Nov. 15, 2021
1 Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
2 Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
4 Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy,
5 For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now;
6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
7 Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace.
8 For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.
9 And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;
10 That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;
11 Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
I can’t help but wonder … were he alive today, would Paul write us such a letter? Are we fellow workers in the gospel? Some will say they are, but they aren’t. Some will say they aren’t, but really, they are. We are fallen, we humans. It’s a difficult world (when has it ever been otherwise?) and we only have so much time to do all the things that must be done in any given day. But I suspect most of us try to keep the gospel – to keep Jesus – front and center of each day. We can pray while we drive. We can sing hymns to ourselves while we wait on line for fast food. We can hum Praise God from Whom all blessings flow as we fold the laundry.
Verses 9 and 10 are what we should be working on daily if not hourly. May our love for Jesus – and for each other – abound and may we set our hearts and minds on those things that are excellent. We do have an ace in the hole – we know what those ‘excellent’ things are. That’s where we need to be.
Words on the Word 
When I read Paul’s letters I try to imagine how he spoke, his actual voice so to speak (!). I think of him as a slightly gruff uncle, intense, authoritive but not unkind. There is so much to get one’s head around in what he writes that a good many sessions with Bishop Chad and his Zoom Bible class would be needed to get to the roots of what Paul is saying. In the meantime we have to do our best to do what we know to be right.
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My apologies – your comment went into moderation and needed my approval. I think that happens with the first comment – I’ll check into it. “There is so much to get one’s head around …” that’s why Bible study is a life-long endeavor. God has made it (the Bible) accessible to all; that’s how we can teach little children in Sunday school and the “mature” from the same book. Never ceases to amaze me.
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