Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Philippians 4:3 - 4:3
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
And - Greek, “Yea.”
true yoke-fellow - yoked with me in the same Gospel yoke (Mat 11:29, Mat 11:30; compare 1Ti 5:17, 1Ti 5:18). Either Timothy, Silas (Act 15:40; Act 16:19, at Philippi), or the chief bishop of Philippi. Or else the Greek, “Sunzugus,” or “Synzygus,” is a proper name: “Who art truly, as thy name means, a yoke-fellow.” Certainly not Paul’s wife, as 1Co 9:5 implies he had none.
help those women - rather, as Greek, “help them,” namely, Euodia and Syntyche. “Co-operate with them” [Birks]; or as Alford, “Help in the work of their reconciliation.”
which laboured with me - “inasmuch as they labored with me.” At Philippi, women were the first hearers of the Gospel, and Lydia the first convert. It is a coincidence which marks genuineness, that in this Epistle alone, special instructions are given to women who labored with Paul in the Gospel. In selecting the first teachers, those first converted would naturally be fixed on. Euodia and Syntyche were doubtless two of “the women who resorted to the riverside, where prayer was wont to be made” (Act 16:13), and being early converted, would naturally take an active part in teaching other women called at a later period; of course not in public preaching, but in a less prominent sphere (1Ti 2:11, 1Ti 2:12).
Clement - bishop of Rome shortly after the death of Peter and Paul. His Epistle from the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth is extant. It makes no mention of the supremacy of the See of Peter. He was the most eminent of the apostolical fathers. Alford thinks that the Clement here was a Philippian, and not necessarily Clement, bishop of Rome. But Origen [Commentary, Joh 1:29] identifies the Clement here with the bishop of Rome.
in the book of life - the register-book of those whose “citizenship is in heaven” (Luk 10:20; Phi 3:20). Anciently, free cities had a roll book containing the names of all those having the right of citizenship (compare Exo 32:32; Psa 69:28; Eze 13:9; Dan 12:1; Rev 20:12; Rev 21:27).