Re:Verse passage – Philippians 2:5-11 (day three)
“[Christ] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.”
Paul could have demanded that Philemon free the enslaved Onesimus. He could have leveraged his formidable political clout to eradicate his opposition in the church at Corinth. He could have availed himself of the perfect sign-from-heaven opportunity the earthquake afforded him to bolt from jail under cover of chaos and darkness. He could have done all those things, but he did none of them. In the face of enticement to wield power over others, he refused. He had been, remember, a pupil of Jesus himself, who taught him the gospel in all its facets. He learned directly from the leper-touching, foot-washing, silent-before-Pilate Savior that life disintegrates when grasped, clutched, or forced. Instead, eternal life consists in inviting, asking, listening. To live eternally is to live with others, not over them.
