When the apostle Paul turns to address his much-loved friends in Philippi, the warmth of his rhetoric flows like the melting waters of Springtime. Gone is the parental indignation of Galatians, the costly renegotiation of wounded relationships that is never far away in his correspondence with the Corinthians.
In his letter to the Philippian Christians, Paul writes like a man who has come home. The sweet absence of drama flavors the exchange.
In this context, Paul can speak of his interlocutors’ long ‘fellowship’ with him in the gospel. Perhaps better translated as ‘shared life in the gospel’, it is one of the apostle’s most flavorful phrases, an abbreviation of laughter and tears that must have stirred resonance and awakened memory in the hearts of his readers. It is the vocabulary of old friends who need not say everything because so much lies understood.
It is neither doctrinal in any straight-line sense nor theoretical nor abstract nor contested. It is the fertile sedimentation of lives joined through time, experience, and the privileged trajectory of those favored to grow old together.
This ‘shared life in the gospel’ remains one of life’s weightier treasures. It brings old friends up to speed moments after reunion has broken the fast of long separation. It generates a thesaurus of shared language and understood silences. It empowers glances to speak volumes. It knows the right questions, understands how to listen, is comfortable with pauses. It welcomes banter because it discerns the moment for going deep.
There is no bargain route to this shared life, no shortcut that makes its resonant familiarity achievable on a schedule.
It comprehends the necessity of scars. It is communal property safeguarded with equal tenacity by all stakeholders. Those who understand its value do not place it at risk.
Like friendship with God and fidelity to a spouse, it possesses at its core a covenantal mutuality. It knows its bounds. They are few.
Canter Bridge 
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