PHILIPPIANS 2:19, 20

19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. 20 I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare.

Verse 19 “Hope in the Lord Jesus” is a peculiar phrase, and one which Paul never uses anywhere else (although he “urges… in the Lord Jesus” a couple of times). It’s clear what he means by it, though: five distinct things:

(a) “After seeking the Lord Jesus’ will, I am intending to send Timothy – my hope is formed by the Lord’s prompting”

(b) “The reason I want to send him is connected to my ambitions to serve the Lord Jesus – my hope is shaped by the Lord’s agenda”

(c) “The reason I am hopeful that it will be possible is because the Lord Jesus is able to make it possible – my hope is fuelled by the Lord’s power”

(d) “But Jesus is Lord, so he has the final say, and he may decide otherwise – my hope is limited by the Lord’s supremacy”

(e) “yet my connection with the Lord Jesus gives me confidence that he will arrange for this desirable things to happen – my hope is emboldened by the Lord’s goodness and providence”

Not a bad range of meaning to cram into just five words. Paul is stressing that he doesn’t make his decisions lightly, a charge he was always sensitive about (2 Corinthians 1:17). Everything he intends for the Philippians (and this was a rather peculiar plan, as we’ll see!) is designed and directed by his overruling concern to do what God wants first and foremost.

Maybe this is a good way to test out our own hopes and schemes for the future. Can we honestly say about them: “I hope in the Lord Jesus that…”? If the phrase can’t be employed in any one case, then maybe we shouldn’t be cherishing that particular hope.

Verse 20 Paul’s relationship with his co-workers clearly wasn’t an autocratic one. He didn’t order them around like servants; they were free agents who could decide how far they were going to help him, and when they were going to follow their own judgment.

Towards the end of his life, he write to Timothy, “Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. I sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas…” (2 Tim 4:10-13). Reading this, we catch the atmosphere of the group that surrounds him: partly under his control (“I sent Tychicus…”) and partly judging for themselves (Crescens and Titus weren’t “sent”, and whatever Paul thought of his motives, Demas may well still have been operating within Christian ministry.)

And so here he’s complaining (says Gerald Hawthorne) that despite the fact that he has many Christians around him, who could potentially execute a fact-finding mission to Philippi, nobody is sufficiently concerned to do so. They all have other priorities.

It’s a reminder of how easy it is to allow the good to become the enemy of the best; to take refuge from a challenging assignment by busying ourselves with something easier and less stretching; to justify our activities in religious language when actually they’re no more spiritual; than Jonah taking ship at Tarshish. “Displacement activities” are sadly possible in the Christian life – which is why there is so much misdirected energy and duplication of other people’s work. (Just look at a few elaborate evangelical websites…)

How do we avoid fooling ourselves that we’re doing the right thing, when we’re actually opting out? There are several answers to that, and Paul hints at one here: a genuine concern for other people will sort out our motives and propel us into actions we’d otherwise never take.

I’m always challenged – who wouldn’t be – by the sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe in Auschwitz. But before the war he was the head of a publishing company which published anti-semitic material (although it’s ridiculous to accuse him of personal anti-Jewish sentiments) and he wasn’t always wise in his judgments. Yet when the testing time came, the real commitment he had to serving other human beings was what shone through and decided the outcome of his life.