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Does My Practice Match My Proclamation?


27 Only let your manner of life be worthy[h] of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent
Philippians 1:27a

The story is told about a preacher who was catching a bus one day to go into the city, as he came on the bus he paid the bus conductor 10 Rs., the rate however only being 7 Rs.  The conductor gave the Priest 4 Rs change, and the Priest made his way to his seat.  Once seated the minister noticed the 1 Rupee error in his favor, for a moment he sat thinking about the situation, finally he got up and approached the bus conductor stating that he was given too much change.  The conductor said, "I knew I gave you too much, I was in your church last week and heard you preach on honesty, and I just wanted to see if you practice what you preach!"

John Bunyan once said, "A man could be a saint abroad and a devil at home."

Paul begins verse 27 with the word "only." The word "only" appears 333 times in the English Standard Version of the Bible. It is often used in a very emphatic way, as it is used, here, in verse 27. For instance: It is used by God in Genesis 6:5 to describe the continuous evil of man’s heart.
It is used by God in Joshua 1:7 to command Joshua to live a valiant and courageous life as he led God’s people.
It is used by God in Job 1:12 and 2:6 to emphasize to Satan the permitted limits of his assault on Job.
It is used by David in Psalm 51:4 to express the depth of the knowledge of his sin against God.
It is used by Jesus in Matthew 19:17 to correct a rich, young ruler’s misunderstanding of the true nature of goodness.
It is used by Jesus in John 17:3 in His high, priestly prayer to emphatically affirm there is only one God and He and God are one.
And, in the magnificent revelation received by John in Revelation 21:27, the word is used to emphatically declare that only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will enter Heaven.

Paul couldn’t make himself clearer to the Philippians. And he wrote to them in a language they would understand. The most essential thing a Christian must do, this side of Heaven, is to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Only this matters as a practical outworking of their justification, which, by design, fuels every aspect of their sanctification.

The word manner or conduct as in some translations, the literal translation of that word means your political affiliation. Now don't think of politics in the modern terms. The Greek word is polituo. And polituo is the word by which we get our word political or politics or policy or police.

They all come from this word because polituo was all about the polis in ancient times. A polis is a city or, more accurately, a city state, a free state. It's the citizens that belong to a city state and they conduct themselves in a manner that represents the best of that state.

So the idea carries. The word carries the idea of being a good citizen, honoring the political affiliation or the city-state that you're a part of. And what are we a part of?

In chapter 3 we see Paul saying that our citizenship is in heaven. So the idea is let's conduct ourselves so that we are offering the very best of the Kingdom of God. Wherever we travel, we represent our nation whether we like it or not.

The word worthy means to balance the scales or to weigh as much. That is the weight on one side of the scales equals the weight on the other side of the scales.

We use the word in that way. We will say that person is worthy of his pay. What we mean is the money We are giving that person corresponds or weighs as much as the output of the work that he or she produces. If we say he/she is worthy of this honor, we are saying the accolades we give him/her weigh as much or correspond to the productivity or the achievement that she has produced.

So when Paul writes, let your manner be worthy of the gospel, that's his way of saying that your practice must match your proclamation. If it's like a set of scales and on one side you say, well, this is what I believe, that's your proclamation. Your practice, what you do, needs to match up, needs to weigh as much.

And, by the way, John the Baptist used this word like that. He said, bear fruits worthy of repentance. If you say you have a repentant life, let's see it in what that life will produce.

So what Paul is doing here is calling us to a Christian life of practice. If you're called Christian, then live up to the name. A Christian must never live beneath his theology. A Christian must never live beneath his belief.

Dear Friends, I wonder; would we always pass the tests of being a Christian?  The world is watching, the neighbor is watching, your family is watching, the Lord is watching, The greatest good and the greatest evil to the Gospel is not so much what we say, rarely is that wrong, but it is what we do with what we say! God calls us to be different from the world.  The world speaks lofty words of peace, but they contradict the words they speak by their actions; we must however for the Gospel's sake practice what we preach!

God Bless you.
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Location: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

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