What does Paul mean by 'fear and trembling'? – Philippians E3

What does Paul mean by ‘fear and trembling’? How do we live for Jesus in our messy world?
 
Today we discuss Philippians 2.12–30. We break down what it means to work out our faith with fear and trembling, emphasising the active nature of the Christian faith and the need for ongoing, sometimes costly, obedience. 

We talk about the challenge to live for Christ amidst a 'warped and crooked generation' and explore the similarities between Paul’s practical advice in Philippians 2 and Romans 12. 

We finish with a look at how Timothy and Epaphroditus embody what Paul has been urging the Philippian believers to do, noting their selfless service for the sake of Christ and for others.

Timestamps

• (00:40) - Send us your questions!
• (01:05) - What does fear and trembling mean? Philippians 2.12–13
• (09:30) - Living for Christ in a dark world: Philippians 2.14–18
• (12:00) - Arguing and grumbling in church
• (15:00) - Being a light for Christ and similarities with Romans 12
• (19:05) - What does Paul mean about offerings?
• (23:29) - Timothy and Epaphroditus: costly discipleship

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Creators & Guests

Host

Esther King

Esther is part of Bible Society's Communications team.

Host

Mark Woods

Mark is a Baptist minister and sometime journalist, who now heads up Bible Society's comms team.

Host

Noël Amos

Noël is the editor of Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal.

Producer

Jack Morris

Jack works with digital content all across Bible Society.

What is The Rooted Podcast?

Listen to The Rooted Podcast for in-depth conversations about the Bible and how we can apply it to our lives. Join the team behind Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal, as we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible in each series and explore its message for us today.

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You're listening to The Rooted Podcast from Bible Society, a Christian organization that invites people to discover the life -giving power of the Bible. In each series, we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible and explore its message for us today. This is series two, Philippians. Welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. We're here this week to talk about the second half of Philippians chapter two.

and what it means to work out our faith with fear and trembling. And we're talking about challenges that Christians face against grumbling and arguing and what it looks like to live for Christ in a warped and crooked generation. If you've been enjoying listening to the podcast, please feel free to leave us a review or rating. And if you have any questions about anything we say in this episode or other episodes in the series, we're going to be recording a Q &A episode. So...

Please feel free to send in your questions to biblesociety .org .uk forward slash rooted questions and we'll get to as many of those as we can in the last episode. We'll start by reading verses 12 to 13. Esther, could you read for us? Sure. Yeah, this is in the NIV. Therefore, my friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence,

Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose. We've got this passage that comes just after the Christ hymn. So he's kind of said this beautiful hymn about the humility of Christ and because Christ humbled himself, he was exalted. And then we have, so then, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

So what do we think that that means? How does someone work out their salvation with fear and trembling? Yeah, it's a really interesting one, isn't it? I thought there were two things that we could maybe tease out. One is work out your salvation, and the second is with fear and trembling. So I did look back at what the word work out actually is in the original, and it does have the Greek word for work within it. So, you know, whatever it is, it is a

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a labor of some kind. It's something that you literally do have to work at. And that kind of stands in tension with the idea that salvation is a gift, it's free, you don't have to earn it, it's something which is given to you. If somebody gives you a gift, I don't know, something technical like a motorbike, something like that, you have to work out how to use it. So you've got the gift, but you have to

work out how to make it work. Maybe there's something like that about it? I don't know, what do people think? I just think the life of faith, it's not really presented in the Bible as something that's easy. You know, we've seen for Paul that there's persecution involved in holding to the gospel, continuing to share the gospel. That isn't an easy life. And maybe it's just that sense that

When you say you believe in Jesus, when you make that kind of profession of faith, we don't really just coast on that then for the rest of our lives. We're meant to have kind of an active faith, not a passive faith. Maybe Paul is saying, you know, it's something that should be evident and that we should demonstrate day after day in that sense, like working out our faith day by day.

Yeah, I think that's right, actually. And I think that goes back to the first word in verse 12 in the NIV is, therefore, dear friends, work out your salvation. So this is relating back to the first part of Philippians 2, isn't it? So these are the implications of what I've just been saying about Jesus, about His death and resurrection and ascension. Because of all that, this is how you should live. So it's taking all those wonderful ideas about Jesus.

and is saying these are the implications for how you live together, because this is all about community, it's all about the church, it's all about how we live together. Yeah. And I think as we're working it out, to work it out with fear and trembling is really interesting too. I read something that said they think that he might have drawn it from, or the writer of Hebrews might have drawn it from Psalm 55. So in Psalm 55, it's the Mascul of David and in verse five, it says, fear and trembling overwhelm me.

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and I can't stop shaking, which is really interesting if he's drawn it from that passage. But the other thing I thought about was I actually thought about Soren Kierkegaard's book, The Philosopher. His book is called Fear and Trembling, and he took it from this passage. But if you read that book, it's really good, but he basically, he wanted to look into what Abraham must have felt when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac. And so when he's thinking about working out your salvation with fear and trembling, he's thinking,

that us being followers of Jesus is not an easy thing. When God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, that must have been something he had to do with fear and trembling. So I guess when I think about it, I think that if I'm living a Christian life where I just go to church and I enjoy worship and fellowship and all these things, but the Lord doesn't actually tell me to do anything ever.

or I don't listen or let him tell me to do anything ever that is really difficult or that's uncomfortable or challenging. And instead, it's just sort of this easy thing that that's not really the point. I've sort of missed the point of working out my salvation and that it does come with fear and trembling really. I was thinking of, I guess it's in the Proverbs or other places where it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, kind of in the evangelical Christian world that I'm kind of familiar with.

especially when we are sharing the gospel, I think the way we present Jesus and God, you know, God is love, and that's not wrong, that's correct, but we say, like, God is love, God loves you, Jesus is your friend, you know, we really kind of emphasize quite a cuddly image of God and Jesus. But at the same time, when you read the Bible, He is our judge as well.

He's completely loving, but he's also a God of justice. And when we realise that, when we sort of have that moment of remembering about God, maybe it should cause us to sort of tremble just a little bit and to appreciate even more kind of his mercy. Yeah, I'm sure that's what this means. We shouldn't take discipleship lightly. It goes back to the idea of working, doesn't it really? It's something that you...

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you do under somebody's eye and you want to, if you're working for a boss, you want to please your boss and you know that, you know, if you don't, then there might be consequences. And at the same time, we have to hold all of that intention with what it says in 1 John, you know, there's no fear in love. There's no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. And I think that's really important to hold that intention as well. That's what Paul says here, isn't it? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

So it's a serious thing that we're doing. But I think the second half of that verse is interesting too. In my translation, it says, to Will and to work for his good pleasure. Or Esther, yours was for his good purposes. Which I think is really interesting because I don't know that the Lord's good purposes are always, to be honest, my good purposes. I don't know that it's saying, he'll work things out for my good, but it specifically says for his good. Even just that is like an attitude and perspective.

shift isn't it because so often we do you know it well it's natural for us to think about our good and what we want. You know actually ask christians. Who is kind of there's a subtle shift in that this isn't really about what we want to. Is about god and glorifying god what please is god. I'm not will ultimately be good for us and a blessing for us but yeah i mean.

It's a different way of approaching life, isn't it? To worry more about God's good pleasure than what I think I want. Yeah, I basically just think it's a verse that kind of falls in line with the rest of what Philippians 2 has been saying about the fact that Christ humbled himself to death on a cross. That was for God's good pleasure in a way, the Father's good pleasure, but it was not for Jesus' good pleasure. And so I think in some ways we can relate that to us in saying that.

in me following the way of Jesus is not always going to be for my good pleasure, but for God's good pleasure, really. Do you think there's also just an emphasis on obedience in verse 12, that that is kind of like a key aspect of working out salvation? Because, you know, I think that's another thing that we don't like to think about, obedience.

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think we'd like to be a lot more autonomous, but I think it's definitely there in this passage, just like Jesus was obedient even to death on a cross. Are we willing to be obedient in a costly way? Yeah, I agree. I think it's there for sure. Should we move on and read the next few verses? We can read from verse 14 all the way through to 18. I'll go ahead and read that. Do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent.

Children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world holding fast the word of life so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain but even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith I rejoice and share my joy with you all you too I urge you rejoice in the same way and share your joy.

What do we think about the very first part of that? So do all things without grumbling or disputing, which seems like an impossible task. Yes. Yeah. I know from my own tendencies that actually keeping to this would require a huge amount of effort, more than I probably daily put in a lot of self -control, a lot of intentionality.

I do think this is a continuation though of that idea of working out our salvation, of sort of striving in a sense, you know, living for God. You know, it doesn't allow us to just do what we want to do. But also, reading my study Bible, this actually highlighted this as being kind of a cross -reference to Deuteronomy 32, because in verse 5 there, the wilderness generation of Israel,

they're described as a crooked and twisted generation. And it's presented as like their spiritual progress, I guess to like the promised land, is thwarted by their grumbling and disputing. You see that a lot, don't you, in the book of Exodus, how they're grumbling against God and Moses is kind of going to God like, these people, what do we do now? So maybe Paul's kind of suggesting.

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that the generation the Philippian believers find themselves in is kind of also warped and crooked. That's how it's put in the NIV. And rather than being like the Israelites, grumbling and arguing, they're not supposed to do that. And you've kind of got this bookend, haven't you, in this passage of it, or in, it talks about don't grumble and argue, and then right at the end, it talks about being glad and rejoicing, so be the complete opposite.

It just makes me think in a church context because this is all in a church context. And it just makes me wonder what people argue about and why people argue in churches. I've been in churches all my life and some churches can be pretty toxic and whatever the church leaders do is going to be wrong. And if it's the...

choice of music, for instance, on a Sunday or something the minister says in a sermon. I remember somebody in one of the churches I pastored complaining bitterly to me because, there was a flower rotor and somebody organized the flower rotor. And this person was absolutely furious because she'd been asked to provide the flowers during the winter when flowers were more expensive. But that was a real issue for her.

And it just made me wonder what was going on. And it's as though sometimes, you know, sometimes in churches, there's something going on under the surface and that people, it might be something that's going on in people's personal life or it's general dissatisfaction or something like that. But the church becomes the arena almost where all these issues are sort of worked out in public.

And I sometimes think that because churches are meant to be nice and supportive and forgiving and loving places, that's the place where really toxic people can, you know, they can almost flourish in their toxicity because, you know, they're always going to be forgiven. Am I being a bit sort of negative, cynical here? I don't know. Churches are lucky places most of the time, but sometimes they're not. I think people in churches are so, at least,

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churches I've been in are so hungry to see God move in their communities and in their churches, but not everyone has the same way of thinking about how that is going to happen. I think that is the thing that I've seen the most complaining and grumbling about, or why aren't we doing it this way? Why wouldn't they think to do it this way about leadership or that sort of a thing? I think that the antidote maybe to this in a lot of situations could be,

things that we know to do, but we just don't do the things that we know to do. So we know that being thankful is a brilliant way to come against complaining about things. Instead of thinking that things should be done this way or another, instead saying, I get to come to church and be in the presence of God, and I get to be with the people of God and glorify God. And kind of having that mindset about things instead of arguing and complaining about how things should be done.

But I do think it's a trap that we fall into quite easily, especially in church. And I think it comes out of a fervor that we have to see heaven come to earth, essentially. So how do you connect that then to what Paul says about shining, being lights in the world? The NIV says something like shining like stars in the sky. Like, I just, I have to admit, sometimes this sounds a little bit trite to me. And I think maybe that's,

I've seen too many inspirational internet memes that kind of appropriate this saying. Because often when you read it, like some of them are, they seem to be closer to what the Bible says about being lights in the world. But a lot of them are really just about self -love and self -promotion. They're sort of things that people post up when they actually feel that they're like that they're shining into the world is not being appreciated. And they're like, well, I'm going to keep on shining. Now, obviously that's not.

I'm not saying that that is how Paul is using this. Paul is not a trite person. So, but what does it mean then in practice?

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I think it's very counter -cultural to not complain about things, for example. You can't help but be different and be a light if people notice that you're the kind of person that just doesn't complain about the weather, for example, which is non -existent in England. But that someone that doesn't complain about the weather or doesn't complain about their commute to work or doesn't complain about other people at work or...

things at church or whatever. I think you will naturally be very strange because it is not common. It's much more common to complain and argue and be upset about things. So I think being a light, when you decide to be that way, it actually comes quite naturally because of the world that we live in. Just looking at it, he seems to, when he actually says that, it spans two verses. Then you'll shine among them.

So that's the warped and crooked generation, like stars in the sky. As you hold firmly to the word of life. So he seems to be connecting, like, how do you shine? Well, hold firm to the word of life. So what's that? I guess it's the gospel, the truth about God, the truth about Jesus. If we hold firm to that and let that shape our lives, we will be as distinctive, as you say, not by just not grumbling and complaining, but...

I guess our whole life is oriented in a different way.

One commentary I looked at suggested that shining like stars referred to navigation. So Philippi wasn't far from the sea and mariners would navigate by the stars. They had campuses lodestones that were not very effective, I think, but a lot of their navigation would have been by the stars. That is such an interesting thought.

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I suppose another place, like another passage in the Bible that kind of really relates to this, it just makes me think of Romans 12, like verses one and two where he says, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. And it says like, do not conform to the pattern of this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

and then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. So that really mirrors quite a lot actually in this passage, you know, Paul's words to the Philippians, because you've got that same idea of not being like the world or the warped and crooked generation, being transformed by the renewing of your mind, that's like holding firmly to the word of life. You've even got a connection with that bit about God's will as he works in.

a believer to bring about what is good and pleasing and perfect. He helps us to know what that is and then he helps us to live it out. So I guess, you know, and there's loads more actually in Romans 12, like practical ways that we can live out, I guess, shine, shine like lights in the world in practical ways.

That's a good point. That actually goes quite well with the next verse where Paul says, even if I'm being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. I feel like that's quite a tricky phrase to wrap your head around. I find myself having to read it again and again to try and understand it. If I'm being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, what do we think that?

Paul meant when he said this? Paul McClendon Well, the drink offering was literally that. They would pour out a cup of wine, say, on an altar as a sacrifice or in front of the statue of a particular deity, and that would be an act of worship. So that, I think, is clear enough in terms of the reference.

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I think where he goes on to talk about, so that I'll be able to boast, basically, it's in the verse before. He's like, then I'll be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. I think that helps me to maybe understand this bit about him pouring himself out like a drink offering and that mention of sacrifice and service because he's doing it as an act of worship to God, you know, that imagery of a sacrifice and worship. But

He's also doing it because he wants them to know Christ. And it's that idea of like, okay, yes, this is not easy, this life that I'm living and the effort that I'm pouring into you coming to know Christ. And I really hope you hold on to this because I don't want it to have all been in vain. But he's also like encouraging himself that it won't be in vain. One of my favorite verses of the Bible is in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 58.

And it taps into a really similar idea to this and it is encouraging the Corinthians. I mean, his writing to the Corinthians is full of a lot of like teaching and correction. Things that wouldn't be easy for them to obey, commit to, it would involve a lot of effort from them to put it into practice. It's that kind of working out their salvation kind of stuff. But at the end of the letter, he sort of reminds them what it's all about.

He talks about Jesus' death and resurrection, what it achieved for them, for us, victory over sin and death. And then he says, right, you know, in my favourite verse, therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm, let nothing move you, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. So I think it's an encouragement to himself and it's an encouragement to us that

anything we pour out, any sacrifices we make in the service of God and for others, it's not in vain. I find it really encouraging. Another perception of this is that it's about his forthcoming martyrdom. In 2 Timothy 4 .6, there's definitely that reference. He says the same thing about being poured out as a drink offering. And the context there is certainly, you know, he's looking forward to his martyrdom, basically. So that,

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think is probably the idea here as well.

And then he closes, well, at least this part, by urging them to rejoice, which is kind of the theme really of the whole book in a way, isn't it? To keep on rejoicing, even in the face of trials. And even in the face of martyrdom, actually. Rejoice in the face of martyrdom, which is an amazing idea, really. So then we've got this next section in verses 19 through 30, where Paul talks about two people, Timothy and Epaphroditus.

Timothy, he's basically saying he wants to be able to send to the Philippians to encourage them. And then we've got Epaphroditus, who the Philippians have sent to Paul to encourage him and build him up. And we read later in the letter that Epaphroditus has actually been sent to Paul with gifts and resources from what we understand. This is a bit interesting, though, because we'd learned that Epaphroditus becomes sick.

when he goes to Paul and apparently almost dies before the Lord heals him, which is really interesting. It is interesting. And what's interesting, particularly to me actually, is the sheer affection that Paul has for Epaphroditus. God had mercy on him, not only on him only, but also on me to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. So he's just imagining the grief that he would have felt if Epaphroditus had died.

welcome him in the Lord with great joy and honor men like him because he almost died for the work of Christ. Now, that I think is really interesting because of Epaphroditus' name. And if you think of his name, you might think that it is rather like the name of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, Epaphroditus Aphrodite, who was the goddess of love. And

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Epaphroditus was a name which was very commonly given to slaves. And it is not apparently unlikely that Epaphroditus was perhaps actually a slave or maybe a freed man, somebody who had been a slave, but who might have been, you know, he might have been able to buy his freedom or otherwise released by his master.

And the name actually meant something like charming or something like that. But it's certainly given to a boy, given to a man, it certainly had sexual overtones as well in the context of the institution of slavery, where a slave could be used sexually by his or her master and very frequently was. So really, I think the interesting thing is here about

how none of that matters to Paul. You know, you think of that sort of rigid hierarchy, the class structure that they had in those days, and you think of where Epaphroditus might have come from, and none of that matters to Paul. He's really, really fond of him. He says we should treat men like him with honor. It's this flat structure in terms of the hierarchy because

everybody is one in Jesus Christ. And I think that's an amazing thought, really. I guess it's another embodiment as well of that attitude that Paul has already kind of demonstrated in his own mind, in himself, to the Philippians of like to live is Christ, to die is gain. Because what he says right at the end there about Epaphroditus is, you know, so honor people like him because he almost died for the work of Christ.

He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give. So it's like another way of saying, look, this was what was most important to him. And he did it even though, you know, it almost cost him his life.

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of years ago, well more than a couple of years ago, my husband and I, we were sort of preparing to go on a mission trip. So we were looking to potentially become like long -term missionaries in a foreign country. And the whole idea of that is you go, you completely immerse yourself in a different culture, you learn their language, you live exactly like the people there. And the whole point is,

to be able to share the gospel. Like lots of these teams, they might go on, if there's not a Bible translation in that language, they might become part of a translation team or help to start that work of translating scripture for kind of like what was described as an unreached people group. Part of the preparation for us as we were thinking about doing this, which would have been a hugely costly.

thing, a completely different way of life to what I'm actually living now. We were sort of given these, they were called the Live Dead Journal, and it was trying to help you get into that idea of like, okay, if you completely, if you make your entire life about sharing the gospel and you're willing to almost live as though, yeah, I could die at any moment, this might not go well.

but I'm going to kind of live dead in the service of the gospel, in the service of reaching these people.

looking at this passage, to me, it's really interesting how the way he talks about Timothy and the paphriditis kind of illustrates what he's been talking about earlier on, because this is all addressed to the church. He wants them to be loving. He wants them to be kind to each other and to reflect in the life of the community everything that Jesus has lived and everything that Jesus has taught. And

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It's really interesting the way that he talks about Timothy and Epaphroditus because he praises Timothy for the way that he behaves. Everyone looks out for his own interest, not those of Jesus Christ, but Timothy has proved himself and so on, served with me in the work of the gospel as a son with his father. So Timothy kind of embodies the virtues that Paul is saying that all of the Philippians have. And the thing about Epaphroditus as well is that

that kind of relationship, that kind of loving relationship in communities is sometimes really costly because, you know, Epaphroditus was ill, he almost died. Paul really can't bear the thought of losing somebody who has become really, really dear to him. And I think that when we are really heart and soul committed to the people in a congregation, and we're part of that fellowship of believers, you know, it really hurts when, when

something bad happens to somebody else. We feel it as though it's happening to us. And it's a kind of costly discipleship just being in a community of believers like that. But Paul seems to say, well, that's what you're called to. That's how you should behave. This is what it's all about. Yeah, I think that's really good. And I do think that's what Paul is showing them here, those two examples. And that's where we're going to end today.

And next week, we'll be back to talk about chapter three. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a rating or a review. We'd really appreciate it. And we will have another Q &A episode at the end of this series. So if you'd like to leave a question, you can leave it for us at biblesociety .org .uk forward slash rooted questions. And we'll answer as many of those as we can in our last episode. So thank you, Mark. Thank you, Esther. And we will see you guys next week.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rooted Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales and around the world, visit biblesociety .org .uk.