Philippians 1 - Plain English Version(PEV)

1I am Paul, and this letter is from me, and it is from Timothy too, because he is helping me write it. We work all the time for Jesus Christ. We are sending this letter to all God’s special people at Philippi, you people that belong to Jesus Christ. We are writing to you Christian leaders, and to you church helpers, and to all you Christians.

2We are asking God our father, and Jesus Christ our leader, to be good to you, and to make you feel happy and quiet inside yourselves.

The Christians at Philippi helped Paul tell people about Jesus

3Every time I think about you mob, I thank God for you.

4And every time I pray for you, I’m really happy.

5You believed the message about Jesus right from the first day that you heard it, and you helped me tell it to other people. Yes, you helped me with my work. And you are still doing it.

6I know that God is working inside you. He has already started doing a good thing in you, and he will keep on working in you until he has properly finished it. That will be when Jesus Christ comes back again. I’m really sure that God will finish doing this good thing inside you.

7You see, I love you mob very much, so it is all right for me to think about you like that. You are my friends and God is good to you, just like he is good to me. So you help me every time God lets me tell people the good news about Jesus. Right now I’m tied up in jail, and sometimes they take me to court, and I tell them the message about Jesus, and I show them that it is true. And you help me do that.

8Yes, I love you, just like Jesus Christ loves you, and I want to be with you again. God himself knows that is true.

Paul asked God to help the Christians at Philippi

9So I pray like this for you. I ask God to help you to love each other more and more, and to know God better. I ask God to help you to understand spiritual things better.

10-11Then you will know the right way to live, and you will do a lot of good things. And I ask Jesus Christ to help you so that you will always do good things, and never do bad things. Jesus is going to come back again, and I want you to be living in that good way. You will show people that God is good, and they will say that he is really great.

Paul was in jail, but he told more people about Jesus

12My Christian friends, I want to tell you about myself. You know that bad things happened to me, and now I’m in jail. But don’t worry, it is good that I am in jail. Now I can tell more people about Jesus.

13So now everybody here knows that I belong to Jesus Christ, and that is the reason why I’m in jail. All the guards, and soldiers, and everyone else that works in the big boss’s house here, they all know that is the reason why I’m in jail.