Imagine you’re on death row, awaiting
execution for a crime you didn’t commit. You have no family, your friends seem
to have deserted you, and the impact of your life seems questionable. Would you
be content?
This was the Apostle Paul’s situation.
Chained to a Roman soldier, he was a despised enemy of the state. The
next event on his timeline, as far as he knew, was execution. His life’s work
has been preaching the gospel and starting churches, but it all seems to be
crumbling around him. F.B. Meyer described him: “Deprived of every comfort and
cast as a lonely man on the shores of the great strange metropolis with every
movement of his hand clanking a fetter and nothing before him but the lion’s
mouth or the sword.”
But he said he was content. One of
his church plants, the church at Philippi, discovered he was in Rome in prison,
and sent an emissary (Epaphroditus) along with a financial gift. So Paul
said, I rejoiced greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity" (Philippians 4:10).
At length you have revived your
concern. It had been over ten years since Paul started the church in Philippi,
and they had apparently lost touch with him. He had moved on from Philippi to
Thessalonica, and the Philippian congregation had helped him there. But after
that, nothing. Ten long years. And now he’s in prison, and they’ve contacted
him again.
How would you
respond to them? Would you be tempted to say, “Finally! I thought you guys forgot
about me. It’s only been ten years
since you helped me. I’m probably going to die, but thanks for finally noticing!”?
Paul had learned contentment in every circumstance, he said (v. 11). He rejoiced greatly, he said. And he was so gracious: You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.
Paul isn’t mad,
he isn’t full of resentment. He’s content. And we get a clue about why from his wording: you had no opportunity. The Greek verb is built on the word “time.”
But there are two kinds of “time” in New Testament Greek. Chronos is the measurement of time – seconds, minutes, hours. But kairos is the strategic moment, the
opportune time. That's the word he uses. Paul says they had no “opportune time” to support him. The “strategic
moment” hadn’t come until then.
Do you see his
point? Who directs the strategic moment? Almighty
God! Paul trusted that the details
of his life, the ups and downs, the good, the bad, and the ugly, were in the
hands of a God who is often mysterious, but is always good and wise and holy,
who rules over time and eternity and controls even the slightest details of our
lives.
Maybe, on a human
level, the Philippian church had neglected him. But he knew that God had
not, that help and encouragement would arrive in the strategic moment that the Lord had ordained. Just at the right time. That's why he was content.
For next time: Contentment and Christ
