One mind, one love
1So if there is any encouragement in the Christ, any comfort from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, one in soul, set on the one thing. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride; rather, in humility count one another above yourselves. 4Let none of you look only to your own interests, but each of you also to the interests of others. 5Let this be the mind among you that was also in the Christ Jesus:
The hymn: he emptied himself
6who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be seized, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, born in the likeness of human beings. And being found in appearance as a man, 8he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. 9Therefore God has raised him higher than all and granted him the name above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Lights in the world
12So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed — not only when I was present, but now much more in my absence — work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work among you, both to will and to work, for the sake of his good pleasure. 14Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world, 16holding out the word of life. Then on the day of the Christ I will have reason to boast that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17And even if I am being poured out as a drink offering over the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and I rejoice with all of you. 18In the same way you also should rejoice, and rejoice with me.
Timothy and Epaphroditus
19I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. 20I have no one else of like soul who will care so genuinely for what concerns you. 21They are all looking after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22But you know Timothy’s proven worth: like a child with a father, he has served with me for the gospel. 23So I hope to send him as soon as I see how things go with me; 24and I trust in the Lord that I myself will come soon as well. 25Still, I thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus — my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger, the one who ministered to my need — 26since he has been longing for all of you and was distressed because you heard that he had fallen ill. 27And ill he was, close to death; but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but on me too, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. 28That is why I am all the more eager to send him: so that seeing him again you may rejoice, and I may be less sorrowful. 29Welcome him in the Lord, then, with all joy, and hold such people in honor; 30for it was on account of the work of the Christ that he came near to death, risking his life to make up for what was lacking in your service to me.
