Among the mountain range of glory revealed in Paul’s apostolic letters, I consider Philippians 2 among its highest peaks. His charge and counsel for the ethics of Christian communities and fellowship are no doubt challenging: “be like-minded,” “let nothing be done in selfish ambition,” “esteem others over yourself,” and “don’t just look out for yourselves. Look out for each other.”[1] These are hard words. How are we empowered to obey these commands? As any responsible father of the early discipleship movement would, Paul anchored our obedience to Jesus: “Have this mind in you also,” as Jesus went as low as He could go in appalling humility such that He served us beyond anything we could ever earn and would never deserve.[2]
Paul’s reference point we’re to bear in mind all our days is the Cross, and it was at Golgotha we were bought with holy blood. Our lives became “not our own,”[3] tethered instead to the purposes of God to display the manifold wisdom and glory of God.[4] And it is good news. We were orphans, and became blood-bought sons through the death of the Son not spared.[5]
Every son begins as an infant. That’s healthy. And every son grows up. If he doesn’t, something is wrong—both unhealthy and beneath his Father’s intentions for his life. The last words we have from Paul before he lost his head for the Gospel are an admonition to his own beloved, adopted son in Christ to live into his own promises and purposes determined by the Author of his days.[6] Much like the insight into Jesus’ heart given by John 17, the book of Second Timothy is what spilled out of Paul’s pen when he knew he was reaching his numbered days’ end. The stakes were not low for Paul, and they wouldn’t be for Timothy.
Paul had discipled this young leader; he did not simply “share the Gospel” with him, or even stop at sharing his life with Timothy.[7] He entrusted the Gospel with him. And he knew the Lord was about to remove him from Timothy’s life for the rest of this age. We are all responsible for our own lives in God, but Timothy was about to feel the absence of his “father.” As the aged apostle weighed how to word his final letter, Paul challenged this young “evangelist”[8] from Ephesus with perhaps unexpected words:
“Son, soldier up.”[9]
These words rattle our twenty-first century Western Christian culture. Our last decade or two have been marked with an emphasis on our belovedness in Christ, His goodness towards us, and the grace made available by the cross. Whole movements have been birthed from these revelations. They’re spectacular.
And standing alone, they’re insufficient.
We are “soldiers” because we are sons. We belong to Jesus because we are beloved by Jesus; we are beloved because we belong. We are “bondservants” and “our lives are not our own” because we are brought into the King’s family.[10] We cannot idolize one truth and isolate the other. What I believe we need to militate against is such an emphasis on sonship that it excuses us from the soldier mentality required to “be strong in grace,” endure and embrace the redemptive value of suffering in this age, and navigate the eschatological pressures surrounding the return of Jesus.[11] We cannot “please the One who enlisted [us]”[12] if we feel entitled to our “belovedness.”
Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church made this same point in one breath: we are “saved by grace through faith…for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”[13] When we know who we are in Christ, we serve Christ. When we know who we are as sons, we don’t use it as an excuse to live lackadaisically and indifferent towards the purposes of God. We use it as an empowerment to abandon passive civilian culture and “soldier up.”
Civilians can do whatever they want whenever they want. Soldiers can’t. Civilians can vacation wherever they want. Soldiers can’t. Civilians can make plans for their days and dreams for their lives. Soldiers can’t. Civilians can enter relationships. Soldiers can’t. Civilians can avoid suffering, hardship, and never train for war a day in their lives, never become familiar with weapons required to “fight the good fight.”[14] Soldiers can’t.
Soldiers refuse to live like civilians.
For the last several years since the eruption of the Arab Spring, my family and I have lived and worked in the Middle East to build avenues of creative access into countries and communities historically closed to the Gospel. To do so, we’ve needed permission and blessing from governments and militaries. We were privileged to participate in Israel’s Good Neighbor Operation in southern Syria for nearly two years, and I quickly noticed that any young soldier I met in the Israeli army knew exactly how many days remained in their required service (two years for women, three years for men). I could walk up to a uniformed soldier in a coffee shop and ask them how long they had left before they could return to civilian life and I’d hear something like “one year six months three weeks and two days” in response. Why? Because civilians can live with all the privileges of sons without any responsibilities of soldiers.
Paul was obsessed with the return of Jesus, even when he knew he wouldn’t be alive to see it happen. He closed his last letter to his beloved son and disciple with exhortations and warnings concerning the end of the age, even knitting his own life of service to “that day” and “His appearing.”[15] Why? Because war ends when Jesus comes.[16] On that great and glorious Day, every son can return home and melt his gun into a plow.[17] Until then, every soldier must work hard, suffer strategically, and ignore, defy, and avoid the entanglements of civilian privilege and luxury “to please the One who enlisted him.”[18] We get to serve our Commander, and we want to feel His smile on our lives.
Ultimate freedom is found in “having this mind in [us] also,” laying our lives down for our Father’s purposes—even if the war demands we die on a cross. Ultimate freedom is being bound to the One who bought us. Do we live as though we call our own shots, or are we fully owned by Another?
Just like Paul’s admonition to the Philippians, every challenging command extended to us is traced back to the all-in love of the Trinity towards us and the reassuring comfort that we are beloved. We are beloved because we belong to Him. We belong to Him because we are beloved by Him. As we wait for His soon return, let’s not wait passively. Let’s not live like civilians. We know we are sons.
It’s time to soldier up.
Dalton Thomas is the Founder and President of Frontier Alliance International, and co-founder of Maranatha, a global fellowship of churches and ministries. He is the Director of films and film series such as Sheep Among Wolves, Covenant and Controversy, The Frontier, and Better Friends Than Mountains. Dalton and his wife Anna live in the Golan Heights of Israel with their five sons.
[1] See Philippians 2:1-4
[2] See Philippians 2:5-11
[3] 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 7:23
[4] Ephesians 3:9-11
[5] Galatians 4:1-7; see also KING OF SHADOWS 01: The Slaughter & the Hill
[6] Paul’s last recorded writing is his second letter to Timothy; he was beheaded by order of Emperor Nero shortly after it was written.
[7] 1 Thessalonians 2:8
[8] 2 Timothy 4:5
[9] 2 Timothy 2:3
[10] 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 7:23; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 1:3-14
[11] 2 Timothy 2:1
[12] 2 Timothy 2:4
[13] Ephesians 2:10
[14] 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 4:7
[15] 2 Timothy 4:6-8
[16] Psalm 46:9; Isaiah 9:6-7; Revelation 19:11-21
[17] Isaiah 2:4; Joel 3:12; Micah 4:3
[18] 2 Timothy 2:4