Read Philippians 2 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.
The Greek Testament does not contain paragraph markers.
The Chiastic structure:
So then, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is the One working in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Phi 2:12-13
Why does Paul say to work out our own salvation, when he previously asserted that,
For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not from works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Eph 2:8-10
To work out is in Greek, Strong’s G2716 κατεργάζομαι katergazómai, “to perform, accomplish, achieve.” The grammar suggests personal involvement or benefit (“work out for yourselves”). The meaning is to bring about a result through effort; often implying thorough or effective action (Rom 5:3, “tribulation produces [katergazetai] endurance”). Paul is urging believers to live out salvation already acquired via faith through obedience effort.
Tracing back through the Septuagint to the Hebrew often yields Strong’s H6466, פעל pa’al, “to work, to perform, to accomplish.” The ancient pictographs:
pey פ ף = mouth (open, blow, scatter, edge)
ayin ע = eye (watch, know, shade)
lamed ל = shepherd’s staff (teach, yoke, to, bind)
The Hebrew Root Word parable is to turn (pey, as a lip of a bowl is its turned edge) to the known (ayin) yoke (lamed). The known yoke is a euphemism for what one does, since oxen know their yoke when they are led out to work in the fields.
You have wrought [pa’al in Hebrew, katergasō in Greek] all our works for us. Isa 26:12
Isaiah captures the nuance. We work out our salvation, that is, we enter the kingdom by faith (Eph 2:8-10) yet the root of faith always produces the fruit of faith as evidence of its existence. The fruit – “our works” as Isaiah says, are then wrought in us through God’s agency and not our own. He is working in us so that 1) it becomes our own will to do what pleases Him, and 2) we have the ability to produce the fruit that pleases Him. He has wrought our works for us, by giving us both the will and the wherewithal to do.
So then why fear and trembling? Well, what is being produced by our lives? Is it conceit, strife, looking out only for our own interests? Is it murmuring, disputing, crookedness or perverseness? If it is, that fruit is a red flag that the root of faith is suffering; and coming before God in humility and repentance is needed to restore it, so that it can once again produce its fruit.
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