Philippians 4

15. God will reveal also this unto you.** Paul refers to the great truth that the Spirit of God, which has revealed to them the light of the gospel, will also carry on and complete this his revelation in them; that He will continually advance them in Christian knowledge; and, where they are still in error and divided in opinion, there too will he yet make known to them the one true way. N.

18. There were many persons in the Church at Philippi, pure and noble as that Church was in the main, who professed to be Christians, but who showed by their deportment that they were real enemies of the religion which they professed. The “Cross of Christ” is an emphatic phrase to denote the Christian religion. As the sacrifice on the cross constituted the very essence of Christianity, the term came to denote the Christian religion itself. It is here used, perhaps, also to show more emphatically the apostle’s view of the extreme heinousness of the offense, that, while they professed to be Christians, they were in fact the enemies of the very peculiarity of the Christian religion. Of their character, and of their fearful doom, he had told them often. He now again reminded them, with tears, of the melancholy truth. He knew that the way to reclaim the deceived and the erring was not to denounce them with harshness, but to entreat them with tears. A. B.

19. Man fallen is but man inverted; his love is where his hatred should be, and his hatred where his love should be; his glory where his shame should be, and his shame where his glory. The apostle says of unconverted men, “They glory in their shame.” T. M.

20. Conversation.** The actual sense of that word is citizenship. In the old English of the Bible, a man’s “conversation” meant, not the mere act of his tongue, but the entire expression of his life in conduct, and so it revealed to what kingdom his heart belonged. F. D. H.—We look for the Saviour. We speak only the language of truth and soberness, of experience and of Scripture, when we say that the heart of man, of all men consciously or unconsciously, is hungering and thirsting for that which only a Person can satisfy; not hungering and thirsting for a gift, for freedom from a felt evil or for possession of a desired good, but hungering and thirsting for the love of a Person; a Person who can be admired without the suspicion of exaggeration, adored without the risk of idolatry, trusted in without danger of disappointment, and reposed upon without the possibility of failure or of separation for ever. V.

21. “Who shall transform the body of our humiliation so as to be conformed to the body of his glory.” The scene of the transfiguration, the radiance of Saul’s conversion, the symbolical apparition in Patmos, give us some idea of the body of his glory. And our body shall be like his, fitted to dwell amid the dazzling brightness of heaven. Our bodies shall cease to be animal, and they shall become “spiritual bodies”—etherealized vehicles for the pure spirit which shall be lodged within them. Hence our bodies should now be guarded against all vicious and groveling indulgence, such as are denounced in the previous verses. The body must now be esteemed as sacred, and kept free from contamination. Eadie.—There is not presented here a resurrection, as a restoration merely of the same earthly body in the same earthly form; but, on the contrary, a glorious transformation, proceeding from the divine, the all-subduing power of Christ; so that believers, free from all the defects of the earthly existence, released from all its barriers, may reflect the full image of the heavenly Christ in their whole glorified personality, in the soul pervaded by the divine life and its now perfectly assimilated glorified organ. N.

2. I BESEECH Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the 4 book of life. Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation 5 be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing 6 by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds 8 through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise,

9 think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. 10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Notwithstanding ye have well done, that ye did communicate with my affliction. Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity. Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God. But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. 20 Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me greet you. All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar’s household. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. 23 Amen.

You may use a childlike confidence in coming to your Father in heaven; you may unbosom before him your smallest disquietudes. With holy habit, hasten with everything to God; not merely when the weightier class of calamities oppress you, but amid the perturbations of ordinary life, the collisions of business, the perplexities of the household, the mutations of health and spirits, nay the clouds of the sky, which too often carry darkness into the windows of the shrinking and sensitive soul. The very moods which make our wheels drag slowly through the daily task, the tempers of those around us, the petty disappointment and chagrin, the slight, the cross, the look of unkindness and the silence of rebuke—all are dispensed in season and in love. Happy is the soul which, having secured an interest in providence by securing acceptance in Christ, can roll its burden on the Lord. J. W. A.—Prayer, not only in the morning watch, but prayer sent voiceless from the heart from hour to hour, makes life hallowed, wakeful, and calm. It becomes beautiful with that beauty of God which eye hath not seen. It is not left comfortless, for prayer brings the Saviour to our side. We seem to feel his hand in ours in the passion of our endeavor to do right when duty and interest clash, and his grasp gives firmness to our faltering resolution. And prayer, continually lived in, makes the presence of a holy and loving God the air which life breathes and by which it lives, so that it mingles consciously with the work of the day. S. A. B.

2. EUODIA and Syntyche seem to have been Christian women of position and influence among the Philippian disciples. What set them at variance we know not; but the dissension between them was unhappy for the Church, as likely to engender a factious spirit; so the apostle makes direct appeal to them to “mind the same thing in the Lord.” He does not look into the dispute between them. Enough that it was not a matter for which the harmony of the Church should be broken. The thing which Euodia and Syntyche ought to mind was the lowliness of Christ Jesus. D. F.

4. Rejoice in the Lord alway. He, the prisoner of the Lord, looking it may be to a near approaching death, finds reason to promise and to require an ever-abiding joy in the consciousness of fellowship with the Lord; to make joy indeed the ground-tone of the Christian life, to make the whole Christian life a jubilee of redemption. But with this connects itself the requisition for a Christian walk, since that joy in the Lord can not exist if the life of the Christian does not correspond to the law of the Lord, does not testify of fellowship with him. N.—Is there such a thing as an aptitude to delight in our natures, and doth the sanctification thereof entitle the joy of saints to a place among the fruits of the Spirit, and yet is the exercise of it to have no place in their hearts and practice? Do not think you are permitted to extinguish or frustrate so considerable a principle of the divine life. Know and settle this persuasion in your hearts, that the rational, regular, seasonable exercise of delight and joy is matter of duty, to be charged upon conscience from the authority of God, and is an integral part in the religion of Christians. Howe.—Happiness in the sense of Christ’s help is one of the great missionary powers on earth, second only to the power of love. And if we would ask how, without any ostentation, we can best obey our Lord’s command, to let our light shine before men, so that they shall glorify our Father in heaven, the answer is: Let all men read in your face the happiness of a Christian that loves his Master. Let them see in your unvarying cheerfulness the assurance of your faith, and the certainty of your hope, and the blessedness of your love. F. T.—It is because God has made an atoning sacrifice and set a great light of hope to rule our day that we can, every one of us, enjoy present good with a merry heart. The past is clear from sin, if only we believe on Christ; and, if we believe on Him, the future is all bright with promise. There is nothing, save the weakness of our faith, to impede our obedience or to jar the music of our cheerfulness into jangling discords of discontent. Cox.

5. Christianity forbids no necessary occupations, no reasonable indulgences, no innocent relaxations. All it requires is that our liberty degenerate not into licentiousness, our amusements into dissipation, our industry into incessant toil, our carefulness into extreme anxiety and endless solicitude. When it directs us “to make our moderation known unto all men,” this evidently implies, that within the bounds of moderation we may enjoy all the reasonable conveniences and comforts of the present life. P.—Everything, in short, requires self-regulative prudence. Innocent in itself, it can be, and very often is, a gate that opens toward excess. We can not refuse everything that has perils in it, for then we should stand back from everything. Take amusements under the same law; not to be mastered by them, but to master them, and be just so much further advanced in all high, manly virtues. H. B.

6,7. “Be careful for nothing” (it lies with us, therefore, to harbor anxieties or to dismiss them); “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (that is, do your part simply and faithfully by recommending your wants to God); “and” (then God shall do his, the author of peace and lover of concord shall confer upon you the blessing, which by your own exertions you could never have attained) “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” E. M. G.—As he had made the whole Christian life a joy in the Lord, so now he makes it also a perpetual prayer. The two stand in intimate connection. Neither can exist without the other. He does not require the suppression of those wants, the sense of which begets anxiety, but that the sense of want should take the form of prayer. Thus will the burdened spirit become lightened, and care of itself will fall away. Yet, although the Christian has wants to spread out before God in prayer, and much to ask of Him for the future, he still finds in every situation enough that calls for thankfulness to God, since all things work together for good to those who love him. Paul had already enjoined on the Philippians, afflicted as they were, to rejoice always in the Lord; and in this it is assumed that there is nothing unreasonable in the requirement that they should give thanks to God. The whole Christian life should be a prayer, the prayer of thanksgiving and of supplication, in the consciousness of grace received and the conscious need of renewed grace. N.

It was a choice saying of Austin, “Every saint is God’s temple, and he who carries his temple about him, may go to prayer when he pleaseth.” Brooks.—He who wishes for a clear head in pursuing business or study, for an understanding quick to perceive truth and a memory attentive to retain it, for ability to spend his time profitably—not wasting his energies in fruitless pursuits nor exhausting them in profitless speculations—will not find the time lost that is spent in prayer to that God who made the understanding, and who can give it just views of the proper proportion and value of things. A holy, humble, calm, submissive life, a life of cheerful piety, self-denial, and of practical benevolence, and a resigned and peaceful death, are the “open reward” of secret prayer. A. B.—Every mercy that is gathered by the hand of prayer is sweet; but those blessings which are received without either supplication or thanksgiving lack the precious perfume of a Saviour’s love, and leave no fragrance in the ungrateful heart. Brooks.

7. This peace, as it has God for its author, Paul accordingly describes as a peace which is above all human conception. He who has this peace has more than he himself knows, more than he is able to set forth in thoughts and words. It is an overflowing heavenly repose, with which nothing earthly can be compared. The power of this peace, says Paul, will conduct the souls that live in fellowship with Christ safe and unharmed through all conflicts and assaults from within and from without. From this proceeds the ground-tone of their thoughts and feelings; this is their protection, which avails against all human care. N.—He gives himself most fully to those who ask for him secretly and often. He enters the soul when all the doors of sense are shut; he gives his benediction to each and all of its faculties: “Peace be unto you.” The soul hears him, it sees him not; the soul feels him, yet as if insensibly; and his presence is itself that peace of God which passeth all understanding. Henceforth, enriched by his indwelling, the soul’s desire is to desire nothing, its will to will for nothing, its care to care for nothing, its wealth to possess nothing, out of God, its one, its everlasting treasure. H. P. L.

8. The apostle is giving the outlines of an exemplary man, and accordingly seizes upon the fundamental elements of morality, and inculcates as duty everything in which these elements essentially enter as constituents. The first is truth—whatsoever things are true. He assumes the inherent rectitude of veracity, its indispensable and eternal obligation, and enjoins upon his readers to cultivate a spirit that shall reverence and exemplify this obligation in the whole extent of its application. He next signalizes the principle of self-respect, which saves a man from all that is little, or mean, or indecent in deportment—whatsoever things are honest; rather, whatsoever things are venerable or truly honorable—whatsoever is calculated to command respect or deserves veneration and esteem. Then comes the master principle of justice, or righteousness, without which all pretensions to integrity are vain and unmeaning. This is the solid basis of an upright character—whatsoever things are just. Next the apostle, as his Master had done before him, insists upon inward purity, the regulation of the thoughts, appetites, and affections, so as to prevent the contamination of aught that is unholy or defiling—whatsoever things are pure. Under this head are obviously included temperance, chastity, and modesty. The things that are lovely comprehend everything that is fitted to conciliate or express the sentiment of affection and esteem. It embraces such duties as benevolence, urbanity, courtesy, and sweetness of temper; whatever, in other words, springs from love in us and generates love in others. The things of good report have reference to those matters, indifferent in themselves, by means of which we can recommend our persons and our cause to the confidence and good-will of others. As there might be virtues which are included under none of these heads, the apostle, that he may omit nothing, extends his injunction to them. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise—if there be anything which a good man ought to observe, anything right or praiseworthy, that can not be reduced to any of these categories—it is to receive the Christian man’s attention. This passage, then, according to the interpretation which has been given, exhibits the model of character which Christianity proposes to its followers, and which their Christian profession exacts of them that they shall steadily endeavor to realize. It is the apostle’s picture of an exemplary man. J. H. T.

From the evangelic history is drawn the idea of all that is beautiful in virtue; and from the preceptive parts of the Scriptures the explicit rules of morality, and from the doctrinal parts the impulsive principle of affectionate obedience. With a system of ethics, itself faultless as a definite rule, may it not be affirmed that a loving loyalty to such sovereign, at once Teacher and Saviour, embraces every motive that can tend to secure a correspondent moral harmony and completeness in the conduct and temper of his subjects and disciples? I. T.—Honor, frankness, magnanimity, and the whole of that royal family, are the vigorous and graceful stock on which Christianity ingrafts its new and divine principle. Whatever moral beauty it does not create, Christianity claims and makes its own by adoption. These well-born virtues are orphans in the world till Christ shows them the Father. Something is greatly wanting in them till they learn from Jesus a filial submission and a holy trust. But separate them from self-confidence, and you liberate them for a boundless progress. Hallow them by a gospel penitence, and they rise into a new and an infinite dignity. They root themselves, then, in a firmer soil. That cluster of radiant traits which gain a uniform approval in the worldliest companies, which conform to the highest secular standard, never reach their loftiest growth till Faith crowns them with her unrivaled glory. On their own ground, then, and for their ultimate perfecting, these traits that men everywhere admire for their manliness must confess the sway of religion, and be sanctified by her doctrines. F. D. H.

Think on these things. There is one art of which every man should be master, the art of REFLECTION. If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all? In like manner, there is one knowledge which it is every man’s interest and duty to acquire, namely, SELF-KNOWLEDGE; or to what end was man alone, of all animals, induced with the faculty of self-consciousness? Revelation has provided new subjects for reflection, and new treasures of knowledge, never to be unlocked by him who remains self ignorant. Self-knowledge is the key to this casket, and by reflection alone can it be obtained. S. T. C.—It is not the bee’s touching upon the flowers that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon them, and drawing out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on divine truth that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian. Bp. H.

9. In me, do.** The perfect model we have in Jesus Christ, and in him alone; but God accommodates himself to a necessity of our weakness, and shows to us also imperfect models, which, while remaining far behind the Master, yet proceed greatly in advance of us, and in whom natural infirmity, without being destroyed, has been to such an extent restrained, that it leaves the field open for a Christian life which is real, complete, and victorious. Paul is one of those imperfect models, and the least imperfect, perhaps, which has ever been given to the earth. Monod.

10-12. Paul here gives us a model of the genuine Christian character in his demeanor in respect to external things. The Christian, in the power of the Lord through which he is able to do all things, proves his independence of the world, and his supremacy over it, by his ability to endure joyfully all the privations which the Lord lays upon him, in the circumstances of his lot, in what is required of him by his calling. His soul, filled with the divine life, can not be bowed down by earthly want. Subjected to privation, he so much the more feels and proves his inward mastery of the world. But the Christian is far also from that self-imposed mortification of the flesh, in an imaginary spirituality, which nevertheless only serves for the satisfaction of the fleshly mind; for in the Holy Scriptures, all which does not proceed from the divine Spirit, all which comes from our own will, therefore every form of vanity and spiritual pride, is ascribed to the flesh. N.

11. To be content. Though men can not bring their means to their minds, yet ought they to bring their minds to their means, and learn content in every state. Brooks.—There is no condition so full and affluent, but content is and will be a necessary supplement to make a man happy in it. Content is the gift of heaven, and not the certain effect of anything on earth; and it is as easy for Providence to convey it without wealth as with it. Happiness and comfort stream immediately from God himself, as light issues from the sun, and sometimes looks and darts itself into the meanest corners, while it forbears to visit the largest and the noblest rooms. Every man is happy or miserable, as the temper of his mind places him either directly under or beside the influences of the divine nature; which enlighten and enliven the disposed mind with secret, ineffable joys, and such as the vicious or unprepared mind is wholly unacquainted with. R. S.

12. We need to become like little children, willing to let our heavenly Father guide us, without imposing upon him any conditions; willing to have much or little, to be learned or ignorant, to go or stay, to sit down or to rise up, to speak on or to be silent, to be on the mount of joy or in the valley of humiliation—to be anything or nothing, just as God wills. Tauler.—The greater the faith that lets the Lord take thought, the less the need. The less the faith, the greater the need. The greater the anxious care, the greater the pressing difficulty. The greatness of the need is no condition with the believer for the greatness of anxious thought. The believer says: “Everywhere, and in all things, I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” A. C.

13. Observe the order of the ideas: First, I can do all things. This is the expression of a resolution to work, to attempt all duty. He does not say, I will wait until I see and feel the breathing of the Spirit of Christ. No; I will arise and confidently do every act which is commanded. Second, Through Christ which strengtheneth me. This is the expression of actual belief that Christ does strengthen. This is being strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. We learn this truth, then, as to the order in which these ideas arise in the mind of a Christian. We set ourselves about the work of piety. The Spirit of Christ makes this work effectual. J. W. A.—To be satisfying, or serene, or strong, our life must link itself through a mediator to God, and breathe by his inspiration. When I can begin every day, or undertaking, with the feeling, “I do it not of myself, so much as the Spirit through me,” then I labor with more than my poor mortal ingenuity; the cunning of my fingers is the simple desire to be about my Father’s business; and I can do all things through Christ strengthening me. Consciously, distinctly, resolutely, habitually, we need to give ourselves, our business, our interests, our families, our affections, into the Spirit’s hands, to lead and fashion us as he will. “Without me”—it needs to be brought into the souls, and so into the labor and life, of the people—“without me ye can do nothing—without the principles of my religion—without the purity and justice and charity of the beatitudes—without faith in my person—without the spirit of my life and the sacrifice of my cross!” Nothing, literally nothing, in the final reckoning without our Lord! F. D. H.

15,16. These poor Philippians willingly constituted themselves the apostle’s treasurers; and, whether he was in the course of travel, as at Corinth, or in prison, as at Rome, their beneficence found means to reach him. This was their liberality—often and earnestly acknowledged—to Paul himself. W. A. B.

19. This was the language of gratitude, drawn forth from the apostle by the kindness shown him in a season of difficulty by the Philippian Christians. And it expresses most naturally the feelings of a holy soul under a sense of kindness. “I can not recompense you,” it says, “but that gives me no pain—my God can, and my God will. Ye sent once and again unto my necessity; my God will send to you in yours. He will supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” It is our real need that is to be supplied, not our imaginary need. His supplies are to meet our necessities, not our wishes. Sometimes they may be in direct opposition to our wishes. Taking into view their character, their circumstances, and their high destination, the great God will so deal with the people he loves that he could not possibly deal with them more bountifully or more munificently. “No good thing will he withhold from them.” They shall have everything which can contribute to their wel-

fare, and have it in the richest measure. C. B.—God’s hearing and answering prayer in this life assures his servants that he is their true and faithful Saviour. How often have I cried to him when there appeared to be no help in second causes; and how frequently, suddenly, and mercifully has he delivered me! I have also seen wonders done for others by prayer more than for myself. And what were all those merciful answers but the fruits of Christ’s power, faithfulness, and love, the fulfilling of his promises, and the earnest of the greater blessing of immortality which the same promises entitle me to? Bax.