Additional Notes §4
§4 Intercessory Prayer (Phil. 1:9–11)
The introductory thanksgiving, which itself included an element of prayer, is now followed by an intercessory prayer (strictly speaking, a prayer report). The subject matter of this prayer is identical with the subject matter of the letter as a whole; here are concentrated the main concerns to which Paul gives fuller expression throughout the letter.
1:9 / This is my prayer: which catches up “I pray” in verse 4 (although a different Greek word is now used), may mean “I am praying at this moment” (which was no doubt true in any case) or (more probably) “I pray for you regularly, and this is what I pray for,” that your love may abound more and more. For Paul, “the fruit of the Spirit is love” before all else in the lives of which he takes possession (Gal. 5:22); “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5). If such love increases among the Philippian Christians, it will remove those threats to their unity of heart and purpose that arise from occasional clashes of personality and temperament. Paul returns to the subject in 2:2, where he urges his readers to make his “joy complete by … ‘having the same love.’ ”
This love, he trusts, will be accompanied by knowledge and depth of insight. Paul was not blind to the dangers of emotion uncontrolled by intelligence. He was resolved, by his own account, to pray and sing “with my spirit, but … also … with my mind” (1 Cor. 14:15), and he was equally concerned that he and his converts should love in spirit and mind alike.
It is love that fosters the growth of true knowledge and discernment or spiritual perception. “Knowledge,” divorced from love, “puffs up,” whereas “love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). But if love is indispensable, knowledge and depth of insight are necessary. The truth of the gospel is liable to be subverted where ignorance and faulty judgment provide a foothold for the unsound teaching against which the Philippians are put on their guard in chapter 3.
1:10 / When so many competing forms of doctrine and ways of life are presented for acceptance (as they certainly were in the eastern Mediterranean world of the first century), true knowledge and depth of insight will enable Christians to discern what is best (for the expression cf. Rom. 2:18). This might mean “to know what is good or expedient” as against “empty subtleties and speculations” (Calvin, ad loc.) or (as the NIV rendering suggests) to discern “the best among the good” (Bengel, ad loc.). Both kinds of discrimination are necessary. Such discernment comes with mature experience. A classic NT text on this is Hebrews 5:14, with its reference to spiritually mature people “who through practice are able to distinguish between good and evil.” Without this faculty of discrimination one could not develop “a sense of what is vital” (Moffatt). It is the effect, not of a logical process of moral philosophy, but of growing insight into the character and will of God.
It is important in view of the day of Christ, the day of review and reward for his people (cf. v. 6), that they should be pure and blameless. They cannot be so on that day unless they lead pure and blameless lives here and now. Choosing what is best therefore includes pre-eminently choosing what is ethically best. Similarly the prayer in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that God may keep his people “blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” involves his making them “holy in every way” at this present time.
1:11 / The fruit of righteousness that Paul desires to see reproduced in the Philippians’ lives is essentially identical with those graces which, according to Galatians 5:22, 23, make up the “fruit (or ‘harvest’) of the Spirit.” These qualities are the spontaneous product of the new life implanted within them, a life based on “the righteousness that comes from God” (3:9). It is because of their union with him by faith that they will display the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ and which was manifested perfectly in his own character and action. There is no room for self-congratulation here.
In such lives God will be glorified. The words to the glory and praise of God are part of the construction of the sentence, but at the same time they serve the purpose of a doxology concluding the period of thanksgiving and prayer.
1:9 / On intercessory prayer in Paul’s letters see G. P. Wiles, Paul’s Intercessory Prayers.
My prayer: Gk. proseuchomai, whereas in v. 4 the noun deēsis is used. The more general sense of prayer is expressed by proseuchomai (with the noun proseuchē); deēsis (with the verb deomai) denotes the petitionary element in prayer. See 4:6.
Knowledge renders Gk. epignōsis (a compound of gnōsis), used in NT only of moral and religious knowledge. GNB adds the adjective “true,” which is probably intended to convey the force of the prefix epi-; “the compound epignōsis has become a technical term for the decisive knowledge of God which is implied in conversion to the Christian faith” (R. Bultmann, TDNT 1, p. 707, s.v. ginōskō, etc.).
Depth of insight renders Gk. aisthēsis (“perception”), not found elsewhere in NT. Here it denotes moral insight; cf. aisthētēria (“sense organs”) in Heb. 5:14 of the moral faculties trained “to distinguish good from evil.”
1:10 / Pure renders Gk. eilikrinēs (“unmixed” and therefore pure), here (as in 2 Pet. 3:1) in the moral sense (cf. the noun eilikrineia in 1 Cor. 5:8; 2 Cor. 1:12; 2:17). The adjective rendered blameless is aproskopos, which may have either an intransitive force (“not stumbling”) or a transitive force (“not causing others to stumble”), the reference in the one as in the other being ethical. The force is probably intransitive here; in 1 Cor. 10:32 it is transitive (NIV: “do not cause anyone to stumble”). The only other NT occurrence of the adjective is in Acts 24:16, where it is used of Paul’s “clear conscience” (NIV).
1:11 / For fruit or harvest used in an ethical sense cf. Prov. 11:30; Amos 6:12; Eph 5:9; Heb. 12:11; James 3:18. Here the fruit or “harvest” of righteousness (Gk. karpos dikaiosynēs) might conceivably be the fruit which consists in righteousness (dikaiosynēs being construed as genitive of definition), but it is more in accord with the analogy of similar expressions and with Pauline thought to understand it as the fruit which springs from the gift of righteousness or justification that God by his grace bestows on believers. While the participle filled (Gk. peplērōmenoi) is commonly treated as passive, there is a good case for taking it in the middle voice, as in NEB: “reaping the full harvest of righteousness” (cf. G. B. Caird, ad loc.).
There is a curious variant at the end of v. 11, where instead of to the glory and praise of God the “Western” codices F G (with Ambrosiaster) read “for glory and praise to me,” and P46 reads “for the glory of God and praise to me.” The reading “to me” must be understood in the sense of 2:16 (“in order that I may boast on the day of Christ”); even so, it is out of place here, although J.-F. Collange (ad loc.) thinks it “surprising enough in character to be original” (he compares “praise” in a similar eschatological context in 1 Cor. 4:5).