Scripture Memorization Week Three {Philippians 4:8-9}

“Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you”

So this is the last part of the little three part memorization on some of Philippians 4. I’m unfortunately already a week  two weeks behind. I have been all over the place lately, with some changes in my husband’s work schedule! Anyways, I’ve learned a lot from these six verses. I’m excited that I have picked them all apart and can now piece them all together in a way that make sense. I can see the bigger picture of what Paul really meant in part of his letter to his friends, the Philippians. And the best part about all of this is that it’s so applicable to our lives today.

If you look up several versions of these verses, you’ll see that from 4:2-9, these verses are under “Final Exhortations”. The definition for exhortation is “an address or communication emphatically urging someone to do something”. In my Bible it’s grouped together with Thanks and Conclusion. These are some of Paul’s final words in his letter to his friends in which he aims to “exhort” or urge them to understand fully what it means to live like he did, a life that is lived for God, and to communicate to them how immensely blessed they’ll be because of it.

Focusing on Truth

Paul says “Finally…”, meaning, this is the last thing I want you to hear “brothers and sisters”, mediate and think of all things true. It seems kind of odd that he starts out with the word “true”. If we’re thinking from worldly standards here, there is no objective meaning of the word truth. It’s based on what each individual person believes is truth. Plus, Paul follows up the word truth with other more pleasing adjectives: lovely, admirable, etc. So why not just say whatever is lovely, to think about those things? But here’s the thing, I think Paul starts out with truth, because as Christians, we only know one meaning of truth. How do we as Christians recognize the one truth that I’m talking about? We can recognize truth by knowing God’s word. That’s why I’m so excited to be on this journey because by knowing his word, all of my thoughts will first go through this filter that will be built up in my mind from knowing God’s Word.  The rest describes what the Bible says is truth: things that are noble, reputable, authentic, lovely, admirable- “anything excellent or praiseworthy”- think about such things. If anyone is in a place to give this advice, it’s Paul. Paul has been the ultimate example for these people of what it’s like to lead a life focusing on God’s truth. And that truth is one that he preached about and taught wherever he went. Preaching about “a crucified Messiah, whosedeath on a cross served both to redeem us and to reveal the character of Godinto which we are continually being transformed”. By doing that, he was blessed immensely by Christ’s peace, that peace that transcends all understanding that I talked about in the last post.

An Exhort for Intentional Positive Thinking

In Proverbs 23:7, I love that Solomon wrote “as a man thinks in his heart so he is”. On a daily basis, I am a glass-half-empty kinda gal. I see the bad in people, situations, and myself. What I think in my heart, has made me what I am. Don’t get me wrong, I yearn to be a positive thinker, but I’m just a Negative Nancy. I am. But if I am to call myself a Christian, I can claim boldly that I understand truth, and by understanding truth, by God’s grace, can I be a glass-half-full gal. God’s grace allows me daily to be able to see the true, noble, reputable, lovely, and admirable things all around me, which will in turn free up so many opportunities for me.  Essentially, what I have concluded is that from Paul’s exhortation to his friends, he is encouraging them to daily intentional positive thinking: focusing on Biblical truth and the good things in our daily lives as Christians. It’s a call to focus our attention on things that are noble, things that are right, things that are pure, basically anything worthy of praise in the eyes of our Father. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says that we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. The connection between verses 5-7 and 8-9 is clear: 6 and 7 are Paul’s advice on how to communicate with God, 8 and 9 are Paul’s pleas to communicate with ourselves in a way that is influenced by the Lord in order to receive his amazing peace.

The God of Peace Will Be with You

I like the message’s version of these two verses. I like them because of the end of verse 9, where it says this:

Do that, and God, whomakes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Paul would know first hand what it is to experience having things work out into God’s most excellent harmonies. He says “do that”, do all these things that I told you, and that you learned from me and saw me do, and I promise you, God will work you into His most excellent harmonies, He’ll richly bless you, He will bring with Him His peace into your life. This is not the first time Paul wrote to the Philippians about this very thing: the God of peace will be with you. Verses 4:4-9 talk about how when we rejoice in Him for he is near {verse 4-5}, trust in His Sovereignty in our lives {6-7}, and changing our thinking {8-9}, He will do some amazing things in our life. I love this. Paul’s story is such a powerful testament to how shifting our thoughts to focusing on truth and embracing what is good in the eyes of the Lord, we will be blessed immensely. I love this quote by Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

'Tis the set of the sail that decides the goal, and not thestorm of life.

What a difference it will make in our lives if we choose to find the beauty in life and shift our thinking just a little to the truth that is the Word.

So what are your thoughts on verses 8-9? 

Scripture Memorization Week One {Philippians 4:4-5}

I’m so excited to be starting my weekly scripture memorization, and I’m so happy you are a part of my journey. My plan for the first week was to do Philippians 4:4-9. I decided I wanted it to be my scripture memorization when I was reading in my Jesus Calling the other day. After reading it and thinking on it, I couldn’t help but to break it up in my mind. Each verse was so powerful in itself, that to memorize it as a whole was taking away from the individual parts of it. However, I know there is a reason that all of the verses are organized in that particular order.  I love this passage so much, and perhaps after breaking the all up into parts and understanding them more, I can better understand it as a whole. So, with that being said, the next three weeks of scripture memorization will be as follow: this week: Philippians 4:4-5, week two: Philippians 4:6-7 and week three: Philippians 4:8-9. If this works for you, I encourage you to do this a long with me, I would love to hear what others have learned from this particular piece of scripture.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near”

To be honest, after the first verse though (verse 4), I had a hard time understanding what these verses were supposed to mean. What was I supposed to take from this? How does it fit together? Why were these verses written one after another as if they had some sort of connection? They in fact do, but I needed to do some research* of my own about the book of Philippians to truly appreciate these couple of verses, and subsequently, the

To understand these two verses, we really need to have an understanding of the background of this particular book of the Bible. This book is an epistle (or letter) from Paul to the Philippians. The “Philippians” he refers to are members of a church that Paul started in Philippi 10 years prior on his second missionary journey.  At the time this letter was written, Paul was under house arrest in Rome after a conflict in Jerusalem and was facing his trial. The Philippians, Paul’s friends and great supporters sent one of their people, Epaphroditus, to go to Rome to visit Paul and to give him a gift (probably money). There, Epaphroditus stayed and helped Paul with his missions and became ill. After he became ill, he went back to Philippi, and with him, he brought this epistle (the book of Philippians) written by Paul. Philippians 4:4-9 is most certainly not the beginning of the letter, but in these specific verse, I believe it clearly illustrates Paul’s attitude towards his situation, and the attitude that we as Christians are called to have, should we face tumultuous experiences. After finishing the book, I may just pick more out from it for scripture memory J

What really attracted me to this verse was those very first sentences: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” It seems so cheerful and so encouraging. In fact, this isn’t the only verse in Philippians that has the word “rejoice”. The book of Philippians has the word “rejoice” or “joy” 16 times! Yeah, 16 times is a lot! It seems that this is the general attitude of Paul. Surprising, huh? The man was a prisoner in Rome, and he talks so much about having an attitude of joy and rejoicing in the Lord. I looked up the word “joy” on theopedia. This is what it had to say:

“Joy is a state of mind and an orientation of the heart. It is a settled state of contentment, confidence and hope.” 

If anyone illustrates this perfectly, it’s Paul. But he is calling his church and anyone else who is a believer to REJOICE (have joy) in the Lord. This is saying that we should be content, confident, and hopeful in Christ. This isn’t just a command to do when we have what we need, or when there isn’t anything going terribly wrong. No, it says “Rejoice in the lord always” This is through any and every circumstance. This is a right we should fight for as Christians, to be able to have a joy that comes only from the Lord. A joy and peace that passes understanding.  

Okay so here’s the part of the passage that stumped me. Verse 5 says “let your forbearing spirit be known to all men for the Lord is near”. What the heck? How is that even related to the first verse? This command seems foreign compared to the first.  However, after reading several different versions of the Bible, it became a little bit clearer to me what Paul is saying in verse 5. I began to understand that these two commands are right there, side by side because they are such strong commands, needing to be emphasized for a single purpose. Here’s the NLT version: “Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do”. Here’s the NIV version: “Let your gentleness be evident to all”. And here’s the WNT & RSV version: “let your forbearing spirit be known to all men”. These are all different words, but getting a better definition of the word “forbearance” will help us understand how to comprehend this.  

EPIEKES is the Greek word which can be loosely translated as forbearing. Take Teknia’s definition for instance: “Sweet reasonableness, generosity, goodwill, friendliness, magnanimity, charity toward the faults of others, mercy toward the failures of others, indulgence of the failures of others, leniency, bigheartedness, moderation, forbearance, and gentleness”

In other words, graciousness. Now we can relate all of the different versions. We are called to be gracious towards, showing humility, and a forbearing or patient bearing of those who oppose or abuse us. This certainly does not mean physical abuse. No, this is talking about the personal offenses we take every day by others. This is talking about the little annoyances that make up our everyday lives, the little things that push us to the point of exploding after we get cut off by someone in a line, or someone can’t read our minds and agendas. I don’t know about y’all, but I am a complete hot head. I’m stubborn, and I am so very vengeful if we’re being honest. But that doesn’t mean I can’t ask for God’s grace to give me a gentle and forbearing spirit towards those who I have felt have wronged me in some way, or simply just annoyed me.  So at the beginning of verse 5, Paul is speaking to his peeps, telling them what God commands them to do. Why? Because they had earlier faced opposition by those who did not agree with their church (Philippians 1:27-30).

So we have a choice. We can choose vengeance against those who “do us wrong”. Or we can have a forbearing spirit, patiently bearing the injustices done to us by others, showing that we are Christians who have chosen to follow God’s command to us.

I long to be person who rejoices in all circumstances. I long to be a person with a forbearing spirit, having a patient attitude with those who abuse, annoy, or wrong me. I hope you long for the same thing. I hope we can work as Christians together to show others that God can give you the grace to manifest a spirit of forbearing and joy. For the day of the Lord is near and through my actions, I want to bring as many people to Christ that I can!

What did you get out of these verses? How is your scripture memorization going?

*I was really helped to understand this scripture by a sermon I saw here.