If
you hear that a former pastor is in prison, you get concerned. What
happened? Did he do something terrible? The Philippians had heard
that Paul was in prison, so Paul reassured them that he was there
because of his mission to share the good news about Jesus.
And
to that Paul added an encouragement: the gospel was being preached
more
as a result of his being a prisoner for Christ! That was good
news, but there was a flipside: some of those preachers had some very
wrong, selfish motivations. For some reason they preached against
Paul even as they preached the gospel. Maybe envy drove them to try
to turn the spotlight onto themselves. That wasn’t honest or
Christlike at all.
But
how did Paul respond to that? “What does it matter?” he wrote.
Really?! Didn’t it bother him that some were preaching out of
selfish ambition? Apparently not. Why? Because Paul was head over
heels in love with Jesus and the good news of salvation. So if Christ
was being preached and the message rang true, hallelujah!
That
jaw-dropping truth is a challenge for us all. Do we love Jesus so
much that we can let other concerns drop? Even if we don’t like a
certain preacher, are we excited enough about the gospel to rejoice
that it is being shared anyway? That’s a tough one. But by grace
Paul achieved that mindset. We can too.