The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-03-27
THE EPTSTLE TO PHlLlPPI
ITS PERSONAL ASPECTS POINTED
eUT BY DIR. LYMAN ABBOTT.
st. PauI's Theology Summed Up I'm His
Parting Words to His Friends-Life
as q Battle and a Race.
Brooklyn Ea gle.


The Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott delivered in
Plymouth Church Sunday evening another
of his series of lectures on 1.-THE Life and
Writings of ST. Paul." DR.. Abbott said:
Paul, you will remember, had been
mobbed in Jerusalem, and arrested because
he was mobbed, and then was brought be-
fore the judge and, finding little hope of
justice, had taken an appeal, as a Roman
citizen had right to do, to Caesar. and he
had been put on board government vessel
for Rome. He had taken long and dan
gerous passage-dangerous in the winter
season, and proving itself especially dan
gerous in his case. The shipwreck is mar
rated in detail in the book of Acts, and
from it the rescue of all on board can hard
iy be called less than miraculous. He had
come up to Rome prisoner in bonds. He
had appealed to Caesar, and he depended on
the appeal. 1t was not simply the question
of his own personal liberty; he stood for re-
ligious freedom.
up to this time, and up to a time little
beyond this, religious freedom had been rec
ognized in imperial Rome. The various re-
ligions of the various provinces had been
suffered to live; at all events, no govern
mental repression or persecution had existed
against any of them; and Paul stood for
this right to preach the religion which he
himself professed.
LAS yet the prosecuting days had not
come But the case dragged, as cases will
even in our time. For two years he re-
manned in Rome a prisoner, though with
liberties. Part Of the time he appears TO
have been chained to a soldier to prevent
his escape; part of the time liberty appears
to have been granted him. He went, as it
were, on parole and lived in his own hired
house, and men came to him and he in
structed them in the principles of the gospel
of Christ
THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY.
ut was at this time that he wrote the
Epistles to the Philippians. 1t is of all the
epistles the least treatise, except that very
short letter, which is hardly more than
note, called the letter to Philemon 1t con-
tains no distinct theological doctrine, though
it is prophetic, as everything which Paul
wrote prophetic, with a deep religious
spirit formulated in theological statements.
The Philippians had sent him what l may
call a missionary box token of their
affection and a provision for his supposed
needs. In his letter he tells them that ne
was not in reed, but that he is none the less
grateful for their remembrance of him. His
letter is letter of personal thanks to them
for this remembrance of him.
"All the critics unite in recognizing it as
the least theological and the most personal.
In it, more than in any other of his epistles,
we see the heart of Paul. his inmost life.
Says Lightfoot, 1t is the noblest reflection
CT Pauls personal character and spiritual
illumination, his large SympathieS, his WOm-
anly tenderness. his delicate courtesy To
the same effect is Sabatier: These pages
were written from a single inspiration. We
may add that they do not so much exhibit
the apostles theological creed as the feel
ings of his heart and the maturity of his re-
ligious life. There is here a wealth of
Christian experience, a fullDeSS of faith,
strength and deicacy of affection which re-
mind us of the finest chapters in the second
letter to the Corinthians. There is the same
overlooking inner life; only prolonged medi-
tationS have deepened, Gained and ma
tured it,
Equally explicit. and not less ELOQUENT,
is the witness Of our own great American
scholar DR.. McGiffert, of Union Theologi-
cal Seminary: The whole epistle, in fact
with its warm expression of affection, with
it's hearty recognition of the devotion of
the Philippians and with its unaffected
gratitude for their liberality, combined
admonitions, furnishes one of the most
charming illustrations have of the
apostles personal character, and of the
closeness of the ties which bound him and
his coevals together
ut is. then, of a personal letter-one
might almost say personal love letter
/ am to speak to you tonight. 1t is not
easy to phrase such a letter in words other
than those in which the writer himself has
phraSed 1T. You cannot reformulate II, as
you can reformulate his theology, in mod
ern and different language. We must try
to see what his life has been, what his
present circumstances are, and then turn
to the epistle itself and read in his own
words some of these utterances which eX-
press to us his hearts inner life
1T is twenty-eight or thirty years since
full of hardship and full of disappointment.
When he was first converted, with the en-
thusasm of young convert, he thought
he had but to expound his faith and the
Pharisees. of whom he was one, would ac-
cept it. He argued with the Lord that
Jerusalem was the place for his ministry,
because the Pharisees knew him and under
stood his prejudices and would listen to his
message. And hard as his experience and
bitter as his disappointment was, he never
seems to have gotten over this sanguine
faith in man. Whenever he went into a new
city he always went into the synagogue
first, always preached his sermon to the
Jews first, always seems to have expected
that they would hear him. and always
seems to have suffered new disappoint-
ment when they refused and turned him
out One cannot but admire this hopeful
ness, this faith in man, that nothing can
discourage nothing can overthrow. But he
has been disappointed again and again
A NEW DISAPPOINTMENT.
1.-THE twenty-eight or thirty years have
passed by, and Israel whom he loves, Israel
whom he so loves that he says, I could al
most be willing to be accursed from Christ
myself if / could only bring them to know
Him and to love Him. Israel still rejects
the Christ and will none of Him. But it is
not only in the old church which he has left
that he is disappointed, in the new which
he has entered he is disappointed also.
From the very first he is looked upon with
suspicion. When he came back to JeruSa-
lem they did not recognize him; they knew
him only as one who had prosecuted them,
and thought that he was pretending to
Pharisees that he might get into their con-
venticleS and assemblies and the better car
ry on his persecution. He had little to do
with them He knew none of them. he says,
looked at him aSkance. If he withstood
Peter to his face, Peter withStood him to
his face also-and Peter was not an antag-
oniSt. James was doubtful about the min
istry of Paul. and counseled him to take
different course, counsel to which in one
unwise moment he yielded, bringing disas-
ter into his life. This faction in the Chris
tian church which looked on him with sus-
picion never ceased while Paul lived nor for
many years after. Wherever he went he
was followed by JudaiZing Christians, who
could not understand his gospel and who
vigorously antagonized it. 1t is not easy to
stand in Christian pulpit and preach
Christian gospel and believe that you are
interpreting the Christ, and then have men,
brethren of your own in the church, think
that you undermining faith and de-
stroying it, and set themselves in antago-
nism to you and misunderstood and misre-
port and misrepresent you This was Pauls
experience at time when the opportunities
for correcting misrepresentation. answering
mis- ationS setting 0np'S self riphf