everybody what is going on you know what time it is you're listening to join the journey podcast

with your host emma daughter thanks for joining if you haven't gotten the chance to listen to the

bonus episode on philippians i'd encourage you to do so now as in it we talked about how prosperous

the city of philippi and the phian church was. And if you listen to that

episode, you might remember that Philippians is one of the only letters where we don't see

much admonishment from Paul, just some precautionary warnings. But what would he need to warn them

about? In today's chapter, we encounter an interpretive challenge. What does Paul mean when he says, work out your salvation

with fear and trembling? While I could spend our time together talking about verse 12, Marvin did

an excellent job unpacking that verse in today's diva, which you can access at join the journey.com.

Now, if you've been around the church for a while, you've probably seen some tragic

collapses of churches or the downfall of church leaders.

And we might be left to assume that because the Philippians were in such a good spot,

such a downfall could seem like a distant possibility, if it even was one.

Which made me think of this idea.

There's this idea that nobody actually knows how Rome, as prosperous as it was, fell, but one historian has something

interesting to say about the fall of Rome, and his name is Will Durant. He said,

A great civilization is not conquered from without. That is from external forces or opponents.

That's not conquered from them until it has destroyed itself within. I'm going to read that again.

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.

I wanted to share that quote because I think it helps frame up Paul's precautionary warnings

to the church in Philippi that we read here in Chapter 2.

In essence, Paul warns the church about two things.

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