Learning how to pray from the Apostles prayers (Phil 1:9) - with thoughts from John Calvin and Boice

As mentioned in my initial post for this series, I intend to blog through a number of New Testament texts where the Apostles are either praying or reflecting on their prayers. In noting how the Apostles prayed, it will help us to conform our prayers so that they are more biblical.

Today's text is Philippians 1:9:

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. 

Prayer Focus: Petition to God that our love would both increase according to our measure of knowledge and be discerning so that we are both blameless and fruitful 

Calvin writes in his Philippians commentary, "For the true attainments of Christians are when they make progress in knowledge, and understanding, and afterwards in love. Accordingly the particle in, according to the idiom of the Hebrew tongue, is taken here to mean with, as I have also rendered it, unless perhaps one should prefer to explain it as meaning by, so as to denote the instrument or formal cause. For, the greater proficiency we make in knowledge, so much the more ought our love to increase. The meaning in that case would be, “That your love may increase according to the measure of knowledge.”All knowledge, means what is full and complete — not a knowledge of all things."

Boice writes in his Philippians commentary, "The first thing that Paul says the Christian needs is abounding love. “And 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” (vv. 9–10). The Christian must be filled with Christ’s love.

This must be a love according to knowledge. The word used here is a special word (epignosis) that refers to advanced spiritual knowledge. In the New Testament the word is applied only to spiritual things—to the knowledge of God, religious knowledge, spiritual knowledge, and doctrinal knowledge. It is a knowledge that comes to the Christian through a study of God’s Word.

The love that is behind good works must also be discerning. This word has reference to the understanding given by the Holy Spirit. Just as the Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, so the Holy Spirit enables us to discern how love should operate.

Finally, the love with which the Christian should be filled must be discriminating. Paul says that we are to discern what is best. The word translated “discern” in classical Greek refers to testing something or someone. It is the technical word for testing money to determine whether or not it is counterfeit. It occurs in a political context for the testing of a candidate for office. Herodotus uses the word for the testing of oxen by Egyptian priests to see whether they are fit for sacrifice (Histories, II, 38). This is the word used by Paul when he says that Christians are to be renewed by the Holy Spirit so that they may “test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2).

The Christian life must be motivated and informed by love. Without love we are only clanging symbols. But this was never intended to be a wishy-washy, undefined, sentimental love. It is the love of Christ. Hence, it must be a love governed by biblical principles and exercised with judgment."