Philippians 2:3-4 (ESV)
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Years ago, Gale Sayers, a Hall of Fame player for the Chicago Bears, wrote a book I Am Third. In the book, Sayers tells of his Christian priorities in life. Jesus Christ is first. Others are second, and he is third. I think we’ve lost the real meaning of that book and the passage in Philippians.
Sure, you and I do our best to help others. We reach out to ministries to those in need. We give of our finances and our time. That’s good, and it is included in what Paul is saying in the text above. But, there might be more, a deeper concern for the good of the unlovable, even for those we fear.
Polycarp, a disciple of John the apostle, was arrested by Roman soldiers in 155 a.d. He was to be burned in the Roman arena at Smyrna (in present day Turkey). His response when he was approached by the soldiers was to offer them dinner. He must have heard what Jesus told us in Luke 2:31 which tells us to treat others the way we would like to be treated. Jesus doesn’t qualify the word “others.” It’s just others – all others. How do we serve those wishing to hurt us, though? God presents ways.
Maybe Polycarp was thinking of Philippians 2:4 when he thought to serve the hungry soldiers. They had the authority to take food if they wanted, but Polycarp saw the need in his enemy and supplied it before he was asked.
I guess offering dinner to those who were sent to arrest you and eventually kill you is the Christian thing to do, but I don’t have that heart. I wish I did, but I don’t have it yet.
At a talk she was giving in postwar Germany in 1947, Corrie Ten Boom was approached by a guard who had tortured her and her fellow inmates at Ravensbrück Prison Camp where she had seen her beloved sister, Betsie, die just a few years earlier. The guard had become a Christian and, while Jesus had forgiven him of his terrible sin, could Corrie? She did. She shook his hand and offered the forgiveness he asked for. It was difficult, but she did it.
When she did, she felt bitterness flow from her. Peace flooded over her, but that isn’t all there is to the story. The guard needed her forgiveness. Jesus had forgiven him, but now his need was for forgiveness from someone he had hurt. When Corrie reached out her hand to shake his, she was meeting the needs of another, a past enemy. He had become a Christian. Now he was seeking peace from her as well as the Lord.
Louie Zamperini had been in a similar camp on the other side of the world, a Japanese WWII POW camp. He had been beaten and tortured there, too. On a speaking tour in 1952, Zamperini had the chance to meet with the prison guards of Sugamo Prison where he had been held. He asked to speak to the guards who had treated him so cruelly. A Christian now, Zamperini wanted to tell the guards he had forgiven them and God would forgive them as well.
Zamperini’s story is different from Corrie’s in that the guards he spoke with were not seeking his forgiveness though he offered it freely. True it helped Louie deal with some things, but it also gave the guards something they needed, maybe they didn’t even know they needed, forgiveness. Zamperini had released them from the guilt they had for how they had treated him. Louie considered the needs of others over his own discomfort returning to Sugamo Prison.
When Polycarp offered dinner to his guards, when Corrie shook the hand of that former Nazi, when Zamperini offered grace to his captors, they were fulfilling a command of God. They were also fulfilling their needs. Grace and provision mean the most to someone when it is the hardest for us to give.
When we think of the people who have hurt us, people we fear, people who threaten our very existence, do we seek to fulfill their needs, to help or provice for them? When we don’t we are denying the words of both Paul and Jesus Himself.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 