Phil 1:15, 17
Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry,…The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.
The gospel is synonymous to the Church or the Christian life and truly so because it is good news about Christ. Christ is the person of the gospel, thus everything about it gladdens the heart and rejoices the soul. A Christian therefore must represent Christ and the gospel well. For this reason Paul declared, “For me to live is Christ” and also, “Let your conversation be worthy of the gospel…”, as witnesses of Christ and the gospel.
Although Paul wrote here of people who preached the gospel out of envy, rivalry, selfish ambition and insincerely, yet we must understand in a broader context how not to live the Christian life as witnesses of Christ.
As followers of Christ we must avoid these attitudes and actions if we want to live worthy of the gospel:
- Envy- in the first four appearances of the word envy (ESV) in the New Testament, three times, envy is directly connected to murder. Why are we not surprised at that? The second recorded sin of man was a result of envy, that led to murder! So, envy can lead to murder or could have a motive of murder. It is a very grievous thing. Envy seeks to be the one in the place of the other. Therefore it seeks to displace by whatever means the object of envy. Envy is actually murder in the heart. It is hate, it is ungodly.
- Rivalry- strife is the bridge between envy and murder; before murder goes strife. Six out of 10 times strife appears in the NT, it goes with envy. And we have seen that envy goes also with strife, it is clear strife is action that brings about murder. Strife or contention in some other version focusses on something to gain; an advantage to be gained. The first time it was between the herdsmen of Lot and those of Abram. Then it was for pasture land that they strove, one sought to get the advantage over the other. Today, strife is for popularity, money, persons etc. What was the focus of these brothers who preached out of strife? Maybe recognition, popularity, God knows. Perhaps they didn’t want people mentioning Paul’s name, so they jumped into the arena of preaching. Are there things believers engage in because they want to have an edge over another person and not because they really love Christ? Are there ministries that are very loud today that are founded on rivalry? God knows. What were the signs that these brothers preached out of strife? They will definitely seek to ‘kill’ the other voices around them. Since strife gives birth to murder or death, theirs is to ensure that others are silenced. They do not promote others but they destroy them. This is the spirit of strife.
- Selfish ambition- As the word goes, selfish ambition is the pursuit of all that is beneficial to oneself alone. It is the daughter of pride. It is a focus on self alone. Therefore the Bible admonishes us to do nothing out of selfish ambition because when it combines with jealousy it gives birth to all kinds of evil and confusion. A person under the control of selfish ambition is like a rabid dog, it does not listen to anything else but itself. It is deaf to reasoning and blind to reality other than its own.
- Insincerity- this is connected or better understood by words like hypocrisy and deceitfulness. People who are insincere are people with wrong motives. They always have something hidden from the common view. They cannot be trusted because they never come out clean about anything. They are therefore liars. Falsehood describes them.
Having described the 4 characteristics of these erroneous brothers, we see that although God may sovereignly use their works to advance the gospel, yet they themselves are in grave danger of God’s judgment. They are living contrary to the life of Christ and therefore are enemies of Christ.