Epistle to the Philippians

The Epistle to the Philippians is an epistle of Paul to the church in Philippi, in Macedonia, Greece. He claimed that he wanted to hurry up and be called home by the Lord because "to die is gain." However, at a great personal sacrifice, Paul decided to remain on the Earth so he could write more epistles.

The heart of this letter is Paul's theology of the atonement of Christ, who was equal to the Father but humbled himself and was obedient even to the point of accepting death by crucifixion. By so doing, he pleased God more than all of humanity displeased God through sin. Philippians forms the basis of Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement, an alternative to the substitution theory of atonement that counts as one of the five fundamentals of fundamentalism. Paul argues that Christians are to follow Christ's example by their own obedience.