From this it will be seen that the responsibility of the teacher is very great. What he

teaches is either furthering the Truth or the lie. "My brethren be not many teachers

(didaskaloi) knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation" (James 3: 1). The

ministry of the teacher is therefore not to be sought lightly. The faithful teacher has one

great subject, the Word of God, and the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the last injunctions to Timothy by the Apostle Paul was this: "proclaim

(preach) the Word" (II Tim. 4: 2), and a rightly-divided Word at that, as the previous

chapter so solemnly stresses (II Tim. 2: 15). Merely quoting the Bible is not sufficient.

The Judaizers undoubtedly quoted chapter and verse when they said to the early churches

`except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved' (Acts 15: 1).

But they were not teaching truth, rather the grossest error, for they were lifting it out of

its Divine setting and propagating the way of Cain which presumes to come to God as a

sinner with works, thus nullifying the gospel of His grace.

All the creeds appeal to the Bible, but how many rightly divide the Word of Truth?

How many are bringing over to this dispensation teaching which was true in a past

dispensation but is not truth for today? Surely it is right to say that if the professing

church had made known as its doctrine or message for this Gentile age the teaching of the

Apostle of the Gentiles, and obeyed the commandment of II Tim. 2: 15, the present

divided state of modern Christendom would never have happened.

Doctrine does matter. It is absolutely vital and those who have absorbed the glorious

teaching of the ascended Christ through Paul will never lack a subject to expound and

will never need to descend to the puerilities and errors of much modern preaching.

We now commence our study of the epistle and turn to the first chapter. It reads:

"Paul, a bondslave (servant) of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ." This is somewhat

like his introduction to the Roman epistle. "Paul a bondslave of Jesus Christ, a called

apostle." When he writes to the Philippian church he likewise describes himself, with

Timothy, bondslaves (servants) of Jesus Christ and omits any reference to his apostleship.

Philippians is pre-eminently the epistle of service and this sets the tone of the letter

straight away.

Romans, Philippians and Titus are the only epistles where Paul describes himself as a

bondslave in the introduction. Usually it is his apostleship, conferred by the ascended

Christ, that is brought forward first thus stressing his divine authority. But here the

champion of liberty presents himself as a slave! A seeming paradox, but one in which