Week 47 Philippians 1
Paul’s prayer to the church:
This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,
so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.
It’s a pretty interesting prayer. I break it down…personalize it.
Paul’s hope & prayer is that my love will grow. The love he’s talking about isn’t static. It has a dynamic quality. It’s process-oriented.
Paul divides the growth & expansion of love into two similar spheres: a) increased knowledge and b) increased depth-of-insight. Whatever the exact difference is between them the point is that expanding-love isn’t random. Directionally-speaking it’s targeted at knowledge-and-wisdom.
(I notice that Paul doesn’t say anything about how I feel. The love he’s referring to starts with knowledgeableness. With wisdom.)
One of the benefits of Knowledgeable Love is that I’ll be able to discern what is best – that’s how Paul puts it. I’ll be able to sort through things…make distinctions…be more discriminating. It’s an advantageous development.
And even though being more discriminating is it’s own big benefit Paul says there’s two connected by-products: a) becoming blameless and b) gaining righteous (he calls them fruits of righteousness).
It’s a transformative process. I start as one kind of person. I evolve into another kind. (I notice nothing is said about the change being easy or straightforward.)
Note: quote from Philippians 1:9-11 (NIV)