Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Philippians · About this commentary
Lights in the World
Philippians 2:14-16
14 Do all things without complaining and arguing, · WEB
The instruction after the hymn is about complaining — and the reason given is astronomical.
Do all things without murmurings and disputes. After the descent and exaltation of Christ, the first application is grumbling.
The word for murmuring is the one used throughout the wilderness narratives of Israel's complaining 1 Corinthians 10:10, and the letter is about to make that comparison explicit.
Verse 15 gives the purpose: that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation. Those words are Moses' description of Israel itself in the wilderness song Deuteronomy 32:5 — and Paul turns them around. What was said of the murmuring people is now the description of the surrounding world, and the church stands inside it as the alternative.
Among whom you are seen as lights in the world. The noun is the word for a luminary, a heavenly body, used in Genesis of the sun and moon.
Verse 16 names what they hold: the word of life. And then Paul's own stake in it, which is unexpectedly personal — that he may have cause to boast in the day of Christ that he did not run or labor in vain.
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