah.> I mean, if you're going to make a statue of yourself, you might as well be as flattering as you possibly can. I'm not putting the beer gut on there. <Yeah.> I'm not fooling anybody with the face wrinkles because that's clear. 

David: I'm trying to make a name for myself here. 

J.R.: Yeah. Underneath the toga, buddy, I'm ripped.

David: Yeah. Although it's, it's also funny because sometimes you'll hear in these ancient writings, someone talking about how old someone is [00:46:00] and they're like 55, you know? 

J.R.: Right. Well, yeah, that's not too far removed from the 1800s. Yeah, exactly. If you're 55, you're at a ripe old age. 

David: Yeah. So this idea, anyway, of the cursus honorum, really is not unlike maybe what I would say kind of a path in politics looks like today. Although, more and more today, people don't actually follow the path. But, you know, traditionally, maybe you would run for some kind of city council, and then you'd run for some kind of state legislature. And if you got that you might become a senator, and if you got to be a senator maybe governor. And then you kind of aligned yourself with the people running for president. Maybe you'd be a vice presidential pick So it was kind of that similar idea, right?

J.R.: Now, it's I need to have my name on Tick Tock. And then I need my own reality show. 

David: Yeah, yeah, exactly. 

J.R.: And then I'll be president. 

David: Yeah, more and more people are just kind of bypassing that whole traditional path to politics, you know. So you [00:47:00] see the young people with their TikToks and their Facebooks and their MySpaces and all that and totally confounding the older people.

J.R.: You just totally showed your age right there. 

David: Yeah, exactly.

J.R.: I try to speak the language, man. I try not to make it that obvious. 

David: Yeah. Is Myspace still around? 

J.R.: Myspace? No! 

David: I thought it was. 

J.R.: MySpace? Hold on, I'm gonna check it. 

David: Are you checking it right now? They turned it into some kind of a music profile, but I don't think anyone uses it anymore. 

J.R.: No, it's actually, it doesn't take me anywhere. That's, that's kind of interesting. I actually did think it would, surely it's a valid link. But it kind of just, <okay.> you hit the uh oh page in Google. So, yeah, it's been shut down. It's completely shut down about 20 years ago. 

David: No, I think it's sooner than that, but anyway, yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. But basically what you're saying is, there was a traditional path and it changes over different generations. But certainly in, Roman times it was the cursus honorum was the traditional [00:48:00] path to bring yourself and achieve glory for your name, put yourself in an elevated position essentially over your lifetime. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And this notion was very strongly ingrained with Roman citizens, again, a Roman colony. You know, this idea of, okay, how do you make your name great? Well, you pursue this cursus honorum or cursus honorum. I'm not actually sure how you pronounce it, but, you know, this is what you would pursue. That's how you do it, and your goal was to make your name great. And so what's interesting now is you contrast that idea, with what Paul has just laid out in this poem. <Right.> Right? And that's where, that's where you start to see ...

J.R.: Don't elevate yourself.

David: Exactly. That's where you start to see what Paul is calling them to. What does it mean to be a good citizen of heaven? And Paul says, it's not the path of honor and glory. It's not making a name for yourself. It's humble yourself; it's become obedient. 

J.R.: Right, again, overlaying the existing narrative. 

David: [00:49:00] Exactly, yeah. And again, that'd be kind of a big, that would be kind of a big thing to ask of the Philippian citizens. Avoid the pull of this path of honor and glory, making a name for yourself. I'm calling you to humble yourself, follow the pattern of Christ, and become obedient to God. Right? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. And listen, that's the narrative today. It's counterintuitive. It's counter whatever culture says success is. The New Testament and the entire Bible says no, it's actually opposite of that. And it, you're right. That it, it has to be jarring to the people of the time. This ingrained idea of what success and what making a name and what honor should look like. And just completely flipping that narrative upside down and saying, no, no, no. It's actually humbling yourself. Right? Yeah. And working your way down as opposed to elevating yourself. 

David: Yes. And so, yeah, I think as we start to kind of wrap this [00:50:00] up and think about, well, what does this mean for us today? I, man, I'll be the first to say, I think we think of humility in terms of, you know, well, I'm humble, even though at work, I'm still trying to gun for that promotion, right? <Right, right.> I'm humble. I can have a humble attitude even though I still want these things out of life, right? I do that with a humble attitude 

J.R.: Right. Humility is just a facade. <Yeah. Yeah.> That we're going to put on the facade of the self effacing facade that, hey, I'm not trying to climb the ladder. But underneath it all you're actually trying to climb the ladder. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. So pet peeve of mine. I don't know, this might get me in trouble. But even in church circles today, there's so much talk about leadership.

J.R.: Right. Servant leadership. 

David: Yeah, exactly. You just went there. What annoys me is that you can't even talk about humility and servanthood without saying well, servant leadership. Right? I'm still the leader, but right, I'm going to, 

J.R.: I'm [00:51:00] going to make that clear. Yeah, but I'm going to do that. I'm going to lead by serving you.

David: Right. Right. And I'm going to call myself a servant leader, you know, instead of ...

J.R.: Sort of the, I'm going to pay for lunch so that everybody knows I've got the money to pay for lunch. 

David: Yeah. Now, again, I, you know, I'm not trying to harsh anyone's, you know, what they're called to do. 

J.R.: You're not naming names. No, I get it. 

David: But yeah, it's just one of those things that I've observed that sometimes our churches can have this hyper leadership culture where we can't even talk about servanthood without calling it servant leadership. Yeah, you know, that's right. And look, that's not the path of obedience that Christ modeled, right?

J.R.: Well, I like C. S. Lewis's quote about humility where it says, "Humility isn't thinking less about yourself. It's just thinking of yourself less." And it's that idea that we kind of get tied up. Humility is, yeah, letting you know how pathetic I am at, you know, trying to put that out there. And I'm nothing, I'm nobody. And [00:52:00] feigning this false humility in certain circles. But even that is, is a type of pride because you're constantly pointing it back to yourself. How, little I am and how weak and how small I am. You know, that's, that's a type of pride when you think about it, because it's always pointing about yourself.

And Lewis points out rightly that it's simply not thinking about yourself at all. And when you take yourself out of the equation, well, what happens? You become a servant. I have conversations with you thinking, well, what does Dave want to talk about? You know, or what is Dave interested in? I'm a pull on that thread. You know, and it's not me trying to kiss up to you or anything like that. It's just that I've taken myself out of the equation, so I'm going to be thinking about you. And if you do the same thing, then we have this servant servant relationship that is an image of true humility, as opposed to the always talking down about myself. It really is not much different than me talking about how great I am. 

David: No, I actually really like that quote. That's a good way to [00:53:00] think about it. <Right.> Because, yeah, you're right. You can be self obsessed about talking about how humble you are, or trying to appear humble, which isn't humility at all, yeah.

J.R.: Right, right. 

David: I just think it's - oh, go ahead. 

J.R.: Well, I was about to say, to tie into what Paul's doing with the poem, is those are both images of exalting yourself in the physical world. Me building myself up. We all know not to do that. I mean, that can get a little grating. But me tearing myself down. It's that focus on the physical world. And when you, juxtapose it with what he's saying, that, when you are genuinely humble in the physical world, you're elevated in the spiritual world. Well, that's all you're saying. All he's really saying is stop thinking about the physical world. Hold on to that idea of what's happening in the spiritual realm, as well as the physical realm. Hold that tension, and that's where we find that balance of citizenship, of interacting with the people of this world while representing the spiritual realm. 

David: [00:54:00] Yeah, yeah. And I would say following the example of the poem, one of the things that jumps out at you pretty clear is that in order to be obedient to God, you have to have your agenda lined up with God. Right? And I think that's, I think that's a big part, too. Because he's saying Jesus modeled this, but I think it's easy for, well, I'll speak personally, it's easy for me to say, yeah, I'll do whatever God asks. But in the meantime, you know, I've got a family to feed and, bills to pay and all that. But, I can easily fall into that trap when I haven't done the previous step of really aligning myself constantly with what God is doing around me. And I think when you align yourself with what God is doing, you're able to respond better. And like you said, then you're not thinking about yourself all the time, you're truly thinking about you know, What does it mean to build up or encourage whoever I'm interacting with at the moment? <Right.> And it's not about me or what [00:55:00] I'm trying to accomplish or my agenda. It's truly about God's, and I will say that is a very tough thing to get to. That's it. 

J.R.: Oh, yeah, sure, sure it is. I mean, look, I'm the type of person that thinks about what's sitting right in front of me. And, there are positives and negatives to that, but one thing is difficult for me is getting myself in the mindset of what, what is happening spiritually, the spiritual realm, you know? I'm just very much I interact what's right in front of me. And yeah, it's just, it's hard to do that. But , when you understand what's happening to go back to Jesus's harsh response to Peter, is, you can understand it more. It's like, man, get your mindset right. Align yourself with God's agenda. And then everything will flow out of that. And that's where that idea of mindset or worldview, that's where you can see the weight of it. And you can see why there was such a harsh response to what Peter was just trying to help out, you know?

It's like, no, no, no, you, you know, you didn't align yourself with what God's doing. You didn't align yourself with the [00:56:00] spiritual realm first. All you're trying to do is, and again, you know, we read it and think, well, Peter wasn't trying to flex. He wasn't trying to show all the other disciples how bad he was or how strong he was, how he could handle things. But Jesus was saying, no, no, no, that's exactly what you're doing because you didn't align yourself with the spiritual realm first. All you're doing is focusing on this physical world, this material world. <Yeah.> And your mind isn't in the right place. And so yeah, you can see the weight of it in that exchange.

David: Yeah. No, that's a great way to bring it full circle is it all goes back to that very first thing we talked about, which is that, you know, that Greek word phroneo, it's the mindset. Because, truly, all this is almost impossible to do without having an entire worldview that views the world through God's agenda. that's a tough place to get to. But it's something that we're called to continuously work at. And so, anyway, I think this poem actually takes on so much more meaning [00:57:00] when you start to see it in light of everything that Paul's talking about, in light of what he's calling them to as these dual citizens. And we'll continue to play that out as we talk about. 

J.R.: Oh, yeah. No, I'm about to go to my Bible and make notes.

David: Oh, okay.

J.R.: That's my new habit. 

David: Alright, well 

J.R.: Getting it down before I lose the idea. Before you forget it, yeah. And then a week from now, I'm going to come across this verse and think, Man, there was something awesome about this verse, but I totally forget what it is.

David: I do that with books. I'll say, Man, I just finished this great book, you know. And two weeks later, you're like, What was that book about? I don't know. I can't think of anything. 

J.R.: Yeah, shipwreck yeah, that's about it. 

David: Yeah, yeah. Alright, so next episode we are going to talk about Philippians chapter 3 as a bit of a teaser, we're going to be talking about the Olympics. 

J.R.: Ah, there we go. Alright, we're headed that direction, aren't we? I mean, that's the goal is later on this year, Olympus. 

David: Oh, yeah, that's right. 

J.R.: it's not Mount Olympus, it is. 

David: It's the, it's, so, yeah, [00:58:00] it's the city of Olympia. 

J.R.: Olympia, that's right.

David: So it's the city, yeah. So that's on our tentative agenda, is to visit ancient Olympia, is where the Olympic Games were held, which is kind of confusing because Mount Olympus really has nothing to do with the Olympic Games.

J.R.: It's in a totally different area, right. 

David: But it does bring up the idea that, you know, the Olympic Games were called the Olympic Games because they were done in dedication to the Olympic gods. That's where all that comes. <Right.> so. 

J.R.: Yeah, there we go. Alright. 

David: Yeah, so full circle there. We'll talk about that. 

J.R.: Alright, there we go. I can't wait. 

David: Alright, well, let's see. Thanks for listening. Like, subscribe. We actually have, there's a couple things I want to, a couple housekeeping things I want to talk about. We do have a new website called Fanlist. And I will put the link in the show notes. And it is a way for you to, now we're still kind of talking about whether or not you have to register or something, but we're just trying to find ways to connect with people. But it would be an easy way for people to ask [00:59:00] us questions you know, any comments that you have, any thoughts about future episodes. We would just love to hear from you, and we're trying to figure out the best ways to do that.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, just kind of continue the conversation. <Yeah.> 

David: We're still playing around with it. It is up, and we'll put the link in the show notes. It's also a way to support this podcast, which is something we hadn't talked about, but, you know, look, this ain't free to do. We both love it, we both enjoy it, but, you know, if you're so moved, yeah, you can show support on there, too. 

J.R.: Yeah, and either way, we'll continue it. 

David: Yeah. Yeah, no one supported us, so we're shutting it down. No, that's not what we're gonna do. 

J.R.: That's right. 

David: But the other thing I'll add is that we always say the show notes, it took me a while to actually, I have to confess this, to figure out where the show notes were. So when we talk about the show notes, I want people to understand maybe who are as technically illiterate as I am. 

J.R.: Who are as old as we are. 

David: As old, yeah, that's a better way to say it. You know, that, wherever you're listening to it, when you see the name and you see the podcast playing, and there's a brief description, [01:00:00] there should be like an ellipsis, usually, and you click on that and you'll see the full show notes. And that's where we put links to our website. We'll put links to videos, anything we talk about in the show notes, that's always there on every episode. And again, if you're driving around in your car, it's easy to not know they're there, even. So, anyway, I thought I'd just do that. 

J.R.: Yeah, you taught me something.

David: Yeah, did you know that? No, I did not. Well, at the beginning, when we started doing all this podcasting, we talked about the show notes, and it was several episodes, and I'm thinking to myself, man, I don't know where the show notes are. We keep people ...

J.R.: Hey, we're learning as we go along here. Yeah, right. We're learning as we go. We're doing our best here. 

David: We're telling people to go to the show notes, and I'm asking you, I'm like, dude, where are the show notes at? I don't know, you know.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. Two old men fumbling through this. 

David: Right, Anyway. So for your, for your entertainment anyway. And the last thing I'll say before we wrap things up is that I do have a new book out. It's called A Journey Through Philippi. It is available. In fact, I've [01:01:00] just finalized the ebook version. 

J.R.: Ah, there we go. 

David: I can say that by the time this is released, it will be available. 

J.R.: Amazon?

David: It will eventually be done on Amazon, paperback on Amazon. Wherever you buy eBooks, it should pretty much already be available, but yeah. It's one of the reasons why we're talking about Philippians is because this book of A Journey Through Philippi, which is the third in the series. Pick it up, give it a read. A lot of things we talk about are in that book. But then a lot more too, because we're just hitting certain passages in each chapter. So yeah, throw that out. 

J.R.: I'm downloading it as we speak. How about that? 

David: Oh, there we go. Okay. 

J.R.: Even though I have to had the pre release copy.

David: You did have to actually 

J.R.: I gotta support it.

David: Yeah. Okay, cool All right. Well, thanks for listening and we will talk to you next episode. 

J.R.: I will see y'all.