Philippians is a letter written to thank the church at Philippi for sending financial aid to help Paul during his 1st imprisonment in Rome. It’s theme is often referred to as Joy, but it is a specific joy related to Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus is mentioned over 50 times in this “joy” letter and joy is mention 16 times in this 4 chapter book. Paul also addressed the sufficiency of Jesus because Gnosticism was starting to spread. Gnosticism – the belief that the material world is evil and Jesus was only a messenger/angel that brought “secret” knowledge to help us escape our body, which has trapped our souls. They believed that Jesus wasn’t human, He just appeared human. Paul wrote Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians to address Jesus as truly God and truly man and His sufficiency to save us. In this letter, Paul emphasizes the sufficiency of Christ and the joy that produces in us. In addition to dealing with the Gnostics, and the Philippian’s concern about Paul’s welfare, he also deals with a problem they have that plagues lots of churches today – disunity. Paul deals with this in every chapter. So, as we look at our small portion of text today, it really is straightforward, but there is a lot of meaning in it, especially as it relates to unity and harmony.