Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Philippians 1:27-30, Live as citizens, contend like athletes
Paul tells a church in a Roman colony to conduct itself as citizens worthy of the gospel, standing firm and striving together, unafraid of opponents, in the same struggle they once saw him face.
Philippians 1:27-30, in every translation this tool compares.
Paul tells a church in a Roman colony to live as citizens whose conduct fits the gospel. Whether he visits or only hears news, he wants to know they are standing together, working side by side for the faith and unshaken by opponents. Suffering for Christ is part of what God has given them, and it is the same struggle they once watched Paul go through.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/roman-citizenship\/","n":"Roman citizenship","s":"In the eastern provinces few people outside the colonies were citizens of Rome. A citizen could not be beaten or chained without trial, could appeal to Caesar, and outranked almost everyone around him.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/athletes-and-games\/","n":"The games and the victor's wreath","s":"Greek cities held great athletic festivals, and Corinth hosted the Isthmian Games every two years, second only to the Olympics. Athletes trained for months under oath for a wreath of leaves that soon withered.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/soldiers-and-armor\/","n":"Roman soldiers and their gear","s":"The legionary was the most familiar picture of armed strength in the provinces: helmet, breastplate, boots, a big shield and a short sword, fighting shoulder to shoulder. Legions that held their ranks were thought almost unbeatable.","r":""}
Conduct yourselves, politeuesthe, was citizens' language (Keener and his notes). Philippi was a Roman colony on the Egnatian Way, which ran along the north side of its forum, and it held the ius Italicum, "rights legally equivalent to those of Italian cities" (the cultural backgrounds article). Who settled it is read differently: the victors' veterans after the battle of 42 BC (Wright; Wright and Bird; the ESV Study Bible), the defeated armies (the CSB Study Bible), or, after Actium, Antony's partisans unwanted in Italy (the Zondervan dictionary). How Roman it was is also read differently: Wright pictures a resented Latin-speaking elite over a Greek town, and the Zondervan dictionary calls the city "still more Greek in culture than Roman". Wright and Bird note a cohort of praetorians there and the cult of the deified Augustus. Striving together and struggle are athletic words, as of one team (Keener and his notes; Wright). Their opponents' destruction and their own salvation echo the hope that God would destroy his people's oppressors (Isaiah 66:14-16; Keener and his notes); Carson, Moo and Morris see these opponents as outsiders, unlike the rivals of 1:15.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Philippians 1:27 and 1:28
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Philippians 1:30
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Philippi in the Time of Paul
- ESV Study Bible, Introduction to Philippians, The Ancient City of Philippi, and study note on Philippians 1:27
- CSB Study Bible, Introduction to Philippians, Background, and note on Philippians 1:27-28
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 19, Philippians, Contextual and Critical Matters
- N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, comment on Philippians 1:27-30 and 3:17-4:1
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries Philippi and Philippians, Letter to the
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 12, Philippians, Paul's Opponents
