Paul was in prison in Rome awaiting trial. The charge against him was based upon his preaching of the gospel Christ Jesus had so gloriously and triumphantly preached and practiced. Paul had been a persecutor of the followers of Christ Jesus at first, but through a most wonderful spiritual experience he had been converted to Christianity and had become one of its staunchest followers. This had brought upon him almost continuous persecution.
In a letter to the young Christian Church in Corinth he wrote of some of his experiences: "In labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep. ... In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me: and through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands." II Cor. 11:23-25, 32, 33.
And now Paul was a prisoner in Rome awaiting the appeal of his case to Caesar. Here, after months of imprisonment, he received a messenger, Epaphroditus by name, who had come with a gift from the little Christian Church in Philippi. Paul was deeply moved and deeply grateful for this gift, this reassurance of love and loyalty, not so much that he needed the gift, he said, (though he probably did need it very much) but because of the love it represented. And from Rome he wrote the Philippians his loving, tender Epistle thanking them for the gift. He ends it with these immortal words: "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. . . . The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." Phil. 4: 19-23.
