PHIL 1:1 Paul and Timothy - When Paul first travelled to Philippi to preach the gospel, Timothy was with him. Since he is with Paul now in Rome, since he was well known to the Philippians, and since he is soon to visit the church at Philippi (2:19-22), Paul includes Timothy’s name, along with his own, as the originators of this letter, though it is clearly Paul who wrote it. This is itself significant. You will find that this is Paul’s pattern in all his writings (he includes other names like this in seven of his letters, even though this practice was virtually unparalleled in other letters written in that day), not only in his introductions but throughout the body of his epistles. He includes people. He builds people to people. He helps people to feel a part of what he is doing. He goes out of his way to advertize people to one another and credit people for what they have done. He is constantly holding up people and honoring them in front of others. In many ways, he was not only the greatest missionary of the apostolic church, he was also the glue that held the early church together. Throughout his ministry he worked hard to keep Christians and churches from division and conflict, without ever compromising the truth. He was the one primarily responsible for uniting Jew and Gentile in one universal church. He was the epitome of what he said in Ephesians 4:3ff. "diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace...building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ...the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love."

Lord, help me to care more about the body of Christ. Forgive me for how hard I work to promote my own stature and how thoughtless I am when it comes to promoting the stature of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Help me to build people together. Help me to become an instrument of love, not only building up individual believers, but building believer to believer. Help me to honor Your people for their service of Christ. Help me not to be so wrapped up in myself that I am only thinking about who is going to honor me.