Philippians, Word Nerdery 9.21.2023

     Philippians is not a very large book. It consists of four tightly argued chapters that focus on developing a few distinct themes. Detecting those themes and distilling them is, of course, what preaching is all about. Philippians then, is a good book for not only applying our skills in exegesis but also in refining them. Some of the preaching units are small enough that we can deploy our entire toolbox without breaking our “time bank” for the week. Yet, these small pericopes are often pregnant with detailed theology and, Paul being Paul, his syntax and discourse still require disciplined thinking to move the argument(s) across the hermeneutical divide from then to now. 

    One persistent Pauline challenge found in Philippians is his winding, verbless syntax. There are times when Paul seems to challenge himself to say as much as possible with the fewest number of concrete verbs. One is tempted to speculate as to why. I think he is trying to capture the vibrancy of the spoken word and that some of his participles would sound like concrete verbs in an auditory context. That is, however, not what we confront in reading the New Testament as Christian Scripture. All available context comes to us through what he wrote. And what he wrote does not convey tone, gesture, emphasis, or other non-verbal clues. We have what we have. 

    That means in preaching a text we will often need to turn single sentences into multiple sentences, smaller and more in keeping with normal English usage. I’m preaching Philippians 1.27-30 this week. In a very real sense this entire pericope is one, large sprawling sentence. If you were to write this in English, you would use much smaller sentences. For example, consider verse twenty-seven.

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel,” (Philippians 1:27 ESV)

The ESV does a reasonable job of rendering this verse into English, but we would hardly call it colloquial English—or Norma Loquendi, which from the Latin essentially means, “normal usage.” As is typical of English translations some of Paul’s participles are turned into subordinate clauses—which is all right because that is how they function—yet we still wouldn’t normally talk like this. It could be rendered as follows. 

Your lives should be conducted like citizens of the gospel. That way your reputation for unity and collaboration for the gospel will be known. Whether I see you or not. 

You could contend that the above is more of a paraphrase than a “translation”, and you would be partly right. The issue is that rendering one language into another is always problematic, especially when the author of the translated language was ignorant of the “receptor” language. 

    Granted, there was a time when English syntax was much more sophisticated and modeled on the classical usage of Greek and Latin. Here is the same verse in the King James version.

“Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;” (Philippians 1:27 KJV)

The similarities between the KJV and ESV should be obvious. Yes, the vocabulary has changed but the difficulties of syntax are solved in the same fashion; commas delimiting subordinate clauses. Which is well and good in a formal translation, I’m just not sure that’s how it sounded when read aloud to a congregation. What takes four commas in the ESV, and three commas and a colon in the KJV can be accomplished in understandable English by biting the bullet and turning the whole thing into three compact English sentences. 

     A lot of the gibberish regarding formal equivalency and dynamic equivalency in translation is predicated on the notion that colloquial English and colloquial Hellenistic Greek share more commonalities than is actually the case. To do in English, what Paul did in Philippians 1.27 would be described as either bad English, or to put the best face on it “awkward.” I’ve gotten a lot of work back from professors (and editors) over the years asking me to rewrite sentences that look a lot like Philippians 1.27.

    So how does this relate to preaching? Well, I’m going to read the text from the ESV this Sunday, just like I always do. The structure of the sermon, however, is informed by the Greek text. My job as the preacher is to make things a little simpler than they appear. (By the way, the preceding three sentences began as one long sentence, which I edited into its present form.)  In this case, I must translate and simplify Paul’s structure as a central hermeneutic activity. We must step out from among the tangled trees of Paul’s syntax to comprehend the broader architecture of the forest. If we don’t reduce Paul’s structure to a manageable outline, we risk making the sermon unduly complicated, throwing the responsibility for clarity upon our listener. That’s our job, not theirs. My sermon outline is derived and distilled from the text, but it intentionally answers the questions: 1) Can I make this clearer in English? 2) Can I make the Sermon itself easy to follow? 

    Why discuss this now? Because it’s easier to do for three verses from Philippians than it might be in a narrative context that requires exegeting fifteen or twenty. Doing it when it’s doable provides practice for when the length of the text constricts the time that we might have to work on it. One caveat however, the narratives in the NT, despite their length and other generic qualities, don’t typically have these specifically Pauline issues. Practice is about repetition. Every rep helps. Some kinds of practice are better than other kinds. 

  What did my sermon outline look like? The major points came down to one essential word. Many of the sub-points also came down to one key term. Now, in filling out the manuscript there is much more elaboration, summation, clarification, and argument. All that work that I gather in my planning tool under the heading “from exegesis to sermon” comes after the hermeneutical heavy lifting. Good exegesis is liberating because when we have a clear understanding of the text, we are better able to connect the dots for the congregation, clarify the obscure, and highlight the principal message of our text. That is what sermons are for. To make the Bible come alive. First in the preacher, then in the congregation.