The apostles Paul and Silas were the first to preach the message of Christ in Europe. We’re all familiar with what happened when they arrived in Philippi. Soon after, Paul cast a spirit out of a fortune teller. The result was he and Silas were hauled up before a magistrate, their backs were beaten with rods, and they were securely imprisoned, their feet fastened in stocks.
But midnight found the two praying and praising in turn at midnight. God caused an earthquake that set them and the other prisoners free. Long story short, the jailor and his entire household were saved and baptized in water. He took them into his home, washed Paul and Silas’ wounds, fed them, and the sun rose on a day that was completely different.
I love Paul’s epistle to the church at Philippi and its four short but precious chapters. Philippi was the first church planted in Europe. But let’s skip ahead to when Paul again visited Philippi and “had no rest in his spirit” while waiting for news about the church at Corinth. Paul had pioneered the church at Corinth, and had seen it grow from a handful of people to a large one. “I have many people in this city”, Jesus had said, and it had grown quickly.
The apostle had planned to revisit Corinth, believing that God would bless the church a second time, but it hadn’t worked out, so Paul sent Titus ahead to see if his strong letter to them had changed some problem issues.
Paul hoped to meet up with Titus in Troas (Troy), but his spiritual son had failed to arrive. During Paul’s first visit to the city was due to a memorable vision of a man from Macedonian calling him to come. Quite possibly he now wished for a vision of Titus in the church at Corinth, saying: “It’s all good Paul, come now to Corinth!” That didn’t happen, so Paul took ship and on landing on the continent retraced his earlier steps to Philippi.
While waiting there he would have seen again the river where he and Silas first met Lydia. He would have taught in the church, and enjoyed a reunion with its members, which included the jailor and his household. But still no Titus…
What’s your ‘Philippi’? By which I mean the breakthrough place in your ministry that took place as a result of God’s intervention (and probably the pain it cost you.) Paul’s first visit to Philippi had been dramatic but his second was becoming a worried wait. A first visit to a mission field can be a memorable experience, with deliverance, salvations, healings, maybe God’s intervention, households saved, and fellowship established. But the second visit will likely not be the same. Things change.
In 1990 Lorraine and I stopped over at a large mission in Manila, and during three sessions over two days the Lord baptized 43 of its staff in the Holy Spirit. The following day we flew out to Germany. Six weeks later we returned to Manila and again stayed at the mission. But we had returned earlier than planned, so nothing had been arranged for us in the days prior to our flying out to Brisbane.
Time dragged as we waited, and the outpouring that had taken place weeks earlier made the wait worse. A past dramatic event can mean little when nothing is happening in the present. It’s the same when mothers pray while waiting for wayward teens to come home, or when fathers are fretting over their faltering firms, or when a young couple wishes their bank would speed the approval of their home-loan application.
But things can change suddenly, and when they do there is cause for rejoicing, for hugs of relief, and expressions of praise and thanksgiving to God! That’s how it was for Paul when Titus finally arrived bringing good news from Corinth. In 2 Corinthians 2:12 we read: “Now thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ, and makes known the fragrance of His knowledge by us in every place. For unto some we are a fragrance of life; and to others a fragrance of death.”
Paul’s burst of praise, his doxology, reminds us of his first visit to Philippi: the fragrance of life to the jailor that brought salvation to his household, and the smell of death to the prisoners, who were set free for a time — physically but sadly not spiritually. That first visit and this second one were different, but God was the same!
No wonder Paul had a special relationship with the church at Philippi. No wonder it was the only church that supported his ministry through thick and (mostly) thin times. No wonder Paul writes so touchingly of “the mind of Christ” (2:5-8); of counting “everything but loss” to “gain Christ” and to be “found in him” (3:7-9); of being “anxious for nothing” (4:6); of being able to do “all things through Christ’s strength” (4:13); and of God supplying “all (the church’s) needs, according to His riches in glory, by Christ Jesus” (4:19).
They say “Good things come to those that wait” and this is especially so to those who while waiting surround themselves with good memories. We can’t live in the past, but we can enjoy a nice visit.