Philippians 1:3-11
I Thank My God Every Time
3I thank my God every time I remember you.
4In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy,
5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now,
6being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
7It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart. For in my chains and in my defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partners in grace with me.
8God is my witness how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,
10so that you may be able to test and prove what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
11filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Berean Standard Bible
Paul is in custody when he writes this, and it takes him until the seventh verse to mention it. The chains arrive as a clause tucked inside a sentence about how fond he is of these people. What he leads with instead is what goes on in his own head whenever they come to mind.
I thank my God every time I remember you. In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy,
Not out of duty, then, and not with a sigh, and not because a list on the wall has their names on it. He is writing from custody, about people he has no way of going to visit, and gladness is still the first thing through the door.
The reason he gives is partnership, and it is a harder word than it sounds. Partnership is not admiration and it is not agreement. It means having your own money and your own risk inside somebody else's work. He tells them it started on the first day and has not stopped since, and later in this same letter he fills in what he has in mind: they sent to him more than once, including while he was in Thessalonica. Then comes the sentence people paint on walls.
He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Nobody in Philippi is the subject of either verb. They did not start the work and they will not be the ones to finish it. Paul is confident about them, and his confidence is parked somewhere other than in them. He gives an endpoint as well, and it is the day of Christ Jesus. Paul is settled about something whose finish is in neither his hands nor theirs, and he is settled about it in chains, on the other side of a door he cannot open.
He never says they feel sorry for him. He says they are partners in grace with him, which puts them inside the trouble rather than beside it looking in. Then he prays, and what he asks for is not what most of us would ask on behalf of people we cannot reach.
that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight
Not comfort, and not relief. He wants their love to grow a mind on it, and he says what the mind is for: so they can test and prove what is best. Love with knowledge in it can look at two things and tell them apart.
How We Know
The partnership in verse 5 is not left vague. Later in the same letter, Philippians 4:15 says that in the early days no church but Philippi partnered with Paul in giving and receiving, and 4:16 says they provided for his needs while he was in Thessalonica.
So the word in verse 5 has a specific history behind it, supplied by the same letter later on.
Verse 7 is the other half. He says he is in chains, and 4:18 has him thanking them for a gift carried by Epaphroditus, which means the partnership was still running while he was in custody.
Questions
1 When somebody in this family comes into your head during the day, what tends to arrive with them: a worry, an irritation, or something you are glad about?
AnswerHonest answers are the useful ones here. For most of us the worry gets there first. Paul thanks God every time these people cross his mind, and he prays for them with joy rather than out of obligation, and he is doing it from a prison.
2 Paul calls them partners. What does that word carry here, beyond being fond of each other?
AnswerBeing in the same work with your own money and your own risk in it. Later in the letter he says they sent to him more than once, including while he was in Thessalonica, so the word has a cost attached to it and a history behind it.
3 Who begins the good work in them, and who brings it to an end?
AnswerGod does both. Paul is confident about the Philippians and the confidence is not resting on the Philippians. He names an endpoint as well, the day of Christ Jesus.
4 Paul is in chains and could ask God for anything at all. What does he ask for them?
AnswerNot comfort and not an end to their troubles. He asks that their love grow in knowledge and insight, so they can look at two things that both seem fine and tell which one is better.
What This Means for Us
Paul asks God for it. That is the first thing about the discernment in this prayer: it is not a competence he tells them to build, it is something he asks God to give them, in a letter that has already said God began the work in them and will carry it to completion.
He also says where the yield comes from. Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Not grown by the Philippians, and not finally about them either. Love with knowledge in it is part of what God is finishing in these people, and the closing line of the prayer says whose glory it is for.
The hard calls in a family are hardly ever between good and bad. They come between two options that both look fine. So before the next one here gets argued about, ask God for the insight to tell them apart, and treat the answer as something he is growing in this house rather than something we have to be clever enough to arrive at.
Prayer
Father, thank you that you started this and you will finish it, and that neither end of it rests on us. Grow our love until it can tell the difference between things. Give us insight, and use it to make us kinder rather than sharper. Amen.