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"without rebuke", even as the Sermon on the Mount exhorts the disciples so to act that
they "may be the children" of their Father which is in heaven, and a little earlier in the
same chapter, the Lord had said "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see
your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 5: 16).
The Philippians were to comfort themselves in like manner in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation. The A.V. reads "Among whom ye shine as lights in the world",
with a marginal note "Or, shine ye". The R.V. reads "Among whom ye are seen as lights
in the world" with the marginal note "Or, luminaries". Phainesthe "ye appear" not "ye
shine" (phainete) as the A.V. The same error is made in Matt. 24: 27, Rev. 18: 23.
On the other hand in Matt. 2: 7 Tou phainomenou asteros, is correctly rendered
`appeared' (Bishop Lightfoot). The word translated `lights' may refer to the heavenly
bodies (Gen. 1: 14) but the context of Phil. 2: 15 may indicate that the figure "carrying
torches to guide passengers along dark and narrow streets in ancient cities" as the figure
is used by Aristophanes, may well be the intention of the Apostle. Whether as luminaries
in the sky, or humble torches in the streets, the believer should "Hold forth the Word of
Life". This is one of the ways in which the departures from the truth can be arrested. To
hold forth the Word, however, involves something more than ability to speak, or an
understanding of what is truth, it necessitates a very close relationship with the Lord
Himself. This the Apostle brings forward in the great passage headed "Beware" in
Colossians 2:
It is important to note how a portion of Col. 2: is parallel with I Tim. 4: 1-3. The
warning opens with the words "Beware lest any man spoil you", and the corrective
against the deception of a vain philosophy is found in the words:
"After the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ"
(Col. 2: 8).
In like manner the second warning "Let no man beguile you" finds its corrective in the
words:
"Worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly
puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head" (Col. 2: 18, 19).
The apostasy is a departure from "the mystery of godliness", the doctrine of demons is
an attack upon Christ as the One Mediator. The great corrective is to hold fast the Head.
Where the pre-eminence of Christ is the doctrine of both heart and head, there will be
found one whose title might well be borrowed from the O.T. "the repairer of the breach"
(Isa. 68: 12).
"When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a
standard against him" (Isa. 59: 19).
What other standard can we lift up against the enemy of truth than the standard of
Christ and the Scriptures? ("Hold fast the form of sound words"; "Holding forth the
word of life"; "Hold the Head").