The Right Message,
the Wrong Motives

This is one of the most surprising paragraphs Paul ever wrote, and almost none of us would’ve written it.

There were preachers in Rome using Paul’s imprisonment to build their own platforms. He says it flat out. Some of them preached Christ out of envy and rivalry, out of selfish ambition rather than sincerity, actively hoping to stir up more trouble for him while he sat in chains. These weren’t enemies of the gospel. They were coworkers with bad hearts, which is a way more painful category.

Now read Paul’s response slowly. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

He isn’t saying motives are unimportant. Paul insists elsewhere that they are. He’s saying something more specific and way more freeing. His own joy doesn’t hang on other people getting their motives right. The advance of Christ’s name matters more to him than the correction of his rivals, so he refuses to let their smallness set the temperature of his soul.

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His own joy doesn’t hang on other people getting their motives right.

Sit with how rare that is. Most of us can name the person whose success we struggle to celebrate, the one who got the credit or the position we quietly believed should’ve been ours. We’d never call it envy out loud. We call it discernment, or concern, or having some questions about their heart.

Paul cuts through all of it with one question: What does it matter?

Here’s the freedom hiding inside that question. If your joy requires other people to be honest, humble, and fair, then your joy is always at the mercy of people you can’t control. But if your joy is anchored in Christ being made known, then even the people doing it badly can’t take it from you.

Someone is going to do the right thing for the wrong reason this week, and it may even be at your expense. You can spend the week auditing their heart, or you can rejoice that the name of Jesus was said out loud again.