Main Point
Prayer is powerful, and we need to engage in prayer for those who we are in fellowship with
Overview
Fee
In every truly Christian life the most obvious evidence of the experience of God’s grace and peace is gratitude and joy (cf. 4:4, 6). Thus in his earliest letter, to a church that was experiencing severe trial, Paul concluded by exhorting, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this [all three of these] is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess 5:16–18). Our letter is the clear evidence, some twelve years or so later, that Paul was as good as his preaching
First, he is genuinely grateful for them; indeed every time he thinks about them in prayer, he both thanks God for them—and for their lifelong partnership with him in the gospel—and prays for them with great joy, confident that God will bring his own good work in them to full fruition (vv. 3–6). Second, Paul’s present joy and confidence stem from his deep sense of personal relationship with them, evidenced both by their partnership with him in the gospel and his profound affection for them (vv. 7–8). They share in God’s grace with him even in his present chains. Finally, he reports the content of his prayer, whose concern is primarily for an increase in their love for one another, and thus that they be filled with the fruit of righteousness now and blameless at the coming of Christ (vv. 9–11). Thus through prayer and thanksgiving he anticipates the various concerns of the letter—their partnership with him in the gospel, his deep concern for them, and the need for love to replace internal bickering.
Guthrie
We see two main movements in this passage: verses 3-8 and 9-11.
Verses 3-8 presents a notoriously difficult, even convoluted, sentence structure.
Chiastic Structure
I thank my God every time I remember you (1:3)
Praying for you with joy because of your participation in the gospel (1:4-5)
Because I am confident of God’s continued work in you (1:6)
Since I have you in my heart (1:7c)
Accordingly, it is right for me to think this way about all of you (1:7a-b)
Since you are grace partners with me in the gospel (1:7e-g)
God is my witness how I long for all of you…(1:8)
In the second main movement of our passage, 9-11, the apostle offers a beautiful prayer consisting of a main clause followed by layers of subordinate clauses.
I pray this:
(Content) that your love might grow exponentially in knowledge and perception
(Result) discernment of what is best
(Purpose) that you might be sincere and faultless
(Circumstances) having been filled with the fruit of righteousness
Motyer
The content of verses 3–7 runs like this. Paul’s memory of the Philippians yields the double fruit of thanksgiving to God (3) and joyful intercession for them (4). The particular matter for thanksgiving (5) is their fellowship in furthering the gospel. But all the while, whether taken up with thanksgiving or supplication, he has one unchanging conviction (6): God will never let them go, but will make them fully perfect. This conviction, Paul holds, is securely based (7), for it arises from his love for them, and, loving them as he does, he cannot but feel assured that they will remain in Christ. Love, however, could be no more than wishful thinking. So Paul moves on to find an objective ground for his conviction about the Philippians: their commitment to the defence and proclamation of the gospel is clear proof that they really partake of divine grace.
We must not, of course, despise inward, personal and spiritual convictions about Christian assurance. It is a wonderful experience to sense the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,11 or to sense afresh that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,12 just as in human relationships we prize the sense of being loved by those whom we love. Yet, at the same time, if the professed awareness of being a child of God is not matched by the outward evidence of the kind of life a child of God should live, is not the ‘awareness’ a thin, even an unreal, thing? The truth of Christian assurance plays a large part in John’s first letter. It rests in part on our experience of God’s Spirit living in us,13 but, unquestionably, John’s emphasis falls on the public testimony of our lives—the evidence of genuine compassion, of keeping his commandments, of living as Jesus lived and of loving the brethren.14 These are the grounds on which we can know that we are children of God. Consequently, the Bible calls Christians to ‘confirm’ their ‘call and election’15 by means of the evidence of a life growing in Christian values and habits.
Paul found such evidence in the Philippians. There are six separate strands of evidence, but they all interwine around the common theme of the ‘gospel’. We may start therefore by noting that Paul saw among them and himself unanimity in the truth: he speaks of their partnership in the gospel (verse 5), and of their work in the defence and confirmation of the gospel (verse 7). He does not need to define what he means by ‘the gospel’. He is able to take for granted that they hold to the same good news as he, which can be summed up in the words ‘salvation by faith in Christ’, as in the one-sentence sermon preached to the Philippian jailor, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.’16 This unanimity of doctrine and of experience is, throughout the New Testament, the basis of fellowship. Indeed the word ‘partnership’ means ‘joint-ownership’, ‘participation in a common purpose’. Holding the truth is a mark of the Christian, and a ground of assurance.17
Paul moves on to mention, secondly, their concern for the spread of the gospel, for verse 5 should be translated as in the Revised Version, ‘the furtherance of the gospel’.18 Those who truly possess the gospel also propagate it. The gospel is not to be hidden away, but worked with.19 And their evangelistic concern was coupled with the work of establishing believers in their faith, described by Paul as the confirmation of the gospel. This word ‘confirmation’ (bebaiōsis) is related to the word Peter used, in the quotation already made about confirming one’s call and election. It occurs again in Hebrews 6:16 in the expression ‘an oath … for confirmation’, with the idea of giving something a firmer or more enduring basis, or making it more certain in some respect than it was before. In the present case, therefore, it well expresses the work of edification or strengthening which is the necessary complement to evangelism.20
The remaining three items may be taken together. Paul saw in the Philippians perseverance, in that they had prolonged their fellowship from the first day until now (verse 5), and endurance, in that they were ready to stand for the gospel even when it could involve imprisonment for its adherents. He also saw their identification with the gospel whenever it was called in question, as they leapt to its defence (verse 7). The leading idea of these three is, of course, perseverance. Their association with the gospel was not transient, nor conditional upon favourable circumstances. Nor was it silent. They kept on in their faith; they held on to their faith in opposition; they spoke up for their faith when challenged. They persevered. They did not expect people to believe their claim to be the children of God simply because they said so; they showed that it was so. They provided human evidence on which assurance was well based.
Christian growth, says Paul, is for the day of Christ, that is, with a view to Christ’s coming. He is on his way and we must be prepared for him. The responsibility to be ready is wholly ours. It is our love which is to abound more and more; it is we who are to advance in knowledge and to see to it that we are pure and blameless when he comes again. Does this in any way contradict the truth we noted at verse 6, that salvation is all of God, leaving no room for effort or contribution from us? Certainly not! For, as we also saw, the grace which saves also energizes. The free gift of salvation is also a gift of new life. The Christian, saved by grace, demonstrates what has happened by exercising new energies. Consequently—as is implied in Paul’s prayer—the word of God to all who have become Christians is always a call to act—to work, run, imitate, to be a soldier, athlete and farmer.1 There is a whole programme of good works planned out by God for those whom he has re-created in Christ.2 In other words it is by obedience—active, costly, personal, voluntary, disciplined obedience—that we enter into conscious experience of what our salvation in Christ means. This is why the Bible can say that God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey him.3
The growing-point for the Christian, as Paul discerns it, is love, a seed from which he anticipates vigorous growth as it abounds more and more.5 Its upthrusting shoots are received and held by two stakes, knowledge and all discernment,6 and under their control begin to put forth leaves and blossoms: first the distinctive life-style of the Christian as we approve what is excellent7 and then, at the very heart of this life-style,8 the fair blossom of holiness in both the inner person (pure) and the outer behaviour (blameless).9 Finally there is the perfected fruit, a righteousness adequate even for the great Day itself.
Verses 3-4
Fee
Here, then, is the paradigm of Pauline spirituality: thanksgiving and prayer, filled with joy, on behalf of all of God’s people in Philippi. See further on 4:4–7.
Guthrie
Expression of thanks to God for various blessings was standard in Jewish prayers of Paul’s era, as reflected in the NT (e.g., Matt 15:36; Mark 14:23; John 11:41; Acts 28:15) and the letters of broader Hellenistic Judaism (e.g., 2 Macc 1:10-13).
The word translated here as “remember” (mneia) occurs seven times in Paul’s writings, and almost always in the thanksgiving at the letter’s beginning.
Rom 1:9, Eph. 1:16; Phil 1:13; 1 Thess 1:2; 2 Tim 1:3; Phlm 4. - 1 Thess 3:6 is the only exception
Although some have suggested that Paul’s intention here is to thank God for the Philippian’s remembrance of him, it is better to read the sentence as expressing Paul’s thanks for the Philippians. This accords with the fact that in the opening thanksgiving in his letters, the apostle normally thanks God for the recipients.
Praying for others serves as a foundation of Christian life and ministry for the apostle. And note the inclusiveness of his prayer: I pray for you all”...But the number of uses of this Greek word in the prologue (seven times in the first eight verses), and the thirty-three uses in this relatively short book, indicate that the apostle may have a bigger purpose in mind–namely, to underscore the need for unity in the church.
The gospel of God forms the foundation of a joy-filled life. In Paul’s case, not even prison could dampen his joy.
Verse 5
Fee
It does not take much reading of Paul’s letters to recognize that the gospel is the singular passion of his life; that passion is the glue that holds this letter together. The gospel, especially in Philippians, for Paul refers primarily neither to a body of teaching nor to proclamation. Above all, the gospel has to do with Christ, both his person and his work. To preach Christ (vv. 15–16) is to preach the gospel, which is all about Christ; to preach the gospel is to proclaim God’s good news of salvation that he has effected in Christ. Thus Paul’s joy in prayer is prompted by their partnership in [the furtherance of] the gospel.
The present focus is on the Philippians’ longtime association with Paul in the gospel, from the first day until now. According to the rest of the letter this took place in two ways: first by their sharing with him of their material means as he is imprisoned for the sake of the gospel (4:15–16); second by their proclaiming, and living in keeping with, the gospel in Philippi, where they are urged to “contend as one [person] for the faith of the gospel” (1:27) as they there “hold out the word of life” (2:16).
Guthrie
Specifically, Pau points to the Philippians’ koinonia in the gospel as that which has given him joy.
Koinonia speaks of participation, of a close association, sharing, and fellowship with someone, which often issues a strong sense of goodwill or altruism.
Some suggest that Paul primarily has in mind the Phillipians’ sharing in his mission by contributing financial support while he was in prison. Others suggest that the “partnership” primarily encompasses their suffering alongside him, as they too shared the gospel on the streets of Philippi. Given the parallels with the end of chapter 1 and the broader parallels between 1:3-11 and 4:10-20, it seems prudent to suggest that both elements, suffering and giving, play a part in the partnership forged between Paul and the church, which the apostle here celebrates.
In Acts, Luke points out that Lydia opened her heart to the gospel as well as her home to the missionaries (Acts 16:14-15, 40). Similarly, after believing the gospel, the Philippians jailer took Paul and Silas home, cared for their wounds, and fed them (vv. 32-34). Once the missionaries left Philippi, members of the church made a public stand for the gospel, sharing it with others in the face of opposition.
Verse 6
Fee
Paul is still not done with his thanksgiving. His mention of their participation in the gospel from the first day until now leads him to add, in a somewhat digressive way, that he is fully confident that what was true from the first day and is still true now will be true at the end as well. But this confidence has very little to do with them and everything to do with God, who both began a good work, which is still in evidence, and will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ. Thus, having reminded them of his joy over their good past and present, Paul turns now to assure them of their certain future.
The day of Christ, on which God will bring his work in them to completion, points to the final consummation of salvation at Christ’s (now second) coming. The reason for this otherwise digressive clause is probably related to another concern that surfaces at several points in the letter: that some of them have apparently begun to lose the basic future orientation that marks all truly Christian life. In 3:15–17 they are urged to follow Paul’s example of desiring to know Christ above all (3:6–11) and eagerly to pursue the prize of knowing him fully at the end (vv. 12–14). Here Paul anticipates that exhortation by focusing on God’s own commitment to bring them to completion on the day of Christ.
Believers in Christ are people of the future, a sure future that has already begun in the present. They are citizens of heaven (3:20) who live the life of heaven, the life of the future, in the present in whatever circumstances they find themselves in. To lose this future orientation, and especially to lose the sense of “straining toward what is ahead, … toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward” (3:13–14), is to lose too much
Guthrie
Paul’s prayers are joyful because of the Philippians’ past record of participation in his ministry (1:5), but his prayers are also hopeful as he anticipates God’s continued work in their lives. He prays with confidence.
The juxtaposition of the apostle’s commendation of the philippians for their “work” with him in the gospel mission (1:5) and his celebration of the Lord’s work in them (1:6) poses no problem for Paul’s biblical theology as these themes are fully integrated in his writings (see 2:12-13).
John Chrysostom: Having just given them a superb testimonial, in order that they should not feel down and out as human beings are so apt to feel, he immediately teaches them to refer both the past and the future–everything–to Christ, who will bring to completion what he has begun in them. He does not take away anything from their achievement, for he has said, “I rejoice because of your fellowship”, obviously pointing to their own very high level of accountability. But he does not imply that the achievement was theirs alone . Rather it was primarily God’s work in them.
The verb rendered “will perfect” (epiteleo) means “to finish” something or “to bring it to completion”.
The Old Testament prophets spoke of the “day” (or “days”) of the Lord, which would bring deliverance for God’s people and judgment for their enemies (e.g., Isa 2:2-21; Joel 1-3; Amos 8:9-11; 9:9-12). At times the Israelites called for the day of the Lrod, thinking it would bring them a good outcome, but Amos foretold that it would not be what they expected, the day of “light” turning out to be a day of “darkness” (Amos 5:18).
Motyer
In the first place, he … began a good work in you. There is a great solemnity about the verb used (enarchomai), both here and in Galatians 3:3 (its only other appearance in the New Testament). It means ‘to inaugurate’, and the tense employed points to a decisive and deliberate act; both the impulsive and the imperfect are ruled out. Here was something planned and executed to perfection.
Salvation would be a wretchedly unsure thing if it had no other foundation than my having chosen Christ. The human will blows hot and cold, is firm and unstable by fits and starts; it offers no security of tenure. But it is the will of God that is the ground of salvation. No-one would be saved had not the Lord been moved by his own spontaneous and unexplained love4 to choose his people before the world was, and, at the decisive moment, to open our hearts to hear, understand and accept ‘the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation’.5 This, then, is assurance: God has willed my salvation.
Secondly, he who has inaugurated Christian experience undertakes to continue it: He … will bring it to completion; or, since the verb is intensive in form and can here express a continuous sense, ‘will evermore put his finishing touches to it’.6
God never gives up. There is no more dramatic elaboration of this truth in the whole Scripture than Ezekiel 20. The prophet does not spare his people. Their rebellion against the Lord has been real and dreadful and has made their history twisted and tortuous. Three times the bell of condemnation rings (verses 8, 13, 21): ‘but they rebelled’. Four times the bell of assurance rings (verses 9, 14, 22, 44): ‘I acted for the sake of my name’. He would not let his people go; he was moved by impulses and motives locked within his own nature. It was he who ‘chose Israel’ (verse 5) and he pledges to be faithful to that choice until the day when ‘all the house of Israel, all of them’ (verse 40) will serve him on his holy mountain. He will never desert his declared intention to have his people for himself. And as the Israel of God, the true inheritors of Ezekiel’s promises, we can say that he will go on perfecting us. The fact that we shall continue in grace is as certain as the fact that God, who cannot lie, will go on working in us.7
The assurance God gives us not only guarantees the outcome; it guarantees too every experience of every day, for in all things God is ‘putting the finishing touches’. Good news, bad news, difficulty, blessing, unexpected happiness, unexpected trouble—it all has a purpose. Concerning all such situations faith affirms, ‘Without this, I would not be ready for the day of Christ.’ This is the immediate, practical and strengthening benefit of the truth of Christian assurance.
Thirdly, the outcome is guaranteed. God is working to a schedule, and the day of Jesus Christ is fixed in the Father’s diary.8 It is as if he is under contract to himself and to his Son. The day will come and everything and everyone will be ready in time for it. There will be no last-minute rush, no botching up, nothing that will ‘do for now’; strikes will not delay it nor carelessness mar it. The Father has weighed up the merits of his Son and the proper response to his work at Calvary, and nothing will suffice but that he should bring his Son out from the invisible glories of heaven and show him publicly to a wondering and worshipping world. For his own glory, the Father must one day see every knee bowed to Jesus and hear every tongue acknowledge his Lordship. And our salvation is as assured as the coming of that day! For it is we, the saints, the believers, the objects of the good work, who must be made ready for his coming ‘on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all who have believed’.9
Here is confidence indeed. Our salvation can no more be forfeited than the Father can break his pledged word to glorify his Son. No wonder, then, that Paul uses the language of a man who has no doubts: I am sure. The perseverance of the saints rests on the perseverance of God with the saints.
Verses 7-8
Fee
Paul is still not finished with his thanksgiving, at least not with the (now convoluted) sentence that began as a thanksgiving. With the comparative conjunction “just as” (omitted from the NIV), he proceeds to offer justification for his confidence in verse 6 and to elaborate on his grounds for thanksgiving in verses 4–5
The verb translated feel is especially prominent in Philippians. It has to do with having or developing a certain “mindset,” including attitudes and dispositions. The NIV’s feel this way about all of you, in the sense of having you in mind—being well disposed toward you—is good colloquial English for this idea.*
The basic reason for such affection is that (literally) “you all are participants together with me in the grace.” But which grace? Many take it with the NIV to refer to God’s saving grace, others to Paul’s apostolic ministry. But in light of verse 29, where the verb of this noun occurs in conjunction with their mutual suffering for Christ, Paul very likely is referring to being “partners together in this grace,” namely, in defending and confirming (= vindicating) the gospel in the face of suffering (chains).
The gospel, as always, is the primary matter; both he and they have had a part in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. But the Philippians are also partners together with him (NIV share) in his present circumstances of being in chains.
Nonetheless, this may also refer to their own defense of the gospel in Philippi, especially in the face of hostility similar to what he has suffered. The hostility, after all, comes from the empire itself, of which both they and he are citizens, now in trouble because they hold allegiance to a citizenship in which Lord Christ holds sway even—especially—over lord Caesar.
Such an uninhibited display of affection makes it clear that Paul was not an academic! He was, in fact, a passionate lover of Christ, which made him an equally passionate lover of Christ’s people. Much can be learned here by those who have pastoral care of any kind, including parents for their children. Paul’s emotion, after all, is simply the outflow of his theology and the spirituality that issues from such theology. His theology has to do with the gospel, which has God as its source and sustainer. Whatever else, those whom we love in Christ first of all belong to God. God has begun the good work in them that he has committed himself to concluding with eschatological glory. That good work is the result of the affection of Christ Jesus, through whom God has brought this “good news” on behalf of his people.
The net result in terms of pastoral care is thanksgiving and joy for the people themselves, for all of them, even those whose antics often seem to bring more grief than pleasure. They belong to God; it is ours to be grateful for what God has done, is doing and will continue to do in their lives. And all of this works much better if the caregiver also shares in the affection of Christ Jesus, by having a good measure of the same affection, predicated on being participants together in the gospel.
Guthrie
The term kardia (heart) is used 156 times in the NT and another 912 times in the LXX; it has a broad semantic range encompassing many aspects of a person’s physical, spiritual, and mental life. Yet, as here, it may describe the inner life or emotions. (Rom 1:24; 9:2; 2 Cor 2:4), much as we may use the English word “heart” today. Here it expresses a deep feeling of affection.
Verses 9-11
Fee
Paul prays (1) for their love to abound yet more and more; that (2) this be accompanied by full knowledge and moral insight, so that (3) they might approve those things that really matter, so that (4) they might be unsullied and blameless when Christ returns as (5) they are now full of the fruit of righteousness, fruit that is (6) effected by Christ Jesus and (7) for the glory and praise of God.
Paul in part prays for the continuation of the very things for which he has just given thanks. This should surprise us none, since both reports reflect the same basic theological framework—present existence in Christ as both “already” and “not yet.” This is where the “what” and the “why” join: Paul’s prayer for them is that they might live the life of the future in the present, so that they might thereby be blameless at its consummation on the day of Christ. The concern is with present life in Christ; the orientation is toward its consummation—that they live for Christ now, and do so in light of his coming day.
Following the lead of the Septuagint, his use of love first of all points to the character of God, and to God’s actions toward his people based on that character. God’s love is demonstrated especially in his forbearance and kindness (1 Cor 13:4), manifested ultimately in the death of Christ for his enemies (Rom 5:6–8).
Thus the primary connotation of love is not “affection,” as in the preceding phrase about Christ (Phil 1:8), but rather a sober kind of love that places high value on a person and actively seeks that person’s benefit
The primary sense of the word translated knowledge is not so much “knowledge about” something as the kind of “full” or “innate” knowing that comes from experience or personal relationship. The second word denotes moral understanding based on experience, hence something close to “moral insight.” Very likely this phrase is something of an abbreviated equivalent to the similar phrase in the (roughly contemporary) prayer in Colossians 1:9 (“that by means of all of the Spirit’s wisdom and insight you might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will”—my translation).
What counts, rather, is keeping the commandments of God (1 Cor 7:19), which in Galatians 5:6 is interpreted as “faith expressing itself through love.” This is the kind of insight he prays for them to have, so that they will be able to continue to discern what is best.
First, by pure and blameless until the day of Christ he means that he wants them to arrive at that day already filled with the fruit of righteousness (item 5), whose source, as always, is through Christ Jesus (item 6). Second, the ultimate goal of everything, especially righteousness expressed by their ever-increasing love, is that they might live to the glory and praise of God (item 7).
In this letter the word righteousness occurs elsewhere only in 3:6 and 3:9. In contrast to “legalistic righteousness” (3:6), Paul says God has given him a different righteousness that expresses itself in particular by his adopting a cruciform lifestyle (3:9–11), like that of Christ himself (2:6–8). To be filled with the fruit of righteousness for Paul means to go the way of the cross, self-emptying so as to become servant of all in place of “selfish ambition” and, in that servanthood, humbling oneself to the point of dying for another in place of “vain conceit” (2:3–8). This is what it means for Paul to “know Christ.” This is the righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. All other righteousness, especially religious righteousness, is filth in comparison (3:8).
Such righteousness alone is to the glory and praise of God (item 7). Here is the ultimate goal of all things. Everything is to the single end that God will receive glory through the work he is doing in their lives. Love that reflects God’s own love is the only righteousness that counts, the only righteousness that is to God’s glory and to his praise.
Resources Used
Cohick, Lynn H. The Story of God Bible Commentary: Philippians. Edited by McKnight. Scot, Zondervan, 2013.
Edwards, Mark J., and Thomas C. Oden, editors. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. InterVarsity Press, 2005.
Fee, Gordon D. Philippians. IVP Academic, 1999.
Freedman, David Noel, et al., editors. The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, Doubleday, 1992.
Guthrie, George H. Philippians. Zondervan Academic, 2023.
Motyer, J. A. The Message of Philippians. InterVarsity Press, 1984.
Wright, Nicholas Thomas. Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters : Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. SPCK, 2004.