We are in the midst of a global crisis. COVID-19 has spread to 195 countries, including our own, the US. The numbers of Americans infected and those who have died from their symptoms continue to climb. As of 2:36 PM on March 23, 2020, 41,424 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19 and 498 have died. According to the US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, this week, March 22-28, “it’s going to get bad.” Our federal and state governments have issued guidelines asking us to practice social distancing, telling us to stay home and to leave our houses only for groceries or emergencies. Why? Because we can save lives.

Despite these warnings, many Americans, some of whom are Christians, are failing to heed the advice and, in some cases, orders of federal and local governments. We all have that family member or friend who thinks that they are invincible, that this crisis is a hoax, or that there is no chance that they will get the virus. This situation gave me pause to stop and to consider: what would the apostle Paul say to such individuals who fail to practice social distancing? The answer is simple: he would tell them to stop being selfish and to look out for the interest of others, especially the vulnerable, and thus follow Jesus’s example.

In the mid-50s CE, Paul wrote a letter to his converts in Philippi (a city in northwest Greece: see the map below) to address the selfish attitudes of some Christians that were causing problems within the Philippian Church.

Paul tries to accomplish this task by reminding the Philippian Christians of Jesus’s example in what Michael Gorman rightly calls Paul’s “master story,” Phil 2:6-11 (see Michael Gorman, Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul’s Theology and Spirituality [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019], 33-34). Philippians 2:6-11 may be an early Christian hymn or poem and Paul prefaces it with an admonition for his converts to fulfill his joy by being focused on the same thing (Phil 2:2). The apostle goes on to define what this same thing is. It involves adopting an attitude of humility, regarding other people as more superior than yourself, and being concerned about the affairs of others (Phil 2:3-4). Paul wants his converts to consider how their actions affect others.

To drive this point home, he appeals to Jesus’s self-sacrificing example (Phil 2:5) and then quotes this likely hymn or poem, saying of Jesus

who existed in the form of God and did not regard equality with God as something to exploit. Rather, he emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave. He was made in the likeness of humans and he was found in form like a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient unto death, even death produced by a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at Jesus’s name every knee in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every tongue might confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father’s glory (Phil 2:6-11; my translation).

Paul uses Jesus as the self-sacrificing example par excellence. Before the incarnation, he lived in heaven where he existed in the form of God. The English verb that I have translated “existed” is a translation of the Greek participle ὑπάρχων (hyparchōn). I have rendered this participle as literal as possible as the KJV and the NIV do:

Who, being (ὑπάρχων) in the form of God . . . (KJV)

Who, being (ὑπάρχων) in very nature God . . . (NIV)

However, the participle must be interpreted. One of the most common interpretations of ὑπάρχων (hyparchōn) is that it is concessive:

Who, though (ὑπάρχων) he was in the form of God . . . (RSV)

Who, though (ὑπάρχων) he was in the form of God . . . (NRSV)

Who, though (ὑπάρχων) he was in the form of God . . . (ESV)

There is, however, another, and I would argue, better translation of ὑπάρχων. The participle is causal. Thus, ὑπάρχων should be rendered as follows:

because he was in the form of God . . .

In his recent book Participation in Christ, Gorman argues for this translation and concludes that for Paul:

“. . . Christ did what he did not merely in spite of being in the form of God and equal with God but also precisely because he was in the form of God and equal to God” (Gorman, Participation in Christ, 37).

Thus, it was because of Jesus’s pre-incarnate status that he emptied himself, took on the form of a slave, and died a cruel death on the cross. In short, it was because Jesus had power and status that he used that power and status to help others, thereby making him the perfect example of someone who “paid attention not to his own affairs but to the affairs of others” (Phil 2:4). In the process, he left us this wonderful example to follow.

What does all this have to do with social distancing during the COVID-19 crisis? Because we have the ability and freedom not to practice social distancing, we should follow Jesus’s example, forgo that ability and freedom, and consider the health and safety of the vulnerable in our society. In short, Paul would say to all those not practicing social distancing to stop being selfish, to get over themselves, and to be like Jesus: pay attention to those with less power than you and serve them.

Who knows? Your actions might result in the most Christ-like act of all, saving the lives of others.