The gospel of Christ enters Christians into a life-long process of discipleship in which everything, but everything, sooner or later, including our politics, must get squared with the gospel. This is what dawned on the church at Philippi one sunny morning concerning their Roman political identity and allegiance. As a result, that early church issues us a challenge concerning our political loyalties as American Christians. It begins with a little history and ends with the Cross.

During the time of Christ, the city of Philippi, Macedonia, had been a strategic military outpost of the Roman Empire for nearly 200 years. There were Greeks and Jews in the city, but a large percentage of the population were Roman citizens, people who treasured that citizenship for the special civic and political privileges it gave them. Roman citizenship was for them essential to their national identity and it afforded them many benefits, included having their rights protected by the government. It would have been second nature for the Roman citizenry of Philippi to rely on the laws of Rome to protect their rights and to demand those protections should the need arise. Citizenship was a big deal. Even the children of the Roman citizens were taught to get that.

About twenty or thirty years after Christ’s death and resurrection, a church was founded at Philippi by the apostle Paul (along with Silas and some of his other companions) during one of his missionaries journeys. Given the large percentage of Roman citizens among the local population, it’s reasonable to conclude that a good portion of the church established by the apostle at Philippi was comprised of Roman citizens. It’s also reasonable to say that the Roman Christians in the church had a pronounced pride in their Roman citizenship, not unlike we American Christians take pride in American citizenship.

Some months after establishing the church, Paul left Philippi to continue his missionary journey; then some years later, while imprisoned in Rome, he sniffed out a serious problem in the church. Paul learned (probably from Epaphroditus’s visit to him in prison) that a number of believers in the Philippian ekklēsia were holding on much too tightly to their Roman citizenship as their fundamental political identity and allegiance. Paul then wrote a letter to the church, which appears to have been a vibrant and well-organized community. The Epistle to the Philippians shows the apostle’s deep affection for the church and a considerable amount of praise for them.

But here’s the thing. The apostle to the Gentiles admonishes the church for going overboard with their political loyalties to Rome. This is significant. Religion’s scholar Richard A. Spencer has written that only in Philippians does the apostle use language that speaks specifically of political identity, when he admonishes the church to live in a way that is worthy of the gospel of Christ. That political admonition is found in 1:27 and 3:20. Yet there’s been bit of mischief in the English translations of 1:27, which in turn conceals the takeaway in 3:20. Here’s how.

What is overt in the Greek – Paul’s admonition about the church’s politics – is hidden to us in the English translations. A key New Testament Greek phrase in 1:27 is commonly translated: “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Almost identical is another common English translation: “… let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ.” The trouble, here, is that the translations focus our thoughts on moral behavior in general. Yet in 1:27, the key verb construction in Greek, politeúesthe, refers not to moral behavior in general but to political conduct. Of course political life disciplined by the gospel of Christ cannot be disassociated from general moral conduct, but who thinks of that when reading about general moral conduct? In the Greek, the language has a clear meaning about political loyalty: i.e., let your political behavior be worthy of the gospel of Christ.

A little further on in the short letter (3:20), Paul reinforces the political point of his earlier statement (1:27) with the word politeuma, a commonly used noun of the day to denote Roman “citizenship.” Everyone would have understood politeuma that way, and by implication the rights and privileges of a Roman citizen. Even those who were not Roman would have understood the word that way, perhaps somewhat enviously. And the word is translated as “citizenship” in English Bibles in 3:20. But notice that Paul deliberately draws attention to a unique type of citizenship: in heaven: “Our citizenship is in heaven.” Notice, too, that the word politeuma closely correspondences to politeúesthe. The clear similarity would have set the Philippians to thinking.

By the time of the Epistle the church in Philippi had become well-established. It was filled with serious believers and practitioners of the gospel. It had its own deacons and elders. The letter reveals an ekklēsia that, all-in-all, was doing quite well, even when enduring periods of persecution. Throughout the Epistle it is obvious that the apostle to the Gentiles loves these believers dearly. Yet he loves them enough to include a clear exhortation to examine their political loyalties. Even a vibrant body with able leadership can overlook having its long-held political allegiances disciplined by the Cross. For the Philippian Christians who were Roman citizens, their civic and political loyalties to Rome needed rethinking. So Paul, whom we know is no slouch when it comes to argument, seeks to turn the tables on those loyalties.

He sets them up for that by first by using the verb construction politeuomai (1:27): “let your political behavior be worthy of the gospel of Christ”; then he draws their attention to their politeuma, “citizenship” (3:20). When coming to the word politeuma, perhaps they thought, oh, Roman of course; we’re Romans after all! But while they are congratulating themselves on being Roman citizens, Paul immediately upends their glory with: “your citizenship is in heaven” (3:20; emphasis added). With the words “in heaven,” he suddenly “forces” the church to face what he was really on about in 1:27: rethink the state of your political identity and allegiance. Paul was not patting them on the back about being Roman. You have a fundamentally different identity: as citizens of heaven. Too bad, I say, that the apostle’s warning about political conduct has been hidden from us.

I can almost hear Paul saying to his friend Epaphroditus as they are talking in Paul’s prison quarters in Rome: “They are such a great assembly. I love them to death, but I hate to think that their Roman citizenship holds such a powerful grip on their public witness for Christ. Their citizenship in heaven must be reflected in their political behavior. Let’s pray for them. Maybe the Lord will give me an idea about how to address this issue and I can include it in the letter I’m writing to them. They need a shift of mind-set, from Caesar and Rome to Christ and heaven.”

Whether any such conversation occurred between the two friends, the fact remains that the political admonition of 1:27 and the takeaway meant in 3:20 is hidden from us by the English translations. The crucial question “where is your ultimate civic or political identity and allegiance?” is never asked of us. I think Paul would have “Amen’d” what Charles A. Wanamaker said in his commentary on Philippians. The apostle Paul, he wrote, is exhorting them, and us, to live as citizens of heaven, “in a manner commensurate with the values and norms of the good news of Christ.”

The Philippian challenge to American Christian political loyalty remains. The believer’s citizenship in heaven is not about waiting for a life to come in the sweet by-and-by, so that in this life you just get to go ahead and think and act politically according to the basic principles of this world. Our political lives do not get a free pass on being disciplined by the gospel of Christ. Although Paul has much to say about the resurrected life elsewhere (1 Cor. 15), in Philippians he leaves no doubt that citizenship in heaven entails a basic identity with Jesus that instructs our way of life on earth, including our political life.

“Brothers and sisters,” I hear the apostle’s voice echoing down the corridor of history to us. “You are following Jesus in many areas; follow him in your political life also. Sure, that may be tough. Believe me, I get it. I’ve been hounded, persecuted, beaten, arrested, and now I’m in prison! Still, don’t let your American political loyalties get the better of you. Don’t let anything trump your political witness for the gospel. Jesus suffered politically by decree of the government. Follow his lead.”

But back to the Epistle. In the same breath in which Paul challenges believers to live their political lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, he adds,“[t]hen, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you . . . standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, working side by side for the faith that comes from the gospel” (1:27).

That there will be no misunderstanding of what he means by the gospel, in between 1:27 and 3:20, Paul reminds the Philippian church, and us, of their responsibility to imitate Christ’s humility in all things. He does this by quoting the extraordinary Christological hymn, sung by the early church, about our Lord’s unmatched humility:

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross! . . .

“Therefore, my dear friends . . . continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (2:6-13). Your citizenship is in heaven. Live politically, as well as in every other way, in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

©Charles Strohmer, 2025