He Who Began a Good Work in Y'All ~ GregJ

3/20/2025

Sometime in my youth a preacher suggested personalizing Biblical promises and commands. Thus:

“God so loved Greg that he gave his only begotten son…” and,
“Greg shalt have no other Gods before me….”

When I was older—like, ten minutes later—it occurred to me that personalizing the Bible could be abused. Randomly I found 1 Samuel 15. I could personalize it! “Now, Greg, go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

I did not know any Amalekites, but I had suspicions about a local bully.

I was reminded of Bible personalization when I was looking for birthday cards and found this one:

I used to have no trouble treating Philippians 1:6 as yet another promise to me, especially if I kept the whole sentence:

“He who began a good work in Greg will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Hold up your hand if you feel this verse encourages you to trust that God is completing you, as a master carpenter would complete a construction project.

Stretch your hand even higher if this verse assures you that God’s work in you won’t stop until heaven.

OK, that’s fine. Individual growth does happen, thanks to God's work and Spirit evidenced in virtues such as I cited in recent posts. You know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, smiting. But here’s my thesis:

Individual growth is not what this verse promises, at least not directly.

This verse invites me not to a solitary hike, not to pilgrim’s progress. It calls me to get on the bus.

Philippians 1:6 is about the church. It assures church perseverance! The good work God has done among us, God will complete. Growth in number of participants is not excluded, but saying Philippians 1:6 is about headcount overlooks other good ways in which God works: invisible and highly visible virtues such as love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, wise counsel, and more.

Of course, church perseverance comes from God working through individuals. Church growth tends both to benefit from individual spiritual growth and lead to personal growth. Yes indeedy. But just as it would have been inappropriate for me to go off on my own and smack Amalekites, Philippians 1:6 is not so much a personal promise as a corporate encouragement: Church, our God will complete his work among you.

There are two ways I aim to prove that, “He who began a good work in you,” refers to the church: by context and by grammar.

Read the opening of Philippians. Imagine that a respected messenger such as Timothy or Epaphroditus or a local leader such as Liddie or Jay Lorr is presenting this letter. Does the epistle to the Philippians ever address some individual? Or is this a letter to the group?

Philippians chapter 1 verses 1-7

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,
always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy,
because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace…

You can easily scan through the four chapters of Philippians. Paul speaks collectively to "brothers", "brothers and sisters". "saints", "every saint". "children of God" and so on.

That was context. Now grammar.

A long time ago, a teacher asked me to name three pronouns. I said, "What? Who? Me?"

As painful as English grammar can be, pretty much all other languages are worse. The Greek language has two distinct word families that translate to the English pronoun "you".

1. For one singular sensation, every little step she takes, individual “you”, Greek has a whole word family pronounced sue. This is the pronoun recorded in Matthew 16:18 when Jesus says, "You are Peter," Sue ei Petros. Philippians has exactly one verse containing a singular Sue:

   Philippians 4:3
       Yes, I ask you also, true companion,
       help these women,…

2. The other 36 occurrences of English "you" in Philippians come from the Greek word family pronounced who-mays. Grammatically, this references a collective such as an army or political party. John the Baptist uses this plural who-mays "you" twice when he trash-talks the Pharisees and Sadducees: "YOU bunch of snakes! Who warned YOU to run from the coming judgment?"

Footnote: “In Old English, thou and thee were singular; you and ye were plural.” Around 1595, Shakespeare wrote: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate..." He also wrote: "Ye spotted snakes with double tongue!" The 1611 King James Version and its direct descendants somewhat preserve this distinction. – Shakespeare’s Words.

Footnote: “If the individual members of a group were intended, hekastos humon, 'each / every one of you', was used. This is seen in 12 of the 77 uses of hekastos (each, every) in the New Testament. Consequently, there was no confusion on the part of the original readers or writers, as to the intention of a speaker or reporter.” - Pioneers' New Testament, Word Study 142

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Like apparently all languages except English, the Spanish language distinguishes between singular and plural "you". Below is what Wadmar tells me is the most-used Español Bible translation, highlighting the “you” words.

The quotes from Philippians 1 are plural "you".
The quote from Philippians 4:3 is the solitary singular "you" in Philippians.

Filipenses 1:6-7 Reina-Valera 1960 (plural “you” vosotros)
estando persuadido de esto, que el que comenzó en vosotros la buena obra, la perfeccionará hasta el día de Jesucristo;
como me es justo sentir esto de todos vosotros, por cuanto os tengo en el corazón; y en mis prisiones, y en la defensa y confirmación del evangelio, todos vosotros sois participantes conmigo de la gracia.

Filipenses 4:3 Reina-Valera 1960 (singular “you” ti)
Asimismo te ruego también a ti, compañero fiel, que ayudes a estas…

For up-to-date Español contemporáneo everywhere outside Spain:

Filipenses 1:6-7 Reina Valera Contemporánea 2011 (plural “you” ustedes)
Estoy persuadido de que el que comenzó en ustedes la buena obra, la perfeccionará hasta el día de Jesucristo.
Es justo que yo sienta esto por todos ustedes, porque los llevo en el corazón. Tanto en mis prisiones como en la defensa y confirmación del evangelio, todos ustedes participan conmigo de la gracia.

Filipenses 4:3 Reina Valera Contemporánea 2011 (singular “you” ti)
También a ti, mi compañero fiel, te ruego que ayudes a éstas …

I suspect many English translations ignore the difference between singular "you" and plural "you" because:

(a) Tradition!
(b) Let context reign. Same-sentence singular context such as “you are Peter” and plural “you bunch of snakes” should be obvious. Larger scope such as the greetings in Philippians, Ephesians, etc., simply requires alertness from readers. Never mind birthday cards, one-verse devotions, and its-all-about-me.
(c) When your translation credo is word-for-word, then Greek "en" otherwise maps cleanly to English "in". That means we must add a word, changing "you" to "you all", or "all of you".
(d) We come to Christ as individuals. Whatever benefits the church tends to occur by individual growth or result in individual growth. Still, if we take Philippians 1:6 as about a work of God on our team and in our team, that makes a difference.

In any case, few English Bible translations clearly distinguish source plural “you” from singular “you”.

The 1901 ASV and 1994 KJ21 follow the 1611 KJV in using "ye" for singular (Phil 4:3) and "you" for plural (Phil 1:6, etc.). The 1982 NKJV uses "you" for both singular and plural.
The CSB and NET relegate plural “among you” to a footnote.*
The PNT uses inline brackets: “in [among] you....”
The NRSVA and VOICE use “among you”.

* but who reads footnotes?

The prize for most nearly consistent word-by-word attention to Greek and Hebrew second person plural and some other nuances goes to https://yallversion.com. Singular "you" Sue remains "you" and plural "you" who-mays becomes “y'all”! I've found some omissions but not nearly as many as other English language translations.

Philippians chapter 1, Y'all Version:

¹ Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: ² Grace and peace to y’all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³ I thank my God every time I remember y’all. ⁴ In every prayer for all y’all, I always pray with joy, ⁵ because of y’all’s partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶ being confident of this very thing, that ʜᴇ who began a good work in y’all will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. ⁷ It is right for me to think this way about all y’all, because I have y’all in my heart, since both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, all y’all are partakers of grace with me. ⁸ For God is my witness, how I long for y’all in the affection of Christ Jesus.

Philippians chapter 4, Y'all Version:
¹ Therefore, my beloved siblings whom I long for, my joy and crown, y’all stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.
² I urge Euodia, and I urge Syntyche, to think the same way in the Lord.
³ Yes, true partner, I ask you to help these women who have struggled together with me in the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
⁴ Y’all rejoice in the Lord always! Again I will say, “Rejoice y’all!”

Footnote: Would you be surprised the Y'All Version comes from a Dallas Theological Seminary guy?

Reading a singular "you" when there's really a Greek plural "you" makes a big difference in Luke 17:21. The KJV and at least two dozen other versions have Jesus say,

"For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you."

A couple more say, "the Kingdom of God is inside you."

However, the "you" in the Greek source is genitive plural: ὑμῶν, pronounced who-moan. Thus, I'm with two dozen or more English translations that render this verse,

"The kingdom of God is among you", or "the kingdom of God is in your midst."

Hey, the context of Luke 17:21 has Jesus addressing multiple Pharisees. I don't think Jesus is claiming that the kingdom of God is within a "white-washed tomb."

The plural pronoun makes me side with the Y'All version. I find "Empire" a little strange, but can live with it.

The Pharisees questioned him about when
the Empire of God would come,
and Jesus answered them,
“The Empire of God
does not come with something observable,
nor will anyone say, ‘Look, here!’ or, ‘There it is!’
for indeed, the Empire of God
is in y’all’s midst.”

Footnote: Dr. Mounce has similar but more credible pronoun pondering, twice. Also, Martin. And others. Mounce's observation of the small present-day Philippian congregation raises a question: If Phil 1:6 is an encouragement for church growth, then shouldn't a congregation once begun keep growing? That's why I clarify earlier that Phil 1:6 is primarily about qualitative spiritual growth in gifts such as generosity and fruit such as love and joy. This maturation tends to result in numerical growth of the congregation. But Paul knew that maturation can result in martyrdom and dispersal, and thus quantitative decrease.

Footnote: I get these statistics from the 2017 Tyndale Greek New Testament :
    Count of Plural 2nd person pronouns (ὑμεῖς, ἡμῶν, ὑμῖν, ὑμᾶς) =1539
Count of Singular 2nd person pronouns (σύ, σου, σοῦ, σοι, σοί, σε, σέ) = 712
So! If you spot a "you" in the ESV, NASB, or many other English-language New Testaments, there's a 68% chance it is plural.
     If you spot a "you" in an English language epistle such as Romans or 1 Peter, there's an 84% chance it is plural!

Footnote: There are around 83 "one another" uses in the New Testament, such as "love one another", "instruct one another", "encourage one another." See the study series by Gene Getz.

Footnote: Yep, Hebrew and Aramaic also distinguish the singular pronoun from the plural pronoun, but not always the way I guess. I am definitely no expert and not versed in idioms and other sometimes exceptional uses. Still: "You shall have no other gods before me." and the other nine commandments are addressed to Israel but put "you" as singular. It's mitzvah, baby. Likewise, in Deuteronomy 6:5, "you" and "your" are singular: "... You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might."

Footnote: Mike Farraguti has a provocative take on Philippians 1:6:
    “You’re gonna get better and there’s nothing you can do about it.”