Paul’s Letter to the

PHILIPPIANS

Gordon D. Fee

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

© 1995 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fee, Gordon D.
Paul’s Letter to the Philippians / by Gordon D. Fee.
p. cm.—(The New International commentary on the New Testament)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-8028-2511-7 (alk. paper)
1. Bible. N. T. Philippians—Commentaries. I. Title. II. Series.
BS2705.3.G67 1995
227é.6077—dc20 95–17640 CIP

“Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.”

For Sven Soderlund
Colleague
and
Friend

CONTENTS

Editor’s Preface

Author’s Preface

Abbreviations

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

i. Philippians as a Letter

ii. The Occasion of Philippians

iii. The Question of Authenticity—Some Notes on 2:6–11

iv. Theological Contributions

ANALYSIS OF PHILIPPIANS

TEXT, EXPOSITION, AND NOTES

i. Introductory Matters (1:1–11)

ii. Paul’s “Affairs”—Reflections on Imprisonment (1:12–26)

iii. The Philippians’ “Affairs”—Exhortation to Steadfastness and Unity (1:17–2:18)

iv. What’s Next—Regarding Paul’s and Their “Affairs” (2:19–30)

v. Their “Affairs”—Again (3:1–4:3)

vi. Concluding Matters (4:4–23)

INDEXES

. Subjects

ii. Authors

iii. Scripture References

iv. Early Extrabiblical Literature

v. Greek Words

EDITOR’S PREFACE

Although the author of this commentary and editor of this series are the same person, it seemed fitting in this case to have an editor’s as well as an author’s preface. The reasons for this are three:

First, this is the first volume to appear in the NICNT under my editorship. It is also the second volume to appear under the new format and book design. Hopefully, this new design will make the series much more user friendly; it came about in fact as a response to the many complaints about the two larger volumes in this series (Morris on John and Fee on 1 Corinthians), that they will not lie open on the desk as one is trying to use them. Thus, I herewith offer my gratitude to the Eerdmans Publishing Company for undertaking the new design; in time all the former volumes will be brought into conformity.

Second, although coincidental, it has turned out that the second and third editors of the series have written the replacement volumes on Philemon and Philippians, which originally appeared in a single volume by J. J. Müller (1955). In the original series, the commentaries on Colossians (by F. F. Bruce) and Ephesians (by E. K. Simpson) also constituted a single volume. As the second editor of the series, Professor Bruce updated his Colossians commentary and wrote the replacement volumes on Ephesians and Philemon, which were then published together in one volume. That left the unusual situation of a set of commentaries having ...