Today, I am reading and commenting on  Philippians 1-4.

Yesterday, my congregation celebrated the third Sunday of Advent (since we will be doing a Christmas service on the 22nd).  The theme for the third Advent Sunday is joy.  As a result, Paul’s repeated references to joy and to rejoicing jumped out at me today.  It begins with Paul saying that he always prays with joy when he prays for the Philippian believers, because of the way they partnered with him in the gospel from when they first heard it.  Then Paul writes that he rejoices because his imprisonment and suffering has served to advance the gospel.  Further, Paul rejoices in his suffering because he will either die in service of Christ, and thus be united with Christ in the resurrection, or he will live to further serve Christ.  The former would be the greater joy, but being able to continue to serve God was also a cause to rejoice.  The key to sharing in the joy which Paul experienced is to value others above ourselves, looking out for their interests before we look out for our own interests.

As I am writing this I realize that in this letter Paul touches on all four Advent themes.  In chapter three Paul writes of counting everything he had which the world might see as his gain as loss, so that he might gain Christ.  He wanted to know the power of Christ’s resurrection, and of His suffering.  He has not yet obtained that, so his desire comes from his hope.  Yet, despite the fact that he has not yet obtained that for which he hopes, Paul has peace through his faith in Christ.  That peace causes him to rejoice and to call on us to rejoice.  When we suffer or face hardship we should rejoice because it means that God has counted us worthy to join in Christ’s suffering.  Rather than worry, let us present our requests to God with thanksgiving for what He has done for us, even if all we can think of is that He has considered us worthy to suffer.  As we do this, we will experience God’s peace.

I want to conclude with what Paul wrote in chapter four verse eight of today’s passage:

“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.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.