<p>1:27 <i>Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. That, whether I come and see you or be absent, I may hear of your state- you standing fast in one spirit, with one mind together striving for the faith of the gospel</i>- Whether or not their efforts for his release from prison worked out or not, and whether he did in fact use his freedom to visit them, the most important thing was their spirituality. The good news of salvation in Christ was to elicit a manner of life in them. His great wish was that they should remain in the Spirit. The parallel between mind and spirit indicates that the gift of the one Spirit was essentially a state of mind. Because there is only one Spirit- that of the Lord Jesus- they therefore would have one mind. But whose mind? That of Jesus. This is not a call for uniformity of position on all issues, but rather to be united by having the same one mind and spirit- that of Jesus. This theme will be developed at length in chapter 2.</p><p>Whoever really believes the doctrines of the One Faith and lives the life which they naturally bring forth, really will be saved. Therefore we will have a sense of true unity with our brethren who believe as we do, whatever human barriers there may be between us. Therefore &quot;the Faith&quot; is linked with unity between believers (Eph. 4:13; Phil. 1:27). We will live eternally together, and this must begin in life together now. It is inevitable that a certain amount of 'politics' intrude upon our ecclesial experience; one group wants this, another wants that; one sees things one way, another perceives things from a different viewpoint. But here again, the principles of the most basic Gospel must govern us. The Greek word for 'politics' does in fact occur in the New Testament.- when Paul says that our <i>politeuesthe</i> must be &quot;worthy of the gospel of Christ&quot; (Phil. 1:27). The principles of the loving, saving, reconciling, patient Christ must work their way through even the politics that are inevitably part of life together.</p><p>The early church are held up as our example here: &quot;Stand fast in <i>one spirit, with one mind </i>striving together for the faith of the Gospel&quot;. Doesn't that sound just like an allusion to the early ecclesia? The theme continues in 2:2: &quot;Be likeminded, having the same love, being <i>of one accord</i>, of one mind&quot;. There's that phrase &quot;one accord&quot; again. It's hardly used outside the Acts, so we should read that like a signpost, saying 'Go back to the Acts'. So Paul is saying: 'You believers must always remember the great spirit of &quot;one accord&quot; in the early ecclesia in Jerusalem. Let the early church be your example'. There are a number of other allusions back to the early chapters of Acts. For example, 2:4: &quot;Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others&quot;. Twice we read there in Acts of disregarding our own &quot;things&rdquo;. Paul definitely has his eye on Acts 4:32: &quot;The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul (just as Paul spoke about in Phil. 2:2): neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own (cp. &quot;his own things&quot; in Phil. 2:4); but they had all things common&quot;. And then in 2:3 Paul warns against doing things &quot;through vainglory&quot;. Doesn't that sound like an allusion to Ananias and Sapphira? Then he warns them in 2:14 &quot;Do all things without murmurings and disputings&quot;. It can't be coincidental that in Acts 6:1,9 we read twice about there being murmurings and disputings in the early ecclesia.&nbsp; Phil. 2 describes the exaltation of Christ on his resurrection. It seems no accident that this is then described in the very words which the apostles so often used in their preaching in the early chapters of Acts. Thus in 2:9, &quot;God has highly exalted him&quot; is a reference to Peter&rsquo;s words: &quot;Being by the right hand of God exalted... him has God exalted&quot; (Acts 2:33; 5:33). The whole theme in Phil. 2 is of Christ suffering on the cross and then being exalted by the Father, and given the mighty Name. The very same language is used so often in Acts (2:9-11=Acts 2:36; 2:10= Acts 4:10; 3:6,16). &nbsp;When Paul exhorts us to hold forth &ldquo;the word of life&rdquo; (Phil. 2:16), he surely has his mind on the way the early preachers held forth &ldquo;the words of this life&rdquo; in Acts 5:20. We are to follow their spirit.</p><p>The unity of the Philippians is connected with their preaching of the Gospel. It was their unity which would be the greatest witness to the world. The way Simon the Zealot and Matthew the pro-Roman tax collector were all welded together within the 12 would have been an arresting display of unity in the Gospel, which cannot fail to have impressed first century Palestine. And it would have been so in the Antioch ecclesia too- the elders included Paul, the fiery ex-Orthodox rabbi; Manaen, one of the intimates of the Herod family; Barnabus, a Cypriot Levite who had owned land there to get around the Law&rsquo;s demands; Simeon the black man; Lucius from&nbsp;Cyrene, also in Africa. No wonder it was from this ecclesia that the Gospel really spread outwards. When the early church showed that uncanny unity between Jew and Gentile, slave and master, they converted the world. And so would and could and do we. And yet when and where we are divided, the power of conversion is lost. This is why the Philippians were told to live lives appropriate to the Gospel they preached, and to &lsquo;contend as one man&rsquo; for the Gospel (Phil. 1:27,30). Their united witness, according to John 17, would convert the world. But if they were disunited, that great salvation would not be shared as it could potentially be.</p>