There is a phrase near the end of Paul's letter to the Philippians that is easy to read past without understanding its weight. He writes that even if he is being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from their faith, he is glad and rejoices with all of them. On the surface it sounds like poetic language for suffering well. Once we understand what a drink offering actually was, the statement becomes far more specific, and far more moving.
In the temple system of the first century, a drink offering was never given on its own. It was a liquid offering, typically wine, poured out after a primary offering had already been placed on the altar and was burning. The drink offering was secondary by design. It could not be poured onto cold, unlit charcoal and expected to rise as an acceptable act of worship. It had to be added to something already burning, so that it would be consumed and evaporate in the heat of the offering that came before it. The entire meaning of a drink offering depended on its position. It was not the main event. It was poured out in addition to something else, enhancing and completing an offering that had already been given.
This is the image Paul reaches for to describe his own imprisonment. He tells the Philippians that if he is being poured out like a drink offering, it is because there is already a primary offering in view, namely the sacrifice and service coming from their faith. Paul places himself in the secondary position deliberately. He is not claiming that his suffering is the main act of worship taking place. He is claiming that their faithful service is the primary offering, and that his suffering, if it accomplishes anything, does so only as an addition poured out on top of what they are already doing.
This is a remarkable posture for a man sitting in a Roman prison, awaiting a hearing before Caesar himself, uncertain whether he will live or die. We might expect Paul to center his own suffering, to ask the Philippians to focus their attention and their sympathy on what he is enduring for the sake of the gospel. Instead, he redirects the focus entirely toward them. Their obedience, their sacrifice, their continued service to Christ, is the primary offering in view. His imprisonment only has meaning insofar as it is poured out in support of what they are already doing.
There is something instructive here about how we understand our own hardship, particularly hardship endured in the course of serving others. It is tempting, when we suffer for the sake of something good, to place ourselves at the center of the story, to see our sacrifice as the main event that others should orient their attention around. Paul resists this instinct entirely. He understood that his suffering was not the point. The point was the fruit being produced in the lives of the people he had served, and if his suffering added anything to that fruit, it did so only as a secondary offering poured onto a fire that was already burning because of their faithfulness, not his.
This reframes the way we think about sacrifice within the body of Christ more broadly. We often assume that the person who suffers the most, or gives up the most, deserves the most attention and credit. Paul's logic runs in the opposite direction. He rejoices precisely because his suffering is not the primary offering. He finds joy in occupying the secondary position, in knowing that his hardship exists to serve and support something larger than himself, namely the ongoing faithfulness of people he loves.
Paul goes further still, telling the Philippians that they too should be glad and rejoice with him. This is not a call for sympathy over his circumstances. It is an invitation to shared joy, because if his imprisonment is somehow contributing to the fire of their faithful service, then both parties have reason to rejoice together. His suffering and their obedience are not separate stories running in parallel. They are woven into a single offering, with their sacrifice as the primary fire and his hardship poured out as an addition to it.
There is a kind of freedom in this posture that we would do well to imitate. Not every act of service or every hardship we endure needs to be the center of the story. Sometimes our role, faithfully carried, is to be poured out secondarily, in support of a fire that others are already tending. That is not a diminished calling. It is, according to Paul, a source of genuine joy, because it means our lives have become part of an offering bigger than ourselves.
Dr. William C.K. Yomes is the founding apologist of Faith Makes Sense and the Senior Pastor of Catalyst Community Church in Wilmington, Delaware. This article is part of his ongoing teaching ministry at Catalyst Community Church.