Giving and receiving, receipts, and self-sufficiency (4:10–20)

Says No church but the Philippians “partnered with me in the matter of giving and receiving” (4:15, BSB). Paul seeks “the fruit that may be credited to your account” (4:17, BSB) and, having received their gifts from Epaphroditus, writes, “I have all I need and more” (4:18, BSB).

Lightfoot glosses δόσεως καὶ λήμψεως (4:15) as “credit and debit,” a phrase drawn from “the two sides of the ledger,” and εἰς λόγον as literally “to the account or score of”; he holds that 4:15 refers solely to money (Philippians, pp. 165–166). Moulton and Milligan find this account vocabulary common in the money dealings of the papyri and call ἀπέχω (4:18) “a technical expression in drawing up a receipt” (Vocabulary, pp. 57, 169, 379). Deissmann, from receipts such as one for a tax paid at Thebes in AD 32–33, thinks it “not improbable” that Paul alludes to this usage “in a gently humorous way” (Light from the Ancient East, pp. 110–112). Lightfoot renders it “I have all things to the full” and suggests that, like αὐτάρκεια, it was “a favourite Stoic word” (p. 166).

On contentment (4:11, αὐτάρκης), Seneca writes “that the wise man is self-sufficient,” yet desires friends (Ep. 9.3).

Says Paul says he can do all things through the one who strengthens him (4:13).

These parallels do not show that Paul borrowed from any source, make the gift a commercial bargain, explain the sacrificial language of 4:18 (see the Hebrew note), or decide how 4:19 applies.