Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today in our New Testament plan, we finished book 16, and in our full Bible plan, we finished

book 55. We first met the Philippians in Acts 16. Here's a quick refresher.

Philippi is where Paul and Silas were arrested, and God used that to save their prison guard and

his whole family. It's also where they met Lydia, whose whole family converted to Christianity

too, and it's also where they met a demonized girl and set her free from the demon and from

slavery.

Today, Paul writes an encouragement-filled letter to the church here.

From day one, they've had a unique relationship with Paul.

He planted this church, and he's watched it grow,

and he's confident that God will finish what he started in them.

He repeats this idea a few times in this short letter.

In one six, he says, He who began a good work in you will

bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. And in 2, 12 through 13, he says, work out your

own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for

his good pleasure. He indicates that God is the one doing the good works through them

and even creating the desire in them to do those things. And here's one important point of

clarification. Paul's words to work out their own salvation is not a call to figure out how to save

yourself. If you could do that, you wouldn't need a savior. The context here and in everything else he says

helps clarify that he's talking about living lives that demonstrate the gratitude and all we feel

toward God for saving us. This is a nod to the process of sanctification, where God works in

us to conform us to the image of his son. The Philippians have already seen firsthand how Paul

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