Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, by Gordon D. Fee (Eerdmans, New International Commentary on the New Testament, 497 pp.; $36, hardcover)
The NIV Application Commentary: Philippians, by Frank Thielman (Zondervan, 256 pp.; $19.99, hardcover). Reviewed by Wendy Murray Zoba.
Two new commentaries on Philippians offer complementary approaches: one (Gordon Fee) primarily for readers who want extensive engagement with the Greek text and with current scholarship, the other (Frank Thielman) primarily for readers who want a reliable synthesis with a strong emphasis on application.
Fee, who serves as the general editor for the New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT), following F. F. Bruce and, before him, Ned Stonehouse, wrote this commentary to replace the 1955 NICNT study by J. J. Müller(which covered Philippians and Philemon in a single volume). While these two volumes may not introduce any earth-shattering disclosures, they offer a rigor (Fee) and freshness (Thielman) that can benefit students, teachers, and (especially) church leaders.
Fee “enters a plea” early on for grammar, which, he says, “counts for something.” A master of detail (Fee’s footnotes document the secondary literature chronologically), he goes to great lengths to present his exegetical conclusions and interpretations in light of the syntactical data: “This first paragraph is a single sentence in Greek, composed of an informational clause (v. 12), plus a compound result clause (vv. 13, 14), indicating the two ways the gospel has been advanced … “: so goes a typical bit of analysis. Anyone who has studied under Fee will be immediately reminded of his trademark “sentence flows.” At first glance these syntactical diagrams might not look like much more than schematic renderings of the text. But, take my word for it, they really do tell you something about Paul’s intentions and literary genius.
Fee doesn’t stop there, however; indeed, he examines each passage from every conceivable vantage point: grammatically, exegetically, text-critically, hermeneutically, and otherwise. He says in the editor’s preface that he is indebted to his friend and colleague at Regent College, Sven Soderlund, who edited this volume for him and who, he says, had “a keen eye for Feeisms” (“impossible sentences and various malaprops”). Those who know him and his scholarship could argue that this entire volume is, if you will, a “Feeism.” His signature is all over it—from the voluminous footnotes (where he also interacts with text-critical questions and sometimes throws in a personal anecdote) to the grammatical digressions, to his confident conclusions, to his pastoral exhortations: “Here surely is a word for all seasons, if we are to be effective bearers of the gospel in our day.”
Being an effective “gospel-bearer” is Fee’s driving passion. And he asserts it in this commentary the best way he knows: through intense, ruthless interaction with the biblical text in a manner that leaves most of the rest of us standing in the dust—which is why this volume belongs in the library of every serious student of the Bible. Fee used to say in our New Testament seminars, “You cannot know what a text means until you understand what it meant.” Here, as elsewhere in Fee’s work, he helps us “know what the text meant” by means of scholarship so thorough and airtight that the reader is left to wonder how he or she could ever have seen the text any other way.
The purpose of the NIV Application Commentary, as outlined in the introduction, is “to help … with the difficult but vital task of bringing an ancient message into a modern context”—an assignment that Thielman fulfills superbly. The volumes in this series, we are reminded, are “works of reference, not devotional literature.” But, I would argue, Thielman’s reference work also makes good devotional reading, precisely because it emphasizes the contemporary application of Paul’s letter.
Although Thielman’s approach is less technical than Fee’s, the two find plenty of common ground in their exegetical conclusions. For example, Thielman makes much of Paul’s unconventional use of his greeting to introduce the theological themes the apostle intends to address later in the epistle. (Is this guy a pastor, or what? He sees a sermon in every verse!) But Fee comes to the same conclusion: “Here is a marvelous example of Paul’s ‘turning into gospel’ everything he sets his hand to.” (Paul was, after all, a pastor.)
Following the format of other volumes in the series, Thielman first considers each unit of the text exegetically. After this initial phase of inquiry (labeled “Original Meaning”), the reader is quickly escorted to the next phase (“Bridging Contexts”), where the operating principles behind the text are highlighted. The final phase (“Contemporary Significance”) translates the original meaning and operating principles into real-life applications. For example, in his treatment of the oft-quoted Philippians 4:12 (“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation”), Thielman takes us from Paul’s meaning (“Paul does not consider physical deprivation an unmitigated disaster nor physical comfort a sign of success”) to the key principle (“When we experience difficult times we need the moderating presence of God”) to a specific application today (“The most powerful antidote to these deceptions [of wealth] is to give generously from our wealth to those who have need”). While some of the “applications” of a given text seem a bit of a stretch, overall this approach refreshes and challenges the reader, and would make helpful material for sermon-preparation or Bible study.
Both commentaries, in their respective strengths, reintroduce the reader to Paul in a way that shows him to be not only a master of the epistolary genre but, even more, a loving and sacrificing pastor. At a time when many pastors are deeply in need of inspiration and encouragement, these volumes and others like them would be a good investment for congregations, even if it means adding a line to the annual budget.
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