Phili 1:7-11 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 7 It is meet for me to think this - Εστι δικαιον· It is just that I should think so, because I have you in my heart - you live in my warmest love and most affectionate remembrance. Inasmuch as both in my bonds - Because you have set your hearts upon me in my bonds, sending Epaphroditus to minister to me in my necessities, , and contributing of your own substance to me, , sending once and again to me while I was in bonds for the defense of the faith, , ; those things which being a sweet savor, a sacrifice well pleasing and acceptable to God, , confirm my hope concerning you; especially when I find you yet standing firm under the like afflictions, having the same conflict which ye saw in me, when I was among you, , etc., and now hear to be in me, . Whitby.

Philippians 1:7-11

Verse 7

It is meet for me to think this - Εστι δικαιον· It is just that I should think so, because I have you in my heart - you live in my warmest love and most affectionate remembrance.

Inasmuch as both in my bonds - Because you have set your hearts upon me in my bonds, sending Epaphroditus to minister to me in my necessities, Phi 2:25, and contributing of your own substance to me, Phi 4:14, sending once and again to me while I was in bonds for the defense of the faith, Phi 4:15, Phi 4:16; those things which being a sweet savor, a sacrifice well pleasing and acceptable to God, Phi 4:18, confirm my hope concerning you; especially when I find you yet standing firm under the like afflictions, having the same conflict which ye saw in me, when I was among you, Act 16:12, etc., and now hear to be in me, Phi 1:30. Whitby. Verse 8

For God is my record - I call God to witness that I have the strongest affection for you, and that I love you with that same kind of tender concern with which Christ loved the world when he gave himself for it; for I am even ready to be offered on the sacrifice and service of your faith, Phi 2:17. Verse 9

This I pray - This is the substance of all my prayers for you, that your love to God, to one another, and to all mankind, may abound yet more and more, ετι μαλλον και μαλλον περισσευη, that it may be like a river, perpetually fed with rain and fresh streams so that it continues to swell and increase till it fills all its banks, and floods the adjacent plains.

In knowledge - Of God's nature, perfections, your own duty and interest, his work upon your souls, and his great designs in the Gospel.

And in all judgment - Και πασῃ αισθησει· In all spiritual or moral feeling; that you may at once have the clearest perception and the fullest enjoyment of those things which concern your salvation; that ye may not only know but feel that you are of God, by the Spirit which he has given you; and that your feeling may become more exercised in Divine things, so that it may he increasingly sensible and refined. Verse 10

That ye may approve things that are excellent - Εις το δοκιμαζειν ὑμας τα διαφεροντα· To the end that ye may put to proof the things that differ, or the things that are in are more profitable. By the pure and abundant love which they received from God they would be able to try whatever differed from the teaching they had received, and from the experience they had in spiritual things.

That ye may be sincere - Ἱνα ητε ειλικρινεις. The word ειλικρινεια, which we translate sincerity, is compounded of ειλη, the splendor of the sun, and κρινω, I judge; a thing which may be examined in the clearest and strongest light, without the possibility of detecting a single flaw or imperfection. "A metaphor," says Mr. Leigh, "taken from the usual practice of chapmen, in the view and choice of their wares, that bring them forth into the light and hold up the cloth against the sun, to see if they can espy any default in them. Pure as the sun." Be so purified and refined in your souls, by the indwelling Spirit, that even the light of God shining into your hearts, shall not be able to discover a fault that the love of God has not purged away.

Our word sincerity is from the Latin sinceritas, which is compounded of sine, without, and cera, wax, and is a metaphor taken from clarified honey; for the mel sincerum, pure or clarified honey, is that which is sine cera, without wax, no part of the comb being left in it. Sincerity, taken in its full meaning, is a word of the most extensive import; and, when applied in reference to the state of the soul, is as strong as the word perfection itself. The soul that is sincere is the soul that is without sin.

Without offense - Απροσκοποι· Neither offending God nor your neighbor; neither being stumbled yourselves, nor the cause of stumbling to others.

Till the day of Christ - Till he comes to judge the world, or, till the day in which you are called into the eternal world. According to this prayer, a man, under the power and influence of the grace of God, may so love as never to offend his Maker, to the latest period of his life. Those who deny this, must believe that the Spirit of God either cannot or will not do it; or, that the blood of Christ cannot cleanse from all unrighteousness. And this would be not only antiscriptural, but also blasphemous. Verse 11

Being filled with the fruits of righteousness - By righteousness we may understand, here, the whole work of the Spirit of God, in the soul of a believer; and by the fruits of righteousness, all holy tempers, holy words, and right actions. And with these they are to be filled, πεπληρωμενοι, filled up, filled full; the whole soul and life occupied with them, ever doing something by which glory is brought to God, or good done to man.

By Jesus Christ - That is, according to his doctrine, through the power of his grace, and by the agency of his Spirit.

Unto the glory and praise of God - God being honored when the work of his grace thus appears to men in the fruits of righteousness; and God is praised by all the faithful when his work thus appears. Every genuine follower of God has his glory in view by all that he does, says, or intends. He loves to glorify God, and he glorifies him by showing forth in his conversion the glorious working of the glorious power of the Lord.