COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Life Assurance Ministries
When I was an Adventist, the apostle Paul seemed almost out of reach. His epistles were obviously deep and theologically meaty, but I often felt slightly confused when I read him. Furthermore, he often sounded confident to the point of arrogance—or so I thought as I waded through his exhortations to follow his example (as in Philippians 3:17) and his confident assertion that he had declared to the churches “the whole purpose of God” (Acts 20:27).
From my Adventist perspective, Paul seemed inflexible, perhaps chauvinistic, and overly confident in his own opinions and accomplishments. Now, though, I see Paul completely differently.
Paul the Shepherd
I’m immersing myself again in the book of Philippians as a group of us will be studying it over the next four months—and once more, as I have realized as I’ve studied other epistles—I’m amazed at what I learn from Paul just in his introduction.
Paul loved his people—and by his people, I mean the people in the churches who received his letters. In my Adventist days, I never saw that love when I read. I’m not sure how I missed it. Look, for example, at Philippians 1:3–5:
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.—Philippians 1:3–5 NASB95
I remember when I first realized, a few years after leaving Adventism, that Paul wasn’t just saying formal niceties—like a politician addressing a crowd of people he doesn’t know—when he wrote to the churches. Paul KNEW his audiences, and if his letters were going to a church he hadn’t personally visited, he still told them the truth. If he said he thanked God for them—he really did. If he said he loved them, he really did love them in the Lord.
In fact, over the years as Richard and I have led FAF Bible studies and have interacted with questioning and former Adventists, I have come to understand exactly what Paul meant. Even if we haven’t met all the formers with whom we interact, we “know” them in the Lord and are grateful to Him for each life He rescues. As for those we know personally, with whom we have shared Bible study and life—there is a deep love in the Lord that is real and permanent. We really do thank God for those He puts in our lives, and we pray for them. The bond of the Holy Spirit is unlike anything else, and it is eternal.
Now I see the shepherd’s heart of our great apostle Paul: he really did thank God for the people he addressed, and his claims to love them no longer seem like politically-motivated affirmations designed to get the people to listen to him or to be loyal to him. He wrote to them because He knew the kinds of encouragement and instruction they needed, and he was invested in their personal growth. He had dedicated his life to helping these early believers to become grounded in reality and truth—and he knew that only the truth about our Lord Jesus and His gospel could rewire the formerly pagan worldviews of his readers.
Paul’s Confidence
In fact, I have found Paul’s confidence in Philippians 1:6 to be incredibly encouraging. For example, I think often of the privilege I have to know that I am not “spiritual Israel” but a gentile. As an Adventist I believed that “we” were “spiritual Israel”, the true church God raised up for a special end-time work. The burden of living up to Adventism’s expectations for me was crushing. When I realized that I was really just a gentile made alive by the Lord and adopted by the Father, the relief was incredible. I could read the New Testament and see exactly who I am: my genetics decreed that I am a gentile, and my trust in Jesus makes me a citizen of the kingdom of the Beloved Son. I am part of the body of Christ.
Now when I read Paul and see his deep love and concern for these new gentile Christians to whom he wrote, I realize that in a real sense, Paul is the apostle appointed to explain the new covenant to me in a specific way.
Even more, Paul, the formerly arrogant, proud, consummate Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin embraced God’s grace to him—he was appointed to be the apostle to the gentiles! Now when I read Paul and see his deep love and concern for these new gentile Christians to whom he wrote, I realize that in a real sense, Paul is the apostle appointed to explain the new covenant to me in a specific way.
I am to understand that as a gentile, I was never under the Mosaic covenant—no matter what Adventism told me—and I am saved exactly as the Philippians were saved: by realizing I was a sinner who needed a Savior and by BELIEVING in Jesus’s finished atonement! What Paul wrote to these gentile Christians in his epistles, he wrote to me as well. He understood what we gentiles had to know about who we are by nature and who we are in Christ.
Therefore, when Paul tells the Philippians this promise, I know he is saying it to me as well:
[For I am] confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.—Philippians 1:6 NASB95
Paul’s certainty that God has called these Philippians to Himself and has begun their work of maturity and growth in them is the same certainty I can feel about God at work in me. I know Jesus because the Father revealed Him to me and opened by eyes to the truth, and if this miracle of belief happened in me by His doing, my continuing assurance and growth in Him is guaranteed by the Lord Himself.
I can know this fact to be true; God has given “my” apostle Paul the authority to reassure me that God doesn’t stop what He begins. He will finish His work in me and will perfect it until the day He glorifies me for eternity.
Longing for His Siblings In Christ
Then, in verses 7 and 8, Paul gets personal. The great apostle was not politically free; he was writing this letter from house arrest in Rome. Yet he feels it necessary to explain and even to defend his deep love for the Philippians. After all, there would be many over the centuries—as I can attest personally from my Adventist rationalizing of Paul’s words—who would tend to think Paul was overly flowery in his affirmations. In fact, people who are not made alive in Christ really have no basis for understanding Paul’s deep concern and love for these early Christians.
So now Paul explains himself, as if he wants to be sure that no one misunderstands his affirmations as manipulative or insincere flattery. This is what he says in verses 7 and 8:
For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.—Philippians 1:7, 8
Paul tells the Philippians that they shouldn’t be surprised by his deep love for them. We learn here that this particular church has stood by Paul, their apostle, as he was arrested and then imprisoned in Rome. In fact, they had sent him a gift to help supply his personal needs in prison.
Being a prisoner in the first century wasn’t like being a prisoner in a first-world prison in the 21st century. People’s families had to supply food, clothing, and personal needs for the prisoners. Paul now acknowledges that the Philippians in particular have stood by him and have supported him materially as well as spiritually, not only in his imprisonment but also in his ongoing preaching and defense of the gospel.
Their commitment to support him and to stand by him no matter what he experienced bonded them with their apostle. Paul admits he has them all in his heart—Paul personally loves these people who have not forgotten him after learning the gospel from him. In fact, not only have they not forgotten him, but they have continued to support him, and he tells them that they are all “partakers of grace with me.”
Paul admits that he is personally grateful and connected to this group of brothers and sisters who all share the grace of the Lord Jesus. It is their mutual love for and dependence upon Christ that gives them their deep connection that withstands separation and time—because this grace of Christ is the fruit of their mutual indwelling by the Holy Spirit.
Paul’s love and longing for these people is not merely theoretical and immaterial; he personally loves them and misses them and longs to see them, knowing that his deep affection for them is placed in his heart by the Lord Jesus and is God’s gift to them all.
Paul identifies himself with the Philippians, and he tells them before God that he longs for them “with all the affection of Christ Jesus”. In other words, Paul’s love and longing for these people is not merely theoretical and immaterial; he personally loves them and misses them and longs to see them, knowing that his deep affection for them is placed in his heart by the Lord Jesus and is God’s gift to them all. They are loving one another for God, even at a distance, and Paul longs to be reunited with them personally.
When I read these vulnerable and revealing words from our own apostle to the gentiles, I understand that the deep bonds I feel with many brothers and sisters who are not physically with me but who share the presence of the Holy Spirit—these deep connections are real. They survive over time because the Holy Spirit is eternal, and it is a reality of our eternal life in Christ that those with whom we share the love of the Lord will be bonded with us in Him for eternity!
Paul’s Prayer
Again, I’m astonished at the detail and depth of insight Paul shares with us just in his introduction of his letter! In fact, after his vulnerable admission of his deep and abiding love for the people in the church at Philippi, he closes his introduction with an amazing prayer.
This prayer, in fact, is a prayer that I started praying for Richard and myself years ago as we committed ourselves to helping Adventists understand their own deception and to helping former Adventists become grounded in reality. We all know how hard it is to begin to see through the lens of a biblical worldview after being shaped by the great controversy paradigm—but when the Lord brings us to life, He doesn’t leave us where He finds us: confused and arrogant and overly confident that we know how to read the Bible.
This prayer reveals what we gentiles, deceived by a false religion, need to learn:
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which [comes] through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.—Philippians 1:9–11 NASB95
Paul told the Philippians—and each of us—that he prayed that their love would abound more and more in “real knowledge and all discernment”. In other words, the love of a believer isn’t merely an emotion, a warmth of connection, but real love must be grounded in reality and true spiritual discernment.
This explanation of the love of a real Christian was clarifying to me as I began to realize I wan’t always sure how to KNOW that what I was reading or hearing was actually true. I had been deceived as an Adventist for the first 45 years of my life, and I realized clearly that I could be deceived again. I had to be able to find a way to evaluate everything against an immovable source of truth.
The ground of truth, I realized with growing clarity, was the Bible—and I had to pray, as Paul prayed for the Philippians, that the Lord would teach me what is true and real.
I began to pray that He would ground be deeply in truth and reality and teach me what His word really said and what it really meant. Furthermore, I realized from this prayer of Paul’s, that the Holy Spirit would be the One to teach me reality and to give me discernment. I couldn’t expect to receive these things out of the blue, so to speak—I had to keep myself immersed in God’s own revelation to me.
Furthermore, I couldn’t rely even on the interpretive writings of the great men and women of God who, through the centuries, wrote treatises on how to understand Scripture. Oh, those writings were useful, to be sure—and God clearly gives teachers and preachers to the church to help us grow in our knowledge of truth and reality—but the bulk of my immersion had to be the Bible. Only Scripture is complete and inerrant. Only the Bible contains God’s living word that is so sharp it can reveal our own hearts and motives to us as we submit to it.
Paul went on to explain WHY we gentle Christians need to abound more and more in real knowledge and discernment: we have to know God’s reality and truth for two main purposes: to be able to “approve the things that are excellent,” and to be “sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.”
If we are growing in our knowledge of God’s revelation in His word, if we are ingesting it like spiritual food and believing it as we read it, we will have the discernment to know what ideas and philosophies are excellent and true—and which ones are anti-gospel and dangerous to spiritual health.
It is knowing God’s truth that protects us from false teaching and subtle deviations of reality in the world around us—even, sadly, within the church.
It is knowing God’s truth that protects us from false teaching and subtle deviations of reality in the world around us—even, sadly, within the church. Furthermore, knowing what is true and real and believing what God reveals through His word keeps us sincere and blameless in His sight because we are committed to knowing what He wants us to know and to admitting when we have misunderstood something that His word corrects.
This growth in knowledge and discernment will yield the fruit of righteousness in us—and this fruit is literally a gift from Jesus Christ! Ultimately, our growth in truth and reality as people alive in Christ will bring glory and praise to God!
I thank the Lord for “my” apostle Paul whom the Lord Jesus appointed to explain the administration of the new covenant and to show everyone how we can be united to Christ through belief in His death for our sin, His burial, and His resurrection which broke the curse of death.
With Paul I pray that those Adventists who begin to realize that Adventism is a deception will not merely leave the religion but will see who Jesus really is. I pray that the Lord will reveal Himself to Adventists and awaken their knowledge of their sin and their need of a Savior. I pray that they will learn to trust God’s word and to submit to it, that they will find the love and commitment of our apostle Paul to be a beacon of truth as they learn to trust the One who is, Himself, the Way, the Truth, and the Light. †
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