Philippians 4:8

Php_4:8-9

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things.

We have here

I. A direction for thought--Think on these things.

II. A direction for practice--These things do.

III. A promise conditional on obedience to the two--The God of peace shall be with you. (Dean Vaughan.)

Christian life

I. Its features.

1. Truth in word, etc.

2. Honour, integrity and purity in conduct.

3. Whatever is beautiful and praiseworthy in behaviour.

II. Its motives. Apostolical.

1. Precept.

2. Example.

III. Its advantages.

1. The presence of the God of peace.

2. The peace He gives. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

The meditation and practice of holiness

A second time we have the conclusion of the whole matter. Before it was finally, brethren, rejoice in the Lord. The whole history of conversion with all its preliminary struggles, the terrors and sorrows of repentance, the hopes and fears of faith, finds its issue and rest in this. But here is a second finally. There is something beyond the exultation of deliverance through Christ; and that is the attainment of a perfect character in Him. We are urged--

I. To fix our full and determinate thought upon perfection. The word is often used to signify due appreciation, and it bids us here with strong emphasis estimate rightly the place morality holds in the gospel.

1. It was the glory of the apostles career to proclaim everywhere that for the sake of the sacrifice of the Cross the vilest transgressors repenting and believing in Jesus were assured of forgiveness and reputed as righteous. But it became the hard necessity of his life to have to defend it against perversion. The enemy everywhere followed him, sowing tares. The abuse which taught men to sin that grace might abound was the subject of his ceaseless protest. In the former part of this Epistle he had dwelt on the worthlessness of all good works as the ground of the sinners acceptance: and because he had so utterly disparaged human goodness in the third chapter, he now in the fourth vindicates the claims of Christian godliness. On the way to the Cross think not of any good in yourself; on the way from the Cross think of all the obligations of holiness.

2. For all the provisions of grace have their issue in our moral perfection. Renouncing our own righteousness which is of the law, we are to attain a righteousness of faith, which in another sense must be our own. Pardon is the removal of an obstruction to holiness. The grace of God that bringeth salvation teaches us to aspire to all good works.

II. To ponder its unlimited variety of obligations.

1. The apostle exhorts us to train our minds to a high and refined sense of this. It is true that the regenerate are taught of God, and have the Spirit to guide them; but this is not to supersede the use of their own faculties. The Bible shows us what is good in its great principles, but leaves us to find out their illimitable application.

2. The object of this study is excellence according to all its standards. Whatsoever things suggests that every Christian virtue has its own unlimited field of study. What a boundless field, e.g., is truth.

3. The result of this constant study is the education of the spiritual taste into a high pitch of delicacy. The Christians standard of truth, dignity, etc., becomes higher than that of other men. Here lies the secret of the difference between Christian and Christian, between careless professors who are always stumbling themselves, and a cause of offence to others, and the educated disciples who adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour. Receive this exhortation and you will come by degrees so accurate in your moral judgment as never to fail, and be in the best sense, a law unto yourselves.

III. To give it the fervent desire of our meditation. The thinking signifies that intent contemplation of perfection which feeds the souls regenerate longing to attain it.

1. Mark with what exquisite skill the elements of perfection are combined into one lovely whole. We must look steadily at this assemblage of ethical graces until we are enkindled with its loveliness.

2. And as the Christian is exhorted to delight in the thought of perfection as the aggregate of all excellencies, so also he must make every individual principle the object of affectionate contemplation. How beautiful are truth, religious dignity, etc.

3. As the virtues of holiness are displayed in the Word of God, to think of them is to meditate on it. O how I love Thy law. To the soul that hungers and thirsts after righteousness, the Bible is an everlasting delight.

4. Moreover, such an insatiate student delights to consider the lives of these who have gone before him in the narrow way--Christ the supreme standard and pattern of the result; Paul and others as examples of the process. Those who, like ourselves, have had to travel through all the stages of the ascent from sin to holiness leave their example for our encouragement. But while we imitate them we must aspire to Him.

IV. To make it our practical concern. Let not thinking end, but turn your meditations to practice.

1. Generally there is to be nothing visionary in our religion. Hence the abrupt do. There is a sentimental religion which thinks loftily and talks magniloquently about virtue, but ends there. Our religion must not be a barren homage to the saintly qualities of others. What man has been man may be, by the grace of God, even though the man may have been a Paul.

2. Every scriptural ideal of excellence may be realized in practice. The pagan writers had their noble ideals, but nowhere outside the Bible is there such a consummate standard as this. And then, again, the highest moralists who sate not at the feet of Jesus despaired of their own teaching, imperfect as it was, unless indeed, as one said, God should become incarnate to teach us. Christianity alone has the golden link between thought and practice.

3. As thinking must not terminate in itself, so practice must be the diligent regulation of our life according to all the principles of holiness. There is a sense, indeed, in which our religion from beginning to end is Gods work; but the formation of Christian character is our own task under His blessing, and its perfection is conferred upon us, not as a gift simply, but as the seal upon our efforts, and their exceeding great reward.

4. We must work out our own salvation by governing our lives according to these holy principles particularly. If we would be perfectly true we must act out the truth in thought, word, and deed; so with dignity, etc.

V. To think of it with the peaceful confidence of hope. There can be no encouragement more mighty than that the God of Peace shall be with us.

1. God will be with us animating our pursuit by the assurance of reconciliation. There is no spirit for the pursuit unless we know that the guilty past is pardoned. The heart must be enlarged if we would run in the way of His commandments; and dont narrow it and impede your progress by permitted sin.

2. God will be with us crowning our effort. Peace is the full sum of His heavenly blessing. Great peace have they who love His law. Others may have a transient joy and superficial excitement. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)

Soul perfection

The finest specimen of a Christian is he in whom all the graces, like the strings of an angels harp, are in the most perfect harmony. Therefore, we are to beware of cultivating one grace or attending to any one duty at the expense of others. That is possible; and never more likely to happen than in these days of recoil from mere speculative theology, and of busy, bustling benevolence. Treading in our Masters steps, we are to go about doing good; yet we may undertake so many works of Christian philanthropy as to trench on the hours that should be sacred to devotion. In seeking the good of others, we may so neglect the cultivation of our own hearts, and the duties we owe to our own families, as to have to cry with the man of old, They made me keeper of vineyards, and mine own vineyard I have not kept. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Avoid doubtful things

The atmosphere is sometimes in such a peculiar state that the spectator, on coast or shore, looking abroad over the sea, cannot tell where the water ends and the sky begins; and as if some magician had raised them out of their proper element, and turned their sails into wings, the ships seem floating in mid-air. But occasionally no line of separation is more difficult to draw than that which lies between what is right and what is wrong. Whether such and such a business or amusement, pursuit or pleasure, is wrong, and one, therefore, in which no Christian should engage, is a question that, so far as the thing itself is concerned, may be difficult to answer. But it is not difficult to answer, so far as you are concerned, if you doubt whether it is right. The apostolic rule is, Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind; and unless you are so, then, what is not of faith is sin--sin at least to you. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

St. Pauls farewell

The words are the parting counsel of the apostle. They come at the most solemn period of his life, and he was writing to the best-loved of the churches. Will he speak of the mysteries he saw and heard? Will he expound some profound doctrine? It is almost with a feeling of disappointment that we find these homely words.

I. Observe the entireness of the apostles language. Whatsoever things. It has sometimes been supposed that different regions of goodness might be separated from each other; religion from morality; truth from beauty. Paul recognizes no such distinction. He who furthers one truth incidentally furthers all others.

II. Note how all the regions of goodness fit into each other. Paul, trained in Greek learning, would be familiar with the classical debates respecting the true, the beautiful, and the good. The Greek asserted that the supreme object of pursuit was the beautiful. His soul was so enwrapt in sensuous beauty, that he could recognize the good only in it. The highest object of admiration to the Roman was what was just. So some think now that the highest good is only to be found in truth, scientific facts; others in the noble and self-denying; in the romantic aspect of things. Paul discourages no forms of goodness, and would welcome it whether in myth, legend, song, art, nature, domestic life.

III. The true Christian character consists not in the mere absence of evil but in the possession and cultivation of the good. So dwell on these things as to make them your own. Your soul was made for them, and in nothing lower can it be happy. Only by thinking on them can their opposites be cast out. Darkness is only to be expelled by light, impurity by holiness, the love of sin by the love of God--in individuals or communities. (R. M. Stewart.)

Christian character

I. Should be complete on every side.

II. Includes everything that is excellent.

III. Requires much study and prayer. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Christian righteousness

1. The sanctification of men is the true object of redemption (Gal_1:4; Tit_2:14). For this Christ took our nature, was tempted in all points like as we are, and died. And as His salvation is not a common and earthly good, so the holiness to which He moulds us is not a common and natural perfection, but one singular and supernatural.

2. In these words the apostle opposes his doctrine to that of a false teacher, who insisted upon legal observances, which are much more easy and agreeable than the study of real virtue. He enforces whatsoever things are--

I. True. This comes first, because before all things we shall embrace the Truth as disciples of Him who is the Truth. Here should be the foundation of all our conduct. We must consider things true--

1. Which are not feigned, or invented to please, but which really subsist.

2. Such as are at the foundation firm and solid, not shadows or figures. Falsehoods of whatever kind are prohibited.

3. All vain and deceitful appearances are excluded. Our manner of life must be plain and simple, purged from the love of the world which, as a shadow, passes away.

II. Venerable--all that relates to the dignity of the high vocation to which God has called us, renouncing all frivolity and folly.

III. Just.

1. What God commands us to render unto men, whether honour, deference, and obedience to our superiors in the state or the family; the guidance and protection of inferiors; friendship and assistance towards equals, or kindness towards all.

2. The laws and duties of the city and society in which we live, save when they conflict with conscience.

IV. Pure. We should be careful not only to preserve our bodies from pollution, but our hearts, tongues, eyes, dress, cultivating modesty, and avoiding every species of dissoluteness.

V. Lovely. Although all virtues are excellent in themselves, yet some are more pleasing than others; even as we see amongst the stars, though all are beautiful, yet some shine with a brighter lustre. Among the virtues, sweetness of mind, courtesy, clemency, willingness to oblige, show with peculiar brightness.

VI. Good report. Among actions which are good, some are held more specially in repute. St. Paul would have us give ourselves to them with especial care, because those who hold them in high esteem will love us better, and yield more readily to our religious influence. VII. That nothing may be omitted, the apostle adds, if there be any virtue or praise. None of these Divine and beautiful flowers must be wanting. Indeed, it is not possible to have one in any degree of perfection without the others. They are sisters so firmly linked together that they cannot be torn asunder. (J. Daille)

The moralities of Christianity

I. What these moralities are.

Whatsoever things are--

I. True.

1. In speech. We must be free from lying. This is when men, with a purpose to deceive, say what is false either by assertion (Act_5:3) or promise (Pro_19:22). Lying is--

(1) Most contrary to the nature of God, who is truth itself.

(2) To the new nature (Eph_4:25-26; Isa_63:8).

(3) To society, for commerce is kept up by truth.

2. In actions. We should keep the integrity of a good conscience (Psa_32:2; 2Co_1:12). Sincerity and candour should be seen in all we do. Satan assaults you with wiles, but your strength lies in downright honesty (Eph_6:14; Isa_38:2-3).

2. Honest--grave and venerable, free from scurrility, lightness and vanity in word or deed. Religion is a serious thing, so should they be who profess it (1Ti_2:9-10; Tit_2:2).

3. Just. We must give every man his due, and defraud none of his right; whether

(1) superiors (Mat_22:21),

(2) inferiors (Col_4:1),

(3) equals (Rom_13:8; Mat_7:12).

4. Peace. Nothing obscene or unchaste should be seen or heard from a Christian (Eph_4:29; Eph_5:12).

5. Lovely. There are certain things which are not only commanded by God, but are grateful to men, such as affability, peaceableness, usefulness (Rom_45:13; 1Th_5:15; Act_2:46-47).

6. Of good report. There are some things which have no express evil in them, but they are not of good fame (1Th_5:22; 1Pe_2:12).

7. Virtue and praise, two things linked together. Many things in the world are praised which are not virtuous; such things are to be abhorred. But if there be any good thing even among the heathen, religion should be adorned with it.

II. In what manner doth Christianity enforce them.

1. It derives them all from the highest fountain, the Spirit of sanctification, by whom we are fitted for these duties (Eph_5:9; Gal_5:22).

2. It makes them to grow out of proper principles.

(1) Faith in Christ (Heb_11:6; Rom_7:4).

(2) Love to God (Gal_5:6; Tit_2:11-12).

3. It directs by the highest rule, Gods mind revealed in His Word, the absolute rule of right and wrong.

4. It aims at the highest end, the glory of God (1Co_10:31; Php_1:11; Act_24:14-16).

III. For what reasons.

1. Because grace does not abolish so much of nature as is good, but refines and sublimates it, by causing us to act from higher principles and to higher ends.

2. Because these conduce to the honour of religion. The credit of religion depends much on the credit of its professors (Eze_36:20-21; 2Sa_12:14; 2Pe_2:2; Tit_2:10).

3. Our peace and safety are concerned in it.

(1) The world is least irritated by a good conversation (1Pe_3:13; 1Sa_24:17).

(2) When we do not bring trouble on ourselves by our immoralities, God takes us under His special protection (verse 9).

4. These things grow from that internal principle of grace which is planted in our hearts by regeneration (Act_26:20; Mat_3:8).

5. All the disorders contrary to these limits and bounds by which our conversations are regulated, are condemned by the righteous law of God which is the rule of the new creature; and therefore they ought to be avoided by the good Christian (Mat_5:19).

6. These moralities are not small things; the glory of God, the safety of His people, the good of human society, and the evidence of our own sincerity being concerned in them.

Conclusion:

1. If religion adopts moralities into its constitution, we must not leave them out of our practice (Tit_3:8). Here is an answer to those who ask wherein must we be holy and obedient. (T. Manton, D. D.)

Expansiveness of Christian life

These words come at the close of a noble delineation of Christian life. It is as if having unfolded tract after tract the vision suddenly expanded, and a sense of the boundlessness of that life came over the apostle, and then under the stress of that feeling he pours the fulness of his soul into one utterance, emphasizing its breadth by the six-fold repetition of whatsoever things. As much as to say all things conceivable, attainable, include them in your view of Christian life. Christian life is greater than any description of it, and no experience has yet exhausted it.

I. Christ is Lord over the kingdom of truth; there is, therefore, nothing in that kingdom which a Christian may not aspire to possess. Our enemies are surprised at this claim. Because we put the Cross in the centre they fancy there is nothing but the centre.

1. Some deny the originality of Christian truth, and say of some fragments of it, It is in Seneca or Confucius. But whatever true things are in any of the wise teachers of the past, we shall not resent their being found anterior to Christ. They were in God before they were in them, and they have their place in the kingdom of truth of which Christ is the King, and of which we are now the heirs.

2. Detractors of another sort have put the stigma on the narrowness of our life. The large, full, free life is that which philosophy, art, science, literature, and travel make possible. But all things here are beforehand in Christ. They may not be classed as yet, but they belong to the kingdom of truth, and therefore to us.

3. Men who say that It is all over with Christian life. It is an old-world story, a thing past and done. The real life--the life of the future--has its roots in material forces, and in the views, hopes, and aims to which these forces are giving shape. But whatever is here is part of the heritage of our life.

II. The earliest actings of Christian life were illustrations of this expansiveness.

1. Hardly was its voice heard among men than it began to bring the teaching of the lilies and the birds, and the sunshine and rain into its glad tidings. It no sooner stepped into heathen life than it commended the faith of centurions, Syro-Phoenician women, the endurance of Roman soldiers, and the self-denial of Grecian wrestlers and runners. It went after the waifs and strays of Jewish society.

2. While Christian life denounced the awful abysses that lay in the moral life of heathenism, it accepted whatever was Divine in its civilization. It recognized in it the working of the Divine Spirit, heard its poets preluding the song of Christian brotherhood in the words, Ye are Gods offspring; saw the glory of Roman law; and in Greek wisdom questions which God had helped to formulate, and Gods Son had come to answer. It asserted its inheritance in all the virtues of Greek and Roman life, and found an asylum for its slaves.

III. Another illustration of the expansiveness is that it is not presented to us in the New Testament in its developments, but in its germs. It is leaven, seed, a new spiritual force, developing, penetrating, taking possession of, allying itself to all experiences, manners, customs, countries, races.

IV. Look at the expansive character of the Book by which Christian life is fed. The Bible grows in the experience of the individual. It is a greater Book to the man than to the boy. It grows in the experience of the Church. It is not the Bible that changes, but the eyes that pore over it grow wider as they read. Something of this is due, to the fact that it is in the main a book of principles. In their expansion the Bible expands. New circumstances demand new aspects of truth, new applications of principle. And every new application is a discovery of the wealth that remains to be dug out of the Book of God.

V. This has a practical bearing on the attitude of Churches to each other.

1. No one Church, however venerable in age, or fresh with the dew of youth, has a monopoly of the good things of God. Let us covet earnestly each others gifts--the fervour of the Wesleyan, the self-dependence of the Congregationalist, the ordered government of the Presbyterian, the beautiful worship of the Episcopalian.

2. And why should Church yearnings stop short here: think of the many things, great and good, in the social life of our country. We want the business habits, direct dealing, and honour among her commercial men; the free play and force of her public opinion, her respect for rights, her forbearance; the noble self-renunciation of her soldiers and sailors; the enthusiasm of her men of science, and the gravity of her lawyers. (A. Macleod, D. D.)

Faith in action

I. The Christian life is a building up of character.

1. It is more than belief of certain truths, the sustaining of certain religious emotions; it is the continuous working into the warp and woof of our life every good and excellent quality, until we arrive at the measure of and stature of the fulness that is in Christ.

2. Of course there must be a foundation, and a good one; but it is poor sort of work to be always laying foundations with so few buildings showing signs of growth, much less of completeness.

3. May not this partly account for the slow spread of the gospel? We can show many who have begun to build, but is that an inducement for others to begin also?

II. It is just by these things that we are judged by the world.

1. It is very true that the world is not discerning in its judgments. It sees professors doing disreputable things and immediately exclaims, There is your religion for you. With just as much justice as if after Satan had transformed himself into an angel of light, he again assumed his demoniacal form you were to say, Theres your angel for you.

2. But that is no excuse for giving the world occasion to speak slightingly of the gospel. And it is just by the neglect of things virtuous and praiseworthy that we provide worldlings with arrows to shoot at Christs cause. What can the world think when men who profess to be sure of heaven grumble at everything that goes on in earth; when those who profess to have received mercy are unforgiving, close fisted, and hard to deal with.

3. It is not by our professions of faith that the world judges us: it cannot judge of the new birth, faith, the indwelling of the Spirit; but of the outer life it does judge, and has to some extent a right to judge. How watchful and prayerful we should be that it does not misjudge the Master through us? How careful we should be to be living epistles known and read of all men.

III. We should learn of all men whatever is virtuous or praiseworthy in their life. Let the Church learn punctuality and business habits from the merchant; the Christian, courtesy from the outward politeness of the man of the world; the Protestant, that zeal which is so self-sacrificing and the devotion that is so warm in the Roman Catholic or Mohammedan; the believer, patient and impartial study of truth from the man of science. From any and every quarter let whatsoever is of good report be welcomed.

IV. Let none imagine, however, that any excellency or virtue can re a substitute for faith in Christ. Paul was a model of every natural virtue before his conversion, and yet none needed conversion more than he. The young man whom Jesus loved was the same. Paul counted his virtues loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, and nothing but that knowledge will save your soul. (R. J. Lynd, B. A.)

Thought

In the service of God there is employment for every faculty and function; they each have a mission for the Master. The power to think is the prerogative distinctly peculiar to man.

I. Thought is a duty. Thoughtlessness, and consequently ignorance, is what the Lord so pathetically lamented in His people Israel. Israel doth not know; My people doth not consider. Thoughtlessness has wrought the ruin of our race. Isaac meditated at eventide. Joshua was commanded to meditate day and night in the statutes of the Lord. David was a diligent and talented thinker. When I consider Thy heavens, etc.

II. Subjects for thought. Whatsoever things are true, etc. We are to think, but not at random. Definite thought alone is profitable. There are subjects worthy of winning the thoughts of thinkers the most profound. (J. W. Bray.)

Thoughts

I. That we should aim at perfect integrity of character.

1. Christian graces are commonly grouped together in the Scriptures. The reason is, that they have all one root and originating source; and where one exists the rest may be looked for.

2. Some there are who are satisfied with few excellencies, forgetting that, though remarkable for one or two virtues, their character may still be egregiously defective. It may be distorted and disproportionate, like fruit that is ripe only on one side, or like trees with half their branches withered.

3. It is easy to cultivate those virtues which are most congenial with our natural temperament, most opportune to our immediate circumstances, or most frequent in our circle of friends. But of these we may be the least careful, while we should bestow all possible diligence to bring up those graces to which we are least prone, or which are least popular.

4. This apostle would have us lacking nothing.

II. In the acquisition of a perfect character, the proper direction and control of the thoughts is of paramount importance. Thoughts are either indicative of character, or formative of it. Our thoughts partly result from our disposition, and partly create it. In the former light they may serve as a test of our real state to ourselves. But mainly we would speak of the thoughts as tending to form character. Such thoughts are those voluntary ones which we choose to indulge.

1. Thoughts create images: images produce desires: desires influence the temper and direct the will: the will displays itself in overt action.

2. What thoughts should we indulge?

(1) Things of truth: of honesty, i.e., honour ableness, respect worthiness: of justice: of purity: of amiability, or such as win the esteem and love of others: and of good report.

(2) Meditate on truth, especially Christian truth. Think of everything, in your deportment, which is becoming to the dignity of a Christian character.

3. How to think of these things.

(1) In deliberate meditation: in the avoidance of whatever would awaken contrary thoughts.

(2) Think of these things with ardent love of them, with strenuous and prayerful effort after their attainment, and the exemplification of them in your con duct.

(3) By such training and cultivation of the thoughts may we expect to grow in grace; by the neglect of it, we shall decline in our piety and perhaps make shipwreck of faith. (T. G. Horton, M. A.)

The transforming power of thought

Think on these things and you will become--

I. Better. What a man thinks most about grows upon him. A youth may care very little about business; but presently he becomes interested in it, and it grows upon him until before middle age is reached he can scarcely think of anything else. It is so with the artist, with the pleasure seeker, and with the Christian. Let him think on whatsoever things are true, etc., and the more attractive they will become; the larger place will they occupy in his heart, and the mightier will be their influence on his life. Beholding these things with an open face, he will be naturally, insensibly, gradually changed into the same image.

II. More charitable. One of our most common tendencies is to look at the weaknesses and shortcomings of our brethren--to let the thought of these things exclude the thought of their good qualities. Hence harsh judgments, suspicion, distrust. If, however, we would lay aside this tendency and take account of (R.V. marg.) whatsoever things are true, etc., in our neighbours--look upon their good instead of on their faulty side, we should think more kindly of them, our thoughts would influence our conduct, and we should be drawn towards them by a three-fold cord of love. And this is possible. There is much that is praiseworthy even in brethren who have been overtaken in a fault. Much of our unity, success, comfort as communities, depend on our cultivating this habit.

III. More helpful. A mans power to help does not so much depend on his intentions as on his character and disposition. The presence of a good man--a man who has thought on these things until they have become part of himself, always acts like a tonic on weaker souls. It reproves their slowness, quickens their desires, and stimulates their efforts. Such a man is a means of grace. (J. Ogle.)

Christian thought

Not the common word for think, but the reckoning, counting up, dwelling repeatedly on these things. It is not the bees touching upon the flowers that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon them and drawing out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on Divine truth that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian. (J. Hall.)

The difficulty and importance of continuous thought

How many persons are made and kept frivolous by an inability to prescribe the subjects on which their mind shall run! They would give, or fancy they would give, all that they possess for the power to say decisively but for one short hour, This and but this shall be the subject of my thoughts. But they find that when they open their Bible the mind has flown away to some meditation of things present and transitory; when they kneel down to pray, even attention is absent, they cannot remember Gods presence, much less can they wish the thing they profess to pray for. Such persons are good judges of Pauls precept, however little they may believe in the possibility of obeying it. For indeed it is a very dreadful thing, when we reflect upon it--a strong proof, were there no other, of our fallen and ruined state--that a man should thus sit at a helm of which he has lost the rudder, should thus be responsible for the conduct of a mind over which practically he has no control. And if that responsibility cannot be desired; if out of the heart the mouth speaketh, if by the heart the path of life is chosen and the course of life shaped; in short, if, in every sense of the words, out of the heart are the issues of life, and according to the life must be the eternal judgment of each one of us; how terrible must it be to be unable from a moral impotency to obey the charge keep that heart with all diligence; to be compelled to let thought drift whither it will, and yet to know that thought guides action, and action may destroy the soul. (Dean Vaughan.)

Whatsoever things are true--

Truth hath

1. God to maintain it.

2. Defence in itself.

3. Goodness to accompany it.

4. Liberty consequent upon it.

5. It is connatural to our principles.

6. The foundation of order.

7. The ground of human converse.

8. The bond of union. (B. Whichcote, B. D.)

False measures of truth

I. The longest sword; and then the Mahometans must have it; and before them the great disturbers of mankind, whom we call conquerors, as Alexander and Caesar.

II. If the loudest lungs must carry it, then the Baal worshippers must have it from Elijah; for he had but one still voice; but they cry from morning to night.

III. If the most voices; then the condemners of our Saviour must have it: for they all cry, Crucify, Crucify. Therefore these are false measures. (B. Whichcote, B. D.)

Spheres of truth

I. Be true to yourselves--to your better nature. As Shakespeare says, To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

II. To your neighbours in--

1. Word.

2. Love.

3. Act.

4. Manner.

III. To God.

1. To His claims.

2. To your promises.

3. In your hearts, for truth is required in the inward parts.

4. In your life, for there you may best glorify Him. (W. Landells, D. D.)

Universality of truth

Moral truth in its universality is like the pine tree. Societies have claimed the one for their own, as some naturalists have claimed the other for northern climes. But both are wrong. As to the pine, it is represented in all zones, from the cedars of Lebanon to the fir bushes of the Scandinavian mountain tops. There are particular trees, as there are certain forms of speculative and political truth, which can survive only in a limited region; the one being fitted only for a peculiar atmosphere, as the other is only adapted to circumscribed types of mind. But moral truth flourishes amongst all the mental productions of man, as the pine amongst the vegetation of the world. It must thrive everywhere, because suited to and intended for the world. (Dr. Herman Masius.)

New truth unwelcome

Men who have lived in traditional knowledge do not thank you for a new truth. It dazes and confounds their dim vision, which is unsuited to its reception. Their bewilderment at the light is similar to that of the cricket. As that creature lives chiefly in the dark, so its eyes seem formed for the gloominess of its abode; and you have only to light a candle unexpectedly, and it becomes so dazed that it cannot find its way back to its retreat. (Goldsmith.)

Loyalty to truth

A father found a favourite cherry tree hacked and ruined. He cried sternly to his son: George, who did this? He looked at his father with a quivering lip, and said: Father, I cannot tell a lie: I did it. Alas! said the father, my beautiful tree is ruined; but I would rather lose all the trees I have than have a liar for my son. The boy who feared a lie worse than punishment became the hero of his country, General Washington. Whatsoever things are honest--The word does not exactly mean what we call honest, but what is worthy of honour, revered, august, venerable, majestic. Think on whatever things you can look up to in persons, circumstances, and respect. Especially in social life, in the political world, in literature. Where there is no room for reverence there is no room for life. The name of God, the idea of worship, the solemnity of life, the immortality of the soul, the fact of death, the judgment seat--think on these things, awful, venerable things l Then government, law, the State, the Church, the ruling powers and influences of society; the magistrate, holding not the sword in vain, the minister of God to thee for good--think on these things, pray for them; cheek faction, uphold authority. Nor are the grand advances of science to be omitted from this catalogue. For these, we are to bless God. His hand is in them all. The astronomical accuracy that can calculate the moment of an eclipse a hundred years hence--the power of expediting communication, like lightning, to the ends of the earth--the triumph over winds and waves--the mighty faculty of the poet--the genius of history, the gift of eloquence--the prevention of disease, the alleviation of pain--the rise up and walk of medical skill--these, too, together with the awful and majestic in nature and art, whatsoever in mountain or sea or sky, whatsoever in painting or noble structure shows greatness of purpose, nobility of soul, and tends to bow our souls in admiration--think on these things. (B. Kent.)

Whatsoever things are just, observant of the rule of right--equal. The original signification of the term was custom--order--social rule, in opposition to the unmannered life of wild tribes, who are swayed by inclination, passion, caprice. There is a Divine order in this world, amid all our confusions. He who walks in that order walks in the way of the Lord. That is right, just. There is none righteous. Christ is the Just One. There is His righteousness; we must be clothed with it. Looking unto Jesus is the loving study of Gods laws perfectly fulfilled in Him for us. Thus we are taught to repent of our deviations, i.e., sin, missing the mark, going out of the way. This leads us to acknowledge our weakness, and to cry mightily to God to bring us to Christ, the Way. The brief description of Christianity in apostolic times was that way, or the way of the Lord, the way of life. It is Gods way of working, saving, ruling, pardoning, that we want to walk in--the way of righteousness. Think on the things in society that are conformed to this rule of order and right. There is the way of the righteous King. He walks there. There He takes delight. In the family, in the Church, in the State; whatever is upright, observant of right, and struggles against wrong-doing, fraud, injustice, is the finger of God. Consciously or unconsciously it is doing His work; the vindication of human rights against oppression, ignorance, superstition, the devil, is working for and with Christ. Take a large and ample range over society, discover the right, the lawful, the just, making head against the wrong, the false, the licentious; think of these things; pray for them, and see Gods hand and way in them. Think on them; they are; God does not leave Himself without a witness; there are more signs of righteous government in the world than many of us suspect. They are about our path if we will but open our eyes, and observe, and desire to see them. There are flowers, and palms, and pools in the desert. Think on these things. (B. Kent.)

Whatsoever things are pure, unsullied, akin to holy. Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, etc. Ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. Some preach Christ … not sincerely. Lay hands suddenly on no man … keep thyself pure. Thus the word has reference to what may and does defile; influences in the Church and the world which tend to stain our consciences; connivance at sin, excusing evil, insincere statements; having a bad motive underlying right conduct; preaching such a gospel as Paul rejoiced to know was preached, and yet not with cleanness of conscience. Timothy is to let the candidates for the ministry consider their motives; he is to study their conduct for a while, lest love of money, or of applause, of vulgar fame, or eccleciastical power and influence, should prove the determining influences, and thus he would be a partaker of other mens sins. This suggests the need of the blood of sprinkling, that our actions, motives, powers, prayers, may be cleansed of all vile, base admixtures. A true Christian will bemoan nothing more feelingly than the constant detection of impure, low motive in his spiritual life. The apostle exhorts us to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. In the intercourse of the world one is in constant danger of a certain miasma, the pollution of low, selfish, interested motive; it is drawn in naturally as the pure air; and unless we think of whatsoever things are pure, and do like the Italian peasant, when the night comes on, get out of the low ground on to a hill above the reach of the miasma, we are in danger of losing the freshness and vigour of our spiritual life. When the day is over we should get us up to the mountains, and converse with our Lord concerning the conduct of the day, and ask Him to see if there is any wicked way in us, and to wash us, not our feet only, but also our hands and our head. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. (B. Kent.)

The power of purity

It is a marvellous thing to see how a pure and innocent heart purifies all that it approaches. The most ferocious natures are soothed and tamed by innocence. And so with human beings there is a delicacy so pure that vicious men in its presence become almost pure; all of purity that is in them being brought out; like attaches itself to like. The pure heart becomes a centre of attraction, round which similar atoms gather, and from which dissimilar ones are repelled. A corrupt heart in an hour elicits all that is bad in us; a spiritual one brings out and draws to itself all that is best and purest. Such was Christ. He stood in the world the Light of the world, to which all sparks of light gradually gathered. He stood in the presence of impurity, and men and women became pure. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

Purity inculcated

Live in purity, my child, through this fair life, pure from every vice and every evil knowledge, as the lily lives in silent innocence, as the turtledove amid the branches, that thou, when the Father downward gazes, mayest be His beloved object on earth, as the unconscious wanderer gazes on the lovely star of even; that thou, when the sun dissolves thee, mayest show thyself a pearl of purest whiteness, that thy thoughts may be as the roses perfume, that thy love may be like a glowing sunbeam, and thy life like shepherds song of evening, like the tones his flute pours forth so softly. (Schiller.)

Whatsoever things are lovely--

I. The union of strength and beauty in Christian character.

1. The virtues of this verse are parts of one organic whole; they so hang together that the absence of one goes far to destroy the value of the other. This is especially true of things honest and just. The world is compelled to respect truth, however lacking in grace. The addition of things lovely elevates the righteous into the good man: but the righteous man may be honoured and trusted though he is not admired or loved. The want of grace detracts from the symmetry of character; but in the moral world the beautiful has value only as underneath the outward charm there is the solid foundation of righteousness.

2. There is a certain beauty even about the most rugged forms of moral strength. It is a sign of incompleteness of character when a man takes pleasure in putting the truth in an offensive form, or in enforcing the right with a contempt for the feelings of others. There are those who have no desire to conciliate, and who are too assertive, yet there is in them a strength of principle, a manly resolution, an unflinching devotion to the right which is far more admirable than the amiability which is profuse in outward signs of kindness, but shrinks from the service which justice requires.

3. Still, when we think of things lovely, we refer to qualities by which the more severe attributes of character are softened. Standing alone they are a very poor possession. Those who employ all their art in order to have the outward clothing of gentleness, elegance, and grace have their reward. They are favourites of the social circle; and yet they may be lacking in the first elements of spiritual nobility. In the true Christian ideal the graces are only those elements which add tenderness and sweetness to the more masculine virtues which are essential to the toils and conflicts of this world of sin.

II. Note the varieties of spiritual beauty.

1. There is a tendency to find beauty only in the feminine virtues--gentleness, patience, compassion, sympathetic kindness--and to regard those of a more masculine character--courage, firmness, resolution--as belonging to another region. But this is to forget that God has made everything beautiful in its time and place. There is beauty in winter as well as in spring, in the scarred, weather-beaten rock, as well as in the smiling landscape. In Gods works there is great variety, but everywhere beauty.

2. Can we not apply the same law to character? Would we have all men of the same character? Can we find the things that are lovely only in peaceful homes and gracious ministries, and not also where hard battles are fought and victories won for Jesus Christ? We recognize the loveliness of simple trust and absolute devotion in Magdalen in Gethsemane; but is there no beauty in the lofty heroism of Peter and John declaring that they would serve God rather than men? Barnabas seems to gather up in himself the things that are lovely, but do we find no spiritual beauty in the lion-like courage of Paul? So with Melanchthon and Luther. There is moral beauty in all--different in type, but alike in origin and end.

III. Contemplate the things that are lowly (Col_3:12-15). Here is indeed a galaxy of virtues, yet when we come to examine them we find that they all turn on one point--the conquest of self.

1. Selfishness is ugliness and deformity, because it is a violation of the Divine law. It may disguise itself, but when detected it is hated and despised. It is the foe of man, to be crushed by a Diviner force if we are to attain to spiritual beauty.

2. The first lesson we have to learn is humility and unselfishness. So only can we follow Christ. Where His Spirit reigns the life will have this primary condition of true beauty; although at times it may be lacking in features which correspond to the popular ideas of grace.

3. The word chivalry seems to embody most of the virtues included in the phrase of the text: reverence for God and for all that is godlike in man, sympathy for all goodness, pity for all weakness, courage to face all danger, generous consideration for others dictated by true respect for self. These are just the virtues which the Christian should strive by the grace of God to develop. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)

Whatsoever things are of good report (εὔφημα), auspicious, sounding well, of good omen; silent deeds that, nevertheless, sound like a trumpet, and awaken our admiration, making us think better of human nature; things that come to us like good news, and make our bones fat, and our eyes glisten, and our lips tremulous--things of good report. Like the soldier at Balaclava, who dismounted calmly in the hurricane of the fight, that his officer might ride. Like those noble women who watched day and night over the sufferers at Scutari. The poetry of life--the sphere music--audible amidst the groans of creation. Not done to be reported well of, but done for love and dear honours sake; and which can no more be hid than one can hide the wind. Such was Josephs conduct to his brethren; such Davids when he found Saul asleep, and took his spear away only and a piece of his garment; such Stephens dying prayer, Lay not this sin to their charge; such His glorious charge, Begin at Jerusalem. Magnanimity, the Christian pilgrim, man or woman, accompanied by Greatheart; the rising above the level and routine of giving, doing, loving, into the stature of the man in Christ Jesus--these are things of good report. Think of them--think that you never experience such a thrill of pleasure as when you read of such things--then what must it be to do them! Think that the capacity to enjoy the recital argues the ability to do them. Think and be thankful that you live in a world where these noble things can be done; and you can do them, if you suffer not little mercenary motives to blind your eyes and freeze your sensibilities. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them; there is a sounding deed! David refusing to offer to the Lord that which cost Him nothing; the centurions, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only; Mary, with her alabaster box of ointment (and this that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her); Pauls, though the more I love you, the less I am beloved--take back your runaway slave, Philemon, as a brother, and what he owes thee put down to me; that greatest deed in the history of the universe, how that when we were yet sinners Christ died for us. (B. Kent.)

If there be any virtue--The clause is an emphatic and earnest summation. The term ἀρετή is only here used by St. Paul. In the philosophical writings of Greece it signifies all virtue, and not any special forms of it, as it does in Homer and others. The apostle nowhere else uses it--it had been too much debased and soiled in some of the schools, and ideas were often attached to it very different from that moral excellence which with him was virtue. It is therefore here employed in its widest and highest sense of moral excellence--virtus, that which becomes a man redeemed by the blood of Christ and tenanted by the Holy Spirit. From its connection with the Sanscrit vri--to be strong--Latin vir-vires-virtus; or with Ἄρης ἂριστος it seems to signify what best becomes a man--manhood, strength, or valour; in early times. But the signification has been modified by national character and temperament. The warlike Romans placed their virtue in military courage; while their successors, the modern degenerate Italians, often apply it to a knowledge of antiquities or fine arts. The remains of other and nobler times are articles of virtu, and he who has most acquaintance with them is a virtuoso, or man of virtue. In common English, a womans virtue is simply and alone her chastity, as being first and indispensable; and with the Scotch formerly it was thrift or industry. An old act commands schools or houses of vertue, in which might be manufactured cloth and sergis, to be erected in every shire. Amid such national variations, and the unsettled metaphysical disquisitions as to what forms virtue and what is its basis, it needed that He who created man for Himself should tell him what best became him--what he was made for and what he should aspire to. (Professor Eadie.)

If there be any praise--We all consider what is thought of us by those around us as a substantial good. Trust in our uprightness of character, belief in our abilities, and the desire that arises from this to be more intimately connected with us, and to gain our good opinion--everything of this kind is often a more valuable treasure than great riches. (Schleiermacher.)

The esteem of others

While we recognize in the desire of esteem an innocent and highly useful principle, we must carefully guard against making the opinion of others the sole and ultimate rule of our conduct. Temporary impulses and peculiar local circumstances may operate to produce a state of public sentiment to which a good man cannot conscientiously conform. In all cases where moral principles are involved, there is another part of our nature to be consulted. In the dictates of an enlightened conscience, we find a code to which not only the outward actions, but the appetites, propensities, and affections, are amenable, and which prescribes the limits of their just exercise. To obey the suggestions of the desire of esteem, in opposition to the requisitions of conscience, would be to subvert the order of our mental constitution, and to transfer the responsibility to the supreme command of a mere sentinel of the outposts. Yet the operation of this principle within due limits is favourable to human well-being. It begins to operate early, long before the moral principles are fully brought out; and it essentially promotes a decency and propriety of deportment, and stimulates to exertion. Whenever a young man is seen exhibiting an utter disregard for the approbation of others, the most unfavourable anticipations may be formed of him; he has annihilated one of the greatest restraints on an evil course which a kind Providence has implanted within us; and exposes himself to the hazard of unmistakable vice and misery. (T. C. Upham, LL. D.)

Praise from others

The praises of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be. (J. M. Hare.)

Commendation

The tendency of the love of commendation is to make a man exert himself; of the love of admiration to make him puff himself. (Archbishop Whately.)

Praiseworthiness

When the love of praise takes the place of love of praiseworthiness, the defect is fatal. (B. Grant, B. A.)

Commendation better than scolding

A word of praise warms the heart towards him who bestows it, and insensibly trains him who receives it to strive after what is praiseworthy; and as our lesser faults may be thus gently corrected, by disciplining some counter merits to stronger and steadier efforts to outgrow them, so it is, on the whole, not more pleasant than wise to keep any large expenditure of scolding for great occasions. But let me be understood. By praise I do not mean flattery; I mean nothing insincere. Insincerity alienates love and rots away authority. Praise is worth nothing if it be not founded on truth. (Lord Lytton.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Php 4:8-9. Finally — Το λοιπον, as for what remains for me to say, it may be despatched in a few words. The apostle, says Macknight, “being anxious to make the Philippians virtuous, mentions, in this exhortation, all the different foundations on which virtue had been placed, to show that it does not rest on any of these singly, but on them all jointly; and that its amiableness and obligation result from” whatsoever things are true — Conformable to truth; honest — Σεμνα, grave, or venerable; just — Equitable and righteous; pure — Chaste and holy; lovely — Προσφιλη, amiable, or, as the word may be rendered, friendly and kind; of good report — Ευφημα, of good fame, or reputable; if there be any virtue — Any real worth, or beneficial tendency, in any quality or action: in this place alone does St. Paul use the word αρετη, rendered virtue: if there be any praise — Justly resulting from any thing. Bengelius gives a somewhat different view of the contents of this verse, thus: “Here are eight particulars placed in two four-fold rows; the former containing their duty, the latter the commendation of it. The first word in the former row answers the first in the latter; the second word the second; and so on: true — In speech; honest — In actions; just — With regard to others; pure — With regard to yourselves; lovely — And what more lovely than truth? of good report — As is honesty, even when it is not practised. If there be any virtue — And all virtues are contained in justice; if there be any praise — In those things which relate rather to ourselves than to our neighbour; think on these things — That ye may both practise them yourselves, and recommend them to others.” Those things which ye have learned — As catechumens; and received — By continual instructions; and heard and seen — In my life and conversation; these do, and the God of peace shall be with you — Not only the peace of God, but God himself, the fountain of peace.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Php_4:8. Whatsoever things are true.—The apostle recognises the ability of the renewed mind to discern truth under any guise. “Ye have an unction from the Holy One and know all things” (1Jn_2:20). Honest.—A.V. margin, “venerable.” R.V. text, “honourable.” R.V. margin, “reverend.” This variety shows the difficulty of finding an exact equivalent for the word of St. Paul, in which the sense of gravity and dignity, and of these as inviting reverence, is combined. Just.—Answering to that which is normally right (Cremer). Pure.—As there is no impurity like fleshly impurity, defiling body and spirit, so the word “pure” expresses freedom from these (Trench). It denotes chastity in every part of life (Calvin). Lovely.—Christian morality as that which is ethically beautiful is pre-eminently worthy to be loved. “Nihil est amabilius virtute,” says Cicero. Of good report.—R.V. margin, “gracious.” Lightfoot says “fair-speaking” and so “winning, attractive.” Meyer says, “that which, when named, sounds significant of happiness, e.g. brave, honest, honourable.” If there be any virtue.—The New Testament is frugal of the word which is in such constant use in the heathen moralists. If they sought to make man self-confident, it seeks to shatter that confidence. The noblest manliness is godliness. Think on these things.—They are things to be reckoned with by every man sooner or later—occupy the thoughts with them now.

Php_4:9. Those things … do.—Here speaks the same man, with a mind conscious of its own rectitude, who could say, “I have lived in all good conscience before God unto this day.” He had not only “allured” his Philippian converts “to brighter worlds,” but had “led the way.” The God of peace shall be with you.—Note the phrase in connection with “the peace of God shall mount guard” (Php_4:7).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Php_4:8-9

The Science of Christian Ethics—

I. Demands the study of every genuine virtue.—“Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, … think on these things” (Php_4:8). In regard to what is honourable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, there is a true and a false standard, and for this reason the apostle here places the true at the beginning, that when the following exhortations are presented, this fact which our experience so often discloses may at once occur to the Christian, and he may be led to examine himself and see whether he also is everywhere seeking for the true (Schleiermacher). Genuine virtue has its root in genuine religion. The modern school of ethics, which professes to teaches morality as something apart from spiritual Christianity, is a return to the exploded theories of pagan moralists, an attempt to dress up pre-Christian philosophy in a nineteenth-century garb. The morality that is lovely and of good report is Christian morality—the practical, livable ethics of the New Testament. The ethical terms used in this verse are closely united. The true, the becoming, the right, and the pure are elements of virtue or moral excellence, and when exhibited in practical life are lovely and worthy of all praise. The charm of the Christian character is not the cultivation of one virtue that overshadows all the rest, but the harmonious blending of all the virtues in the unity of the Christian life. Christian ethics should be earnestly studied, not as matters of mere speculation, but because of their supreme importance and utility in the moral conduct of every-day life.

II. Requires the translation of high moral principles into practical life.—“Those things which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do” (Php_4:9). It is one thing to ponder, admire, and applaud morality; it is another thing to practise it. The apostle not only taught Christian ethics, but practised them, and could point to his own example as worthy of imitation; it was not, “Do as I say,” but, “Do as I do.” Christian morality is of little value as a mere creed of ethics; its true power is seen in changing, elevating, and refining the life. We have all to lament there is such a wide chasm between theory and practice. Theory may be learned in a brief period; practice is the work of a lifetime. The theory of music may be rapidly apprehended, but the mastery of any one instrument, such as the violin or organ, demands patient and incessant practice. It means detail-work, plod, perseverance, genius. So is it with every virtue of Christian ethics. Theory and practice should go together; the one helps the other; practice more clearly defines theory, and theory more fully apprehended stimulates practice. It is the practice of Christian morality that preaches to the world a gospel that it cannot fail to understand and that is doing so much to renovate it. Lord Bolingbroke, an avowed infidel, declared: “No religion ever appeared in the world whose tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind as the Christian religion. The gospel of Christ is one continued lesson of the strictest morality, of justice, benevolence, and universal charity. Supposing Christianity to be a human invention, it is the most amiable and successful invention that ever was imposed on mankind for their good.”

III. Links practical morality with the promise of divine blessing.—“And the God of peace shall be with you” (Php_4:9). The upright man—the man who is striving to shape and mould his life on the ethics of the New Testament—shall not only enjoy peace, the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, but the God of peace shall be with him and in him. True religion, in healthy activity, gives, and can alone give, a restfulness of spirit such as the troubles of life are impotent to disturb. The two vital elements of true religion are communion with God and the diligent cultivation of practical holiness—conformity to the will of God in all things. Pray and bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, and the God of peace shall be with you, preserving you from unrest and harm. The peace of God is also an active principle, gentle and noiseless in its activity, which will help the soul to grow in ethical symmetry and beauty.

Lessons.—

1. The gospel is the foundation of the highest ethics.

2. No system of morality is trustworthy that does not lead to holy practice.

3. God helps the man who is honestly striving to live up to his light.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Php_4:8. Mercantile Virtues without Christianity.

I. What a man of mercantile honour has.—He has an attribute of character which is in itself pure, lovely, honourable, and of good report. He has a natural principle of integrity, and under its impulse he may be carried forward to such fine exhibitions of himself as are worthy of all admiration. It is very noble when the simple utterance of his word carries as much security along with it, as if he had accompanied that utterance by the signatures, the securities, and the legal obligations which are required of other men. All the glories of British policy and British valour are far eclipsed by the moral splendour which British faith has thrown over the name and the character of our nation. There is no denying the extended prevalence of a principle of integrity in the commercial world.

II. What a man of mercantile honour has not.—He may not have one duteous feeling of reverence which points upward to God. He may not have one wish or one anticipation which points forward to eternity. He may not have any sense of dependence on the Being who sustains him, and who gave him his very principle of honour as part of that interior furniture which He has put into his bosom. He is a man of integrity, and yet he is a man of ungodliness. This natural virtue, when disjoined from a sense of God, is of no religious estimation whatever; nor will it lead to any religious blessing, either in time or in eternity.—T. Chalmers.

Php_4:9. Paul as an Example to Believers.

I. He was distinguished by his decision of character in all that relates to religion.—Constitutionally ardent; zealous as a Pharisee. From the day of his conversion he never faltered, notwithstanding his privations, his dangers, his sufferings. Be decided.

II. By his care about the culture of the divine life in his own soul.—The student may desire to know the truth rather than to feel its power. The preacher may be more solicitous about the power of the truth over others than over himself. He never lost sight of the interests of his own soul.

III. By his devotional habits.—One would rather be the author of his prayers than of his sermons. The difference between his prayers as a Pharisee and as a Christian. The subject, the spirit, the style of his prayers as a Christian. Be careful. Be not soon shaken in mind or troubled by speculations about the philosophy of prayer.

IV. By his spirituality and heavenly mindedness.—He did not show any interest in the class of worldly objects that might have been expected to interest a man of his order of mind. He was absorbed in “spiritual things.” The second coming of Christ had a prominent place in his thoughts. “That day.” Cultivate a habitual superiority to the things of time and sense. Seek the things that are above.

V. By his patient submission to the dispensations of divine providence.—Rare amount of suffering. Strong feeling, unmurmuring submission. Patient, meek, contented. All from Christian principle. Be resigned.

VI. By his laborious usefulness.—Sketch his career. Be useful.—G. Brooks.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

(3). General exhortation to Christian progress

( Php_4:8-9)

8Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest [honorable] whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if 9there be any praise, think on these things. Those [The] things which ye have both [also] learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me [these] do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Php_4:8. Finally, τὸ λοιπόν, introduces the conclusion, but does not strictly resume Php_3:1 again (Matthies). [This expression indicates an approach to the end, and as Meyer remarks, its recurrence here shows Paul’s reluctance to say the last word of farewell.—H.] It is here added how and wherein the peace of God (Php_4:7) is to manifest itself; and as Php_4:7 states what God does, so this declares what remains for men to do. (De Wette). The address, brethren, ἀδελφοί, is prompted by the fervor of his feelings; and to this fervor is due also the six times repeated ὅσα. [The words which follow here may be said to be arranged in a descending scale. The first four describe the character of the actions themselves, the two former, ἀληθῆ, σεμνά, being absolute, the two latter δίκαια, ἁγνά, relative; the fifth and sixth προσφιλῆ, εὔφημα, point to the moral approbation which they conciliate; while the seventh and eighth ἀρετή, ἔπαινος, in which the form of expression is changed (εἴτις for ὅσα), are thrown in as an after-thought that no motive may be omitted (Lightfoot).—H.]—Whatsoever things are true, ὅσα ἐστὶν ἀληθῆ. The ὅσα indicates that all things, without exception, which the category embraces are meant; while ἐστίν implies their actual existence in contrast with the arbitrary supposition of men. Ἀληθῆ is the morally true, in harmony with the objective rule of morality in the gospels. See Eph_4:21. It should neither be limited by in sermone (Bengel) nor be taken as merely subjective in the sense of sincerity (Erasmus).—Whatsoever things are honorable (ὅσα σεμνά), designates things of a worthy character corresponding to the essence of the ἀλήθεια (1Ti_2:2; Tit_2:2). [They are such as men esteem, regard with respect, veneration.—H.]—Whatsoever things are just (ὅσα δίκαια) signifies the things which accord with the law, as in Eph_4:24, and should not be limited by erga alios (Bengel).—Whatsoever things are pure (ὅσα ἁγνά) describes the same qualities or acts intrinsically (2Co_6:6; 2Co_7:11; Jam_3:17; 1Ti_5:22; 1Jn_3:3; ἁγνῶς 1:17). It is not simply ‘chaste’ (Grotius).—Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report (ὅσα προσφιλῆ, ὅσα εὔφημα) comprises again a two-fold relation; both words have reference to the estimation of men, the first however designating what is valuable and dear to the heart of man, (προσφιλῆ), the second (εὔφημα) what is praised, esteemed among men, in word and deed. The first should not be supplemented by τοῖς πιστοῖς καὶ τῷ θεῷ (Chrysostom), or restricted by τῷ θεῷ (Theodoret), or interpreted as benigna, quæ, gratiosum faciunt hominem (Grotius). The second does not refer to quæ bonam famam conciliant (Erasmus), or to sermones, qui aliis bene precantur (Storr.), which is opposed to the context.—If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, sums up the preceding; εἴ τις ἀρετή refers to the first two pairs, καὶ εἴ τις ἔπαινος to the last pair. The former, ἀρετή, used of God, 1Pe_2:9; 2Pe_1:3, here and in 2Pe_1:5, of men, signifies moral rectitude in disposition and action; the latter (ἔπαινος) the moral judgment of men, hence not res laudabilis (Calvin, et al.); virtue (ἀρετή) calls forth praise (ἔπαινον): this presupposes that.—Thus what is in a Christian sense moral, is described in manifold relations, and the Apostle now says of it:—Think on these things, ταῦτα λογίζεσθε, not the same as φρονεῖτε. The Philippians should choose these things as the subject of their meditation, have them ever in their thoughts.

Php_4:9. The train of thought leads us here to the province of action.—The things which ye have also learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me. The first καί points to the ἐστίν with ὅσα. [Hence it does not signify both (A. V.), but also, i.e., it adds the Apostle’s example and teaching to the claims of the virtues themselves. Lightfoot makes the first καί responsive to the third, and so connects the verbs in pairs.—H.] Ἐμάθετε καὶ παρελάβετε, refer to instruction, the former indicating the act in this process, as that of the Philippians, the latter, as that of Paul. The second intimates that the first could not have taken place without the second. Ἠκούσατε καὶ εἴδετε refer to examples of which the Philippians had knowledge by report or from personal observation, and which καί joins with the instruction (ὲμάθετε). Ἐν ἐμοί belongs to both verbs, for Paul is an example in word as well as act. Therefore καί-καί-καί is not “as well as,” nor ἐμάθετε genus, and the others species (Hölemann), nor does ἠκούσατε refer to preaching (Calvin, et al.).—These do (ταῦτα πράσσετε) is parallel to ταῦτα λογίζεσθε; both together, thinking and doing, are what Paul enjoins.—And the God of peace shall be with you, καὶ ὁ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης ἔσται μεθ’ ὑμῶν. The particle connects the result (=‘and so,’) with the injunction. The promise points to Php_4:7. He has the peace of God as his protection, who has the God of peace with him and in him.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1.Salvation with all its inward wealth and manifold relations, is a unit. It harmonizes with the standard (ἀληθῆ) immanent in it, whereon depends its dignity, its worth (σεμνά), agrees with the rule made objective in the law (δίκαια), so that it is unspotted (ἁγνά), has its echo in the creature (προσφιλῆ), and in the circles formed by it (εὔφημα).

2. Salvation is obtained through a saving union of doctrine and example.

3. He who rightfully claims salvation in word, has resting upon him still more the duty of bearing witness to it in his life.

[Andrew Fuller:—“The God of peace shall be with you” (Php_4:9). We cannot experience the peace of God, and joy in the Holy Ghost, unless we have the testimony of our own consciences that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world.—What is this peace? The Christian, the minister who enjoys a well-grounded persuasion that he possesses the favor of Jesus Christ, whose confidence is in Him who sits at the helm of the universe, who walks with God and has the testimony of a good conscience, possesses the peace of God.—H.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Starke:—Christians have no need of the teachings of pagan morality, for no virtue can be found, or anything else praiseworthy and glorious, which is not found in God’s word.—Whoever will have the blessings of salvation, must submit to the divine plan of salvation.

Schleiermacher:—In regard to what is honorable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, there is a true and a false standard, and for this reason the Apostle here places the true at the beginning, that when the following exhortations are presented this fact, which our experience so often discloses, may at once occur to the Christian, and he may be led to examine himself and see whether he also is everywhere seeking for the true.

Heubner:—The Christian should not be one, but many-sided; he should strive after all that is excellent.—The true type of Christian virtue rejects all falsehood.—Klopstock inserts Php_4:8 in his ode to the Redeemer at the close of the Messiah.

[Robert Hall:—There are very different virtues. If we would be complete in our Christian profession, we must attend to all the virtues of it;—whatsoever things are true, honest, just, or lovely, as well as those sublimer things which more immediately respect God and Christ, and heaven and eternity. The beauty of the Christian character is not formed so much by the gigantic size of one virtue, as from the harmony and consistency of all. Never, then, let it appear which virtue has been most approved by you, but cultivate every virtue (Php_4:8).—H.]

Footnotes:

[5]Php_4:4 [This ‘and in the A. V. answers to καί in the common text, which is, however, unwarranted. For the asyndeton which thus occurs, see Winer’s Gram., p. 537. See the notes below on ἐρῶ.—H.]

[6][Neander suggests still another, or at least a modified interpretation. The consciousness that “the Lord is nigh,” furnishes a motive for the exercise of forbearance under provocation. His persecuted people walk in the sight of the Lord and dare not give way to passion in the near presence of Him, who endured every wrong with heavenly patience and long-suffering. This consciousness that the Lord is near will also restrain them from wishing to anticipate His justice, to take the work of retribution into their own hands.—H.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Philippians

THINK ON THESE THINGS

Php 4:8.

I am half afraid that some of you may think, as I have at times thought, that I am too old to preach to the young. You would probably listen with more attention to one less remote from you in years, and may be disposed to discount my advices as quite natural for an old man to give, and quite unnatural for a young man to take. But, dear friends, the message which I have to bring to you is meant for all ages, and for all sorts of people. And, if I may venture a personal word, I proved it, when I stood where you stand, and it is fresher and mightier to me to-day than it ever was.

You are in the plastic period of your lives, with the world before you, and the mightier world within to mould as you will; and you can be almost anything you like, I do not mean in regard to externals, or intellectual capacities, for these are only partially in our control, but in regard to the far more important and real things--viz. elevation and purity of heart and mind. You are in the period of life to which fair dreams of the future are natural. It is, as the prophet tells us, for ‘the young man’ to ‘see visions,’ and to ennoble his life thereafter by turning them into realities. Generous and noble ideas ought to belong to youth. But you are also in the period when there is a keen joy in mere living, and when some desires, which get weaker as years go on, are very strong, and may mar youthful purity. So, taking all these into account, I have thought that I could not do better than press home upon you the counsels of this magnificent text, however inadequately my time may permit of my dealing with them; for there are dozens of sermons in it, if one could expand it worthily.

But my purpose is distinctly practical, and so I wish just to cast what I have to say to you into the answer to three questions, the three questions that may be asked about everything. What? Why? How?

I. What, then, is the counsel here?

‘Think on these things.’ To begin with, that advice implies that we can, and, therefore, that we should, exercise a very rigid control over that part of our lives which a great many of us never think of controlling at all. There are hosts of people whose thoughts are just hooked on to one another by the slightest links of accidental connection, and who scarcely ever have put a strong hand upon them, or coerced them into order, or decided what they are going to let come into their minds, and what to keep out. Circumstances, the necessities of our daily occupations, the duties that we owe to one another, all these make certain streams of thought very necessary, and to some of us very absorbing. And for the rest--well! ‘He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls’; anybody can go in, and anybody can come out. I am sure that amongst young men and women there are multitudes who have never realised how responsible they are for the flow of the waves of that great river that is always coming from the depths of their being, and have never asked whether the current is bringing down sand or gold. Exercise control, as becomes you, over the run and drift of your thoughts. I said that many of us had minds like cities broken down. Put a guard at the gate, as they do in some Continental countries, and let in no vagrant that cannot show his passport, and a clear bill of health. Now, that is a lesson that some of you very much want.

But, further, notice that company of fair guests that you may welcome into the hospitalities of your heart and mind. ‘Think on these things’--and what are they? It would be absurd of me to try to exhaust the great catalogue which the Apostle gives here, but let me say a word or two about it.

‘Whatsoever things are true . . . think on these things.’ Let your minds be exercised, breathed, braced, lifted, filled by bringing them into contact with truth, especially with the highest of all truths, the truths affecting God and your relations to Him. Why should you, like so many of us, be living amidst the small things of daily life, the trifles that are here, and never coming into vital contact with the greatest things of all, the truths about God and Christ, and what you have to do with them, and what they have to do with you? ‘Whatsoever things are true . . . think on these things.’

‘Whatsoever things are honest,’ or, as the word more properly and nobly means, ‘Whatsoever things are reverent , or venerable ‘--let grave, serious, solemn thought be familiar to your minds, not frivolities, not mean things. There is an old story in Roman history about the barbarians breaking into the Capitol, and their fury being awed into silence, and struck into immobility, as they saw, round and round in the hall, the august Senators, each in his seat. Let your minds be like that, with reverent thoughts clustering on every side; and when wild passions, and animal desires, and low, mean contemplations dare to cross the threshold, they will be awed into silence and stillness. ‘Whatsoever things are august . . . think on these things.’

‘Whatsoever things are just’--let the great, solemn thought of duty, obligation, what I ought to be and do, be very familiar to your consideration and meditation. ‘Whatsoever things are just . . . think on these things.’

‘Whatsoever things are pure’--let white-robed angels haunt the place. Let there be in you a shuddering recoil from all the opposite; and entertain angels not unawares. ‘Whatsoever things are pure . . . think on these things.’

Now, these characteristics of thoughts which I have already touched upon all belong to a lofty region, but the Apostle is not contented with speaking austere things. He goes now into a region tinged with emotion, and he says, ‘whatsoever things are lovely’; for goodness is beautiful, and, in effect, is the only beautiful. ‘Whatsoever things are lovely . . . think on these things.’ And ‘whatsoever things are of good report’--all the things that men speak well of, and speak good in the very naming of, let thoughts of them be in your minds.

And then he gathers all up into two words. ‘If there be any virtue’--which covers the ground of the first four, that he has already spoken about--viz. true, venerable, just, pure; and ‘if there be any praise’--which resumes and sums up the two last: ‘lovely and of good report,’ ‘think on these things.’

Now, if my purpose allowed it, one would like to point out here how the Apostle accepts the non-Christian notions of the people in whose tongue he was speaking; and here, for the only time in his letters, uses the great Pagan word ‘virtue,’ which was a spell amongst the Greeks, and says, ‘I accept the world’s notion of what is virtuous and praiseworthy, and I bid you take it to your hearts.’

Dear brethren, Christianity covers all the ground that the noblest morality has ever attempted to mark out and possess, and it covers a great deal more. ‘If there be any virtue, as you Greeks are fond of talking about, and if there be any praise, if there is anything in men which commends noble actions, think on these things.’

Now, you will not obey this commandment unless you obey also the negative side of it. That is to say, you will not think on these fair forms, and bring them into your hearts, unless you turn away, by resolute effort, from their opposites. There are some, and I am afraid that in a congregation as large as this there must be some representatives of the class, who seem to turn this apostolic precept right round about, and whatsoever things are illusory and vain, whatsoever things are mean, and frivolous, and contemptible, whatsoever things are unjust, and whatsoever things are impure, and whatsoever things are ugly, and whatsoever things are branded with a stigma by all men they think on these things. Like the flies that are attracted to a piece of putrid meat, there are young men who are drawn by all the lustful, the lewd, the impure thoughts; and there are young women who are too idle and uncultivated to have any pleasure in anything higher than gossip and trivial fiction. ‘Whatsoever things are noble and lovely, think on these things,’ and get rid of all the others.

There are plenty of occasions round about you to force the opposite upon your notice; and, unless you shut your door fast, and double-lock it, they will be sure to come in:--Popular literature, the scrappy trivialities that are put into some periodicals, what they call ‘realistic fiction’; modern Art, which has come to be largely the servant of sense; the Stage, which has come--and more is the pity! for there are enormous possibilities of good in it--to be largely a minister of corruption, or if not of corruption at least of frivolity--all these things are appealing to you. And some of you young men, away from the restraints of home, and in a city, where you think nobody could see you sowing your wild oats, have got entangled with them. I beseech you, cast out all this filth, and all this meanness and pettiness from your habitual thinkings, and let the august and the lovely and the pure and the true come in instead. You have the cup in your hand, you can either press into it clusters of ripe grapes, and make mellow wine, or you can squeeze into it wormwood and gall and hemlock and poison-berries; and, as you brew, you have to drink. You have the canvas, and you are to cover it with the figures that you like best. You can either do as Fra Angelico did, who painted the white walls of every cell in his quiet convent with Madonnas and angels and risen Christs, or you can do like some of those low-toned Dutch painters, who never can get above a brass pan and a carrot, and ugly boors and women, and fill the canvas with vulgarities and deformities. Choose which you will have to keep you company.

II. Now, let me ask you to think for a moment why this counsel is pressed upon you.

Let me put the reasons very briefly. They are, first, because thought moulds action. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.’ One looks round the world, and all these solid-seeming realities of institutions, buildings, governments, inventions and machines, steamships and electric telegrams, laws and governments, palaces and fortresses, they are all but embodied thoughts. There was a thought at the back of each of them which took shape. So, in another sense than the one in which the saying was originally meant, but yet an august and solemn sense, ‘the word is made flesh,’ and our thoughts became visible, and stand round us, a ghastly company. Sooner or later what has been the drift and trend of a man’s life comes out, flashes out sometimes, and dribbles out at other times, into visibility in his actions; and, just as the thunder follows on the swift passage of the lightning, so my acts are neither more nor less than the reverberation and after-clap of my thoughts.

So if you are entertaining in your hearts and minds this august company of which my text speaks, your lives will be fair and beautiful. For what does the Apostle immediately go on to add to our text? ‘These things do’--as you certainly will if you think about them, and as you certainly will not unless you do.

Again, thought and work make character. We come into the world with certain dispositions and bias. But that is not character, it is only the raw material of character. It is all plastic, like the lava when it comes out of the volcano. But it hardens, and whatever else my thought may do, and whatever effects may follow upon any of my actions, the recoil of them on myself is the most important effect to me. And there is not a thought that comes into, and is entertained by a man, or rolled as a sweet morsel under his tongue, but contributes its own little but appreciable something to the making of the man’s character. I wonder if there is anybody in this chapel now who has been so long accustomed to entertain these angels of whom my text speaks as that to entertain their opposites would be an impossibility. I hope there is. I wonder if there is anybody in this chapel to-night who has been so long accustomed to live amidst the thoughts that are small and trivial and frivolous, if not amongst those that are impure and abominable, as that to entertain their opposites seems almost an impossibility. I am afraid there are some. I remember hearing about a Maori woman who had come to live in one of the cities in New Zealand, in a respectable station, and after a year or two of it she left husband and children, and civilisation, and hurried back to her tribe, flung off the European garb, and donned the blanket, and was happy crouching over the embers on the clay hearth. Some of you have become so accustomed to the low, the wicked, the lustful, the impure, the frivolous, the contemptible, that you cannot, or, at any rate, have lost all disposition to rise to the lofty, the pure, and the true.

Once more; as thought makes deeds, and thought and deeds make character, so character makes destiny, here and hereafter. If you have these blessed thoughts in your hearts and minds, as your continual companions and your habitual guests, then, my friend, you will have a light within that will burn all independent of externals; and whether the world smiles or frowns on you, you will have the true wealth in yourselves; ‘a better and enduring substance.’ You will have peace, you will be lords of the world, and having nothing yet may have all. No harm can come to the man who has laid up in his youth, as the best treasure of old age, this possession of these thoughts enjoined in my text.

And character makes destiny hereafter. What is a man whose whole life has been one long thought about money-making, or about other objects of earthly ambition, or about the lusts of the flesh, and the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, to do in heaven? What would one of those fishes in the sunless caverns of America, which, by long living in the dark, have lost their eyes, do, if it were brought out into the sunshine? A man will go to his own place, the place for which he is fitted, the place for which he has fitted himself by his daily life, and especially by the trend and the direction of his thoughts.

So do not be led away by talk about ‘seeing both sides,’ about ‘seeing life,’ about ‘knowing what is going on.’ ‘I would have you simple concerning evil, and wise concerning good.’ Do not be led away by talk about having your fling, and sowing your wild oats. You may make an indelible stain on your conscience, which even forgiveness will not wipe out; and you may sow your wild oats, but what will the harvest be? ‘Whatsoever a man soweth that’-- that --’shall he also reap.’ Would you like all your low thoughts, all your foul thoughts, to return and sit down beside you, and say, ‘We have come to keep you company for ever’? ‘If there be any virtue . . . think on these things.’

III. Now, lastly, how is this precept best obeyed?

I have been speaking to some extent about that, and saying that there must be real, honest, continuous effort to keep out the opposite, as well as to bring in the ‘things that are lovely and of good report.’ But there is one more word that I must say in answer to the question how this precept can be observed, and it is just this. All these things, true, venerable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, are not things only; they are embodied in a Person. For whatever things are fair meet in Jesus Christ, and He, in His living self, is the sum of all virtue and of all praise. So that if we link ourselves to Him by faith and love, and take Him into our hearts and minds, and abide in Him, we have them all gathered together into that One. Thinking on these things is not merely a meditating upon abstractions, but it is clutching and living in and with and by the living, loving Lord and Saviour of us all. If Christ is in my thoughts, all good things are there.

If you trust Him, and make him your Companion, He will help you, He will give you His own life, and in it will give you tastes and desires which will make all these fair thoughts congenial to you, and will deliver you from the else hopeless bondage of subjection to their very opposites.

Brethren, our souls cleave to the dust, and all our efforts will be foiled, partially or entirely, to obey this precept, unless we remember that it was spoken to people who had previously obeyed a previous commandment, and had taken Christ for their Saviour. We gravitate earthwards, alas! after all our efforts, but if we will put ourselves in His hands, then He will be as a Magnet drawing us upwards, or rather He will give us wings of love and contemplation by which we can soar above that dim spot that men call Earth, and walk in the heavenly places. The way by which this commandment can be obeyed is by obeying the other precept of the same Apostle, ‘Set your minds on things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.’

I beseech you, take Christ and enthrone Him in the very sanctuary of your minds. Then you will have all these venerable, pure, blessed thoughts as the very atmosphere in which you move. ‘Think on these things . . . these things do! . . . and the God of Peace shall be with you.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 18

THE THINGS TO FIX UPON.

Php_4:8-9 (R.V.)

THE topics last considered bring us naturally to the remarkable exhortation of Php_4:8-9. This proceeds on the same view of the moral and spiritual situation, and completes what the Apostle has to say in reference to it.

If men are to live as citizens of a heavenly commonwealth, on great principles and to great ends, it is, as we have seen, a very practical question, What to do about the inevitable play and onset of this changing earthly life, which assails us with motives, and detains us upon interests, and inspires us with influences, of its own. These cannot be abjured: they are not easy to harmonise with the indications of that loftier and purer world; they are prone to usurp the whole heart, or at least a very undue share of it. This is the practical problem of every honest Christian. In reference to the solving of it the Apostle had suggested the place given to Christian joy; he had suggested also the place and power of prayer. These were indications as to the spirit and the method in which a believer might bring into play the resources of the Kingdom of Christ to control and subjugate those insubordinate forces. But might not all this seem to be too negative? Does it not speak too much of holding off and holding in? After all, do not all human experiences constitute the scene in which we are both formed and tried? What can we make of life unless we are interested in it? How otherwise can we even be religious in it? What is life if it is not a scene of inquiry and of search set in motion by the objects around us, a scene in which we like and dislike, hope and fear, desire and think? The answer is, Yes, we are to be keenly interested in the experiences of life, and in the possibilities it opens. Life is our way of existing; let existence be animated and intense. But while the aspects of it that are merely transient are to have their place, and may attract a lively interest, there are other aspects, other interests, other possibilities. All the transient interests have an outgate towards such as are eternal. Life is the experience of beings that have high capacities, and can rise to noble destinies. It is the experience of societies of such beings, who mould one another, exchanging influences continually. The changing experience of human life, when seen in the true light, is found to add to all its lower interests a play of interests that are more interesting as well as more worthy. It is iridescent with lights which it catches from the infinite and the eternal. Every step of it, every turn of it, asks questions, offers opportunities, calls for decisions, holds out treasures, which it is the business of a lifetime to recognise and to secure. It has gains, it has victories, it has accomplishments, it has glories, which need not lead us to deny its lower interests, but which we may reasonably feel to be far the higher. Endless shades, and forms and types of goodness, of being good, getting good, doing good, gleam reflected to us from the changing experience. Goodness is not one monotonous category embodied in some solemn phrase, and exhausted when that is learned. There is no end to the rich variety in which it is offered, and in which it is to be caught, understood, appropriated. And life, through all the manifoldness of its legitimate interests, and its illegitimate possibilities, is the scene in which all this passes before us, and asks to be made ours. The Apostle says to us, Think on these things. Take account, that is, of what they are, and what their worth is. Lay forth on these the care and pains which spent themselves before on mere pain and pleasure, loss and gain. Reckon what these are, search out their nature, prove their capabilities, appropriate and enjoy them. Think on these things. So earthly life, through all its busy processes, shall acquire a nobler interest; and it shall begin, at the same time, to minister with unexpected readiness to your true welfare. Enter then, or press on, in this wide field. Be this your passion and pursuit; that which unifies your life, and draws all its resources towards one result.

We may be helped to fix more firmly the point of view from which this striking catalogue of good things is drawn up, if we observe that the Apostle collects all these excellences under the notion of "a virtue and a praise." Let us consider how men are trained to progressive conceptions of virtue and praise. For virtue and praise, both name and notion, have had a large place in mens minds and a great influence on their actions. How has this influence been sustained and made to grow?

Men are conscious of obligations; and they are aware, more dimly or more clearly, that the standard of those obligations must exist somehow above themselves. It is a standard not of their own creation, but such as claims them by an antecedent right. Yet if each individual could hold himself apart, forming his own conceptions of fit and right for himself without regard to others, the standard would tend downwards rapidly, because moral judgment would be warped by each mans selfishness and passion, excusing evil in his own case and putting it for good. Even as it is, this has taken place only too widely. But yet the tendency is powerfully counteracted by the fact that men do not exist, nor form their notions, in that separate way. A principle within them prompts them to seek one anothers approbation, and to value one anothers good opinion. Indeed the consciousness that what is law for me is law for others, and that they are judging as well as I, is one of the forms in which we realise that duty descends upon us all, from some august and holy source.

This principle of regarding the judgment and seeking the approbation of others, has had an enormous effect on men and on society. For though men are skilful enough, in their own case, in averting or silencing the admonition of the monitor within, they have little reluctance to make full use of their sense of right in scrutinising one another. They judge, in their thoughts about each other, with far more clearness, shrewdness, and certainty than they do about themselves. Men do in this way make requirements of one another, which each of them might be slow to make from himself. This is a great operative force in all cases; and in those cases in which, in any society, vivid convictions about truth and duty have taken possession of some minds, the principle we are speaking of propagates an influence through the whole mass, with effects that are very striking.

This mutual criticism of men "accusing or else excusing one another," has had a great effect in sustaining what we call common morals. But especially let it be observed that this criticism, and the consciousness of it, stimulating the higher class of minds, sustain and develop the finer perceptions of morality. There are minds that eminently strive for distinction in things that are counted for a virtue and a praise. And through them is developed in the general mind the approving perception of more delicate shades of worthy conduct, which in a coarser age were unperceived or unheeded. These come up in mens mutual judgments; they are scrutinised; they interest the mind and take hold of it. So, whether in the case of those who begin to pay respect to such forms of good because they perceive that others approve of them, or in the case of those who, when those forms of good are thus presented, perceive a worth in them and take a pride in living up to them for their own sake, -in both cases, the creating and sustaining of the higher standard depends on the principle we have now before us.

Thus there arises, for example, the code of honour, the fine perception of what is socially right, becoming, and graceful. Men, no doubt, are always to be found who cultivate the nicest sense of this, not from a mere desire that others should know it, but because they see it to be desirable in itself, and because they shun the sense of inward disgrace that follows when they fall below their own standard. Yet it is the process of mutual criticism which develops the consciousness, and it is this which, on the whole, sustains it.

Thus we find in the world not merely a sense of duty, but something that has spurred men on to things counted for a virtue and a praise. Outside of all Christian influences, wonderful examples are found of self-sacrificing devotion to the noble and the true. Men have eagerly pursued the nicest discriminations of duty and honour, that they might be, and might show themselves to be, accomplished, finished, not merely in some things, but in whatever things were counted to be the proper tokens of a noble mind.

Well now, the Apostle is not shutting out from his plan of mental life the attainments made in this way in the true or the good, even apart from Christian teaching. Far less is he excluding the human social method, in which mind whets mind, and one stirs another to discern and appropriate what is for a virtue and for a praise. He supposes this mode of influence to go on in Christianity more successfully than ever. And he is not at all excluding the natural life of men; for that is the scene, and that yields the materials, for the whole process. But he does suppose that now all old attainment shall be set in a new light, and acquire a new life and grace, and that new attainment shall come wonderfully into view by reason of the new element which for us has entered into the situation. And what is this element? Is it that we recognise around us a society of Christians with whom we share a higher standard, and with whom we can give and take the contagion of a nobler conception of life? Yes, no doubt; but far before that, the great new element in the situation is the Lord-in whom we trust and rejoice.

It is always human duty to have regard to the will of God, however it may reach us. But when you are called to know the Lord and to rejoice in Him, when He vouchsafes Himself to be yours, when you begin to enjoy His peace, and to walk with Him in love, and to have it for your hope to be with Him for ever, then you are placed in a new relation to Him. And it is such a near and dear relation on both sides that much may be expected from you in it. If this be so, you are now dealing with Him always; not merely in direct acts of worship, but in your thoughts, your feelings, your words, your business, your common intercourse with men, and all your daily life, you walk with Him. You cannot repudiate having so much to do with Him, unless you will repudiate your Christianity.

Then, if so, something new is expected. A new test of the becoming, of that which is for a virtue and for a praise, has come into operation, and has become intelligible to you; and it is a test of new delicacy and new force. It is expected we should recognise it. Not now the mutual judgments merely of erring men, but His mind and His will, what He delights in and approves, - this begins to solicit us and press upon us, for we walk with Christ. That this "walk" of ours may escape being mean, coarse, offensive, we have great lessons to learn. We have to learn what, in His judgment, as seen by His eye, as tried by the sensibilities of His heart, are the things that are true and venerable and just, what with Him counts for a virtue and a praise.

And here, indeed, is our crown. The crown of honour which man cast away when sin gained him, was the approbation of the Lord. But now we are set on afresh to seek it, testing our ways by the perception of that which He approves; or, on the other hand, what He counts to be mean and degrading, fit to be recoiled from and rejected. It is our calling (whatever our attainment may be) to be more sensitive to the nicest touches of truth and honour towards our Lord than ever we were towards men. And this does not apply only to some narrow field of life. It goes through all relations, up to God and Christ, and out through all duties and ties. The great calling reaches wide and far; it is very high and noble: we cannot pretend to disclaim it, unless we disclaim the Lord. This way lies Gods crown. Win it; wear it; let no man take thy crown.

When our Lords mind and heart are said to be the test, this does not exclude our profiting by our fellows, accepting the admonition contained in human judgments, and especially in those of Christian people. Great good comes to us in such channels. Only now the judgment of our fellows is to refer itself always to a further standard; and a new Presence brings new tenderness and grace, new depth and significance, to every suggestion of right feeling and worthy life. This is the light and this the influence under which we are to learn what shall be counted for a virtue and for a praise. And we must bend our mind to think upon it, if we are to learn our lesson.

We must think upon it. For, on the one hand, it is not "some things," but "whatsoever things." What should we say of a man who proposed in his dealings with others to do "some things" that are honourable, but not all things, not "whatsoever things"? And, on the other hand, we may be further off from even a small measure of attainment in this field than we are disposed to think. Christians who, as to all social excellence, as that is commonly understood between man and man, are unexceptionable, may be sadly blind to the requirements of an honourable walk with God; may be sadly wanting even in the conception of what is due in all love and honour to Christ, and to men for His sake. Men may be the soul of honour and delicacy in their ways, judged from the worlds point of view; yet not far from a savage coarseness in the manner of their life, judged by Christs standard. We would not needlessly wound anothers feelings; but with what indifference have we "grieved the Spirit." We would shrink from saying anything to our fellows that is deceitful and hypocritical: can we say as much for our prayers? In our common life we maintain truth in the ordinary sense between men; but do we loyally express and act out the truth by which Gods children live in our speech and action among men? Is there that fine congruity of our bearing to the truth we live by, which becomes a child of God?

We are greatly hindered here by the assumption we make, that when we have mastered the form of knowledge concerning the will of God, we then know all about our calling. It is a great delusion. We must not only sit down at the feet of Christ to learn from Him; but also, with a watchful eye on the phases of life, catching the lessons which things and men afford, we must be trained to know and sharpened to loving discernment as to our Masters mind, and so, as to what is honourable and right-minded, refined and noble, in a walk with God. We do not easily emerge from the meanness of our spirits; we do not easily shake off that insensibility to what is spiritually fair and fit, on which the angels look down with pity and wonder.

Therefore, says the Apostle, think on these things, the things, which in the Lords kingdom and under the Lords eye are well-pleasing, and count for a virtue and a praise; think on those things which are related to His esteem, and to the esteem of persons who learn of Him, as various excellences are to the common judgment of the world. Do so, for here you are close to the genuinely and supremely true and good; and this, as was said before, is your crown.

The Apostle is thinking of a perception of duty and privilege attained not merely by studying a catalogue of virtues, but by a far finer and more living process-by life that is instinct with observant watchfulness, that is frank in self-criticism, that is recipient of the light flashing from the experience and the censure of others: all this under constant regard to the Lord, and leading us into fuller sympathy with Him.

That this is so appears from the Apostles way of arranging the particulars of his exhortation. He does not merely desire his disciples to discern what is right in general: but he would have them grow into a vital knowledge, so as to feel the right in those matters where the shading becomes delicate; where it may be difficult to distinguish argumentatively an absolute right and wrong, but where a mind purged and trained in the Masters school can well discern a difference. "Whatsoever things are true"-which includes not only veracity and fidelity, but also whatever in conduct and temper Gods truth requires as agreeable to itself; and then "Whatsoever things are venerable"-the character that emerges when all that is congruous to truth, in its finest filaments and ramifications, has been developed, and has assumed its own place. "Whatsoever things are just"-rightfully due on all hands to God and to man; and then "Whatsoever things are pure"-the character that recoils from all that sullies, from the smallest shade or infection of iniquity. "Whatsoever things are lovely"-the dear or amiable, whatever draws out love, cherishes it, befits it; and then "Whatsoever things are of good report"-actions that can hardly be more discriminatingly classified than by saying that the heart is pleased to hear of them; it confesses that they are of a good name, of a welcome sound; they are like some delicate sound or odour on which you dwell with delight, but cannot definitely describe it. In a word, "If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Study them, look out for them, learn to recognise them, to know their worth, to pursue them lovingly through all their manifestations.

Thus, let it be said once more, the Apostle is not open to the objection that he calls us to a mere retreat from energetic life. To such a call men have always replied that they find in themselves capacities wonderfully adapted to grapple with life, and to do so with interest and with energy. Virtually the Apostle says, Yes, true; and life has aspects to interest the mind, and results to engage the will, which are its noble and its imperative possibilities: for the followers of Christ these become dominant; they afford noble scope for all human faculty; and all forms of life are dignified as they become subservient to these supreme interests and aims. Now, lay forth the care and pains that fastened before on mere joy and sorrow, hope and fear, on a certain thinking and making account of the true, the venerable, the just, the pure, the lovely, that which is of good report. Reckon what they are; search out their nature; make them your serious object. "O man of God, flee those things; but follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness."

But progress is not to be made in this line by mere subtle refining and contemplation. If there was any danger that the Apostles call to "think" might be interpreted that way, presently it is corrected. The thinking is to be practical thinking, bending itself to action. "What things ye.have received and learned"-those practical points in which the Apostle always taught his Gentile converts to put to proof the grace of Christ; and "What ye have heard and seen in me"-in a man poor, tried, persecuted, a man whose life was rough and real, who knew weakness and sorrow, who bore heavy burdens, that were not proudly paraded, but which brought him lowly and weary to Christs feet, -these things do. That is the road to the attainments on which I bid you think.

"And the God of peace shall be with you." In those ways (for they are His own ways) God walks with men; and peace with God, spreading out into peace with men, becomes the atmosphere in which such wayfarers move.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

4:8 Paul urges the Philippians to focus on God’s good gifts so that, even during suffering and persecution, their lives will be exemplary and their minds and hearts will be filled with peace (4:7, 9).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Php 4:8. Τὸ) The summing up. In ch. Php 3:1, τὸ λοιπὸν concludes the particular admonition to joy; and here τὸ λοιπὸν concludes the general exhortation to every duty.—ὅσα, whatsoever things) in general. “Α, Those things which, Php 4:9, specially in regard to Paul.—ἀληθῆ—ἔπαινος, true—praise) Eight nouns, in two rows of four members each, of which the one has regard to duty, the other to the commendation of it. If we compare both rows of nouns with one another, the first noun corresponds to the first, the second to the second, the third to the third, the fourth to the fourth. It is a manifold and elegant Chiasmus, comprehending the duties of children, parents, husbands, and wives, and the other (relative) duties.—ἀληθῆ, true) in words.—σεμνὰ, honest) in action.—δίκαια, just) towards others.—ἁγνὰ, [pure] chaste) in respect to yourselves.—προσφιλῆ, loveable, lovely) προσφιλῆ συναγωγῇ σεαυτὸν ποίει, make thyself a person to be loved by the synagogue, Sir 4:7.—ὁ σοφὸς ἐν λόγῳ ἑαυτὸν προσφιλῆ ποιήσει, the wise man will make himself a person to be loved in what he says, Sir 20:12 (13).—ὅσα εὔφημα, whatsoever things are of good report) προσφιλῆ, lovely or loveable, face to face: εὔφημα, of good report, is used with respect to the absent: comp. Php 1:27.—ἀρετὴ, virtue) Paul uses this word only in this passage. It refers to δίκαια, whatsoever things are just. For every virtue is included in righteousness, ἐν δὲ δικαιοσύνῃ συλλήβδην πᾶσʼ ἀρετή ἐστι.—ἔπαινος, praise) even in those things which belong less to your neighbour than to yourselves.—ταῦτα λογίζεσθε, have respect or regard to these things) This refers to the things that are true, and which have been practised or are now practised even by others, that we may approve, remember, help forward, promote (advance), imitate such things. We should not only do them when they fall in our way, but also take care, beforehand, that they be done. Ταῦτα πράσσετε, do these things, follows with Asyndeton, which [the absence of a connecting particle between ταῦτα λογίζεσθε and ταῦτα πράσσετε] denotes that the one kind of good things [viz. those in Php 4:8] does not differ from the other [those in Php 4:9].

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Php_4:8 f. A summary closing summons to a Christian mode of thought and (Php_4:9) action, compressing everything closely and succinctly into a few pregnant words, introduced by τὸ λοιπόν, with which Paul had already, at Php_3:1, wished to pass on to the conclusion. See on Php_3:1. This τὸ λοιπόν is not, however, resumptive (Matthies, Ewald, following the old expositors), or concluding the exhortation begun in Php_3:1 (Hofmann), for in that passage it introduced quite a different summons; but, without any reference to Php_3:1, it conveys the transition of thought: what over and above all the foregoing I have to urge upon you in general still is: everything that, etc. According to de Wette, it is intended to bring out what remained for man to do, in addition to that which God does, Php_4:7. But in that case there must have been expressed, at least by ὑμεῖς before ἀδελφοί or in some other way, an antithetic statement of that which had to be done on the part of man.

ὅσα] nothing being excepted, expressed asyndetically six times with the emphasis of an earnest ἐπιμονή. Comp. Php_2:1, Php_3:2; Buttmann, Neut. Gr. p. 341 [E. T. 398].

ἀληθῆ] The thoroughly ethical contents of the whole summons requires us to understand, not theoretical truth (van Hengel), but that which is morally true; that is, that which is in harmony with the objective standard of morality contained in the gospel. Chrysostom: ἡ ἀρετή· ψεῦδος δὲ ἡ κακία. Oecumenius: ἀληθὴ δέ φησι τὰ ἐνάρετα. Comp. also Theophylact. See 1Jn_1:6; Joh_3:21; Eph_5:9; 1Co_5:8. To limit it to truth in speaking (Theodoret, Bengel) is in itself arbitrary, and not in keeping with the general character of the predicates which follow, in accordance with which we must not even understand specially unfeigned sincerity (Erasmus, Grotius, Estius, and others; comp. Eph_4:21; Plat. Phil. p. 59 C: τὸ ἀληθὲς καὶ ὃ δὴ λέγομεν εἰλικρινές), though this essentially belongs to the morally true.

σεμνά] worthy of honour, for it is in accordance with God. Comp. 1Ti_2:2 : εὐσεβείᾳ καὶ σεμνότητι. Plat. Soph. p. 249 A: σεμνὸν καὶ ἅγιον νοῦν. Xen. Oec. vi. 14: τὸ σεμνὸν ὄνομα τὸ καλόν τε κἀγαθόν. Dem. 385. 11; Herodian, i. 2. 6; Ael. V. H. ii. 13, viii. 36; Polyb. ix. 36. 6, xv. 22. 1, xxii. 6. 10.

δίκαια] upright, as it ought to be; not to be limited to the relations erga alios (Bengel, Heumann, and others), so that justice in the narrower sense would be meant (so Calvin: ne quem laedamus, ne quem fraudemus; Estius, Grotius, Calovius, and others). Comp., on the contrary, Theogn. 147: ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ συλλήβδην πᾶσʼ ἀρετή ἐστι.

ἁγνά] pure, unstained, not: chaste in the narrower sense of the word (2Co_11:2; Dem. 1371. 22; Plut. Mor. p. 268 E, 438 C, et al.), as Grotius, Calovius, Estius, Heumann, and others would explain it. Calvin well says: castimoniam denotat in omnibus vitae partibus. Comp. 2Co_6:6; 2Co_7:11; 1Ti_5:22; Jam_3:17; 1Pe_3:2; 1Jn_3:3; often so used in Greek authors. Comp. Menand. in Clem. Strom, vii. p. 844: πᾶς ἁγνός ἐστιν ὁ μηδὲν ἑαυτῷ κακὸν συνιδών.

προσφιλῆ] dear, that which is loved. This is just once more Christian morality, which, in its whole nature as the ethical καλόν, is worthy of love;[184] Plat. Rep. p. 444 E; Soph. El. 972: φιλεῖ γὰρ πρὸς τὰ χρηστὰ πᾶς ὁρᾶν. Nihil est amabilius virtute, nihil quod magis alliciat ad diligendum, Cic. Lael. 28. Comp. ad Famil. ix. 14; Xen. Mem. ii. 1. 33. The opposite is the αἰσχρόν, which deserves hate (Rom_7:15). Chrysostom suggests the supplying τοῖς πιστοῖς κ. τῷ Θεῷ; Theodoret only τῷ Θεῷ. Others, as Calovius, Estius, Heinrichs, and many: amabilia hominibus But there is no necessity for any such supplement. The word does not occur elsewhere in the N. T., although frequently in classical authors, and at Sir_4:8; Sir_20:13. Others understand kindliness, benevolence, friendliness, and the like. So Grotius; comp. Erasmus, Paraphr.: quaecumque ad alendam concordiam accommoda. Linguistically faultless (Ecclus. l.c.; Herod, i. 125; Thuc. vii. 86; Polyb. x. 5. 6), but not in keeping with the context, which does not adduce any special virtues.

εὔφημα] not occurring elsewhere either in the N. T., or in the LXX., or Apocrypha; it does not mean: quaecumque bonam famam conciliant (Erasmus; comp. Calvin, Grotius, Cornelius a Lapide, Estius, Heinrichs, and others, also Rheinwald); but: (Luther), which has an auspicious (faustum) sound, i.e. that which, when it is named, sounds significant of happiness, as, for instance, brave, honest, honourable, etc. The opposite would be: δύσφημα. Comp. Soph. Aj. 362; Eur. Iph. T. 687: εὔφημα φώνει. Plat. Leg. vii. p. 801 A: τὸ τῆς ᾠδῆς γένος εὔφημον ἡμῖν. Aesch. Suppl. 694, Agam. 1168; Polyb. xxxi. 14. 4; Lucian, Prom. 3. Storr, who is followed by Flatt, renders it: sermones, qui bene aliis precantur. So used in later Greek authors (also Symmachus, Psa_62:6); but this meaning is here too special.

εἴ τις κ.τ.λ.] comprehending all the points mentioned: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise; not if there be yet another, etc. (de Wette).

ἀρετή used by Paul here only, and in the rest of the N. T. only in 1Pe_2:9, 2Pe_1:3; 2Pe_1:5,[185] in the ethical sense: moral aptitude in disposition and action (the opposite to it, κακία: Plat. Rep. 444 D, 445 C, 1, p. 348 C). Comp. from the Apocrypha, Wis_4:1; Wis_5:13, and frequent instances of its use in the books of Macc.

ἔπαινος] not: res laudabilis (Calvin, Grotius, Estius, Flatt, Matthies, van Hengel, and many others; comp. Weiss), but praise (Erasmus: laus virtutis comes), which the reader could not understand in the apostles sense otherwise than of a laudatory judgment actually corresponding to the moral value of the object. Thus, for instance, Pauls commendation of love in 1 Corinthians 13 is an ἔπαινος; or when Christ pronounces a blessing on the humble, the peacemakers, the merciful, etc., or the like. Vera laus uni virtuti debetur, Cic. de orat. ii. 84. 342; virtue is καθʼ αὑτὴν ἐπαινετή, Plat. Def. p. 411 C. Mistaken, therefore, were such additions as ἐπιστήμης (D* E* F G) or disciplinae (Vulg., It., Ambrosiaster, Pelagius).

ταῦτα λογίζεσθε] consider these things, take them to heart, in order, (see Php_4:9) to determine your conduct accordingly. Meditatio praecedit, deinde sequitur opus, Calvin. On λογίζεσθαι, comp. Psa_52:2; Jer_26:3; Nah_1:9; Psa_35:4; Psa_36:4; 3Ma_4:4; Soph. O. R. 461; Herod, viii. 53; Dem. 63, 12; Sturz, Lex. Xen. III. p. 42; the opposite: θνητὰ λογίζεσθαι, Anthol. Pal. xi. 56. 3.

Php_4:9. The Christian morality, which Paul in Php_4:8 has commended to his readers by a series of predicates, he now again urges upon them in special reference to their relation to himself, their teacher and example, as that which they had also learned, etc. The first καί is therefore also, prefixing to the subsequent ταῦτα πράσσετε an element corresponding to this requirement, and imposing an obligation to its fulfilment. Whatsoever also has been the object and purport of your instruction, etc., that do. To take the four times repeated καί as a double as well … as also (Hofmann and others), would yield an inappropriate formal scheme of separation. Καί in the last three cases is the simple and, but so that the whole is to be looked upon as bipartite: Duo priora verba ad doctrinam pertinent, reliqua duo ad exemplum (Estius).

ἅ] not ὍΣΑ again; for no further categories of morality are to be given, but what they are bound to do generally is to be described under the point of view of what is known to the readers, as that which they also have learned, etc.

παρελάβετε] have accepted. Comp. 1Co_15:1; Joh_1:11; Polyb. xxxiii. 16. 9. The interpretation: have received (Vulgate, Erasmus, Luther, Beza, and most expositors, including Rheinwald, Rilliet, Hoelemann, de Wette, Weiss, Hofmann), which makes it denote the instruction communicated (1Th_2:13; 1Th_4:1; 2Th_3:6; 1Co_11:23; Gal_1:9; Gal_1:12; Col_2:6; comp. Plat. Theaet. p. 198 B: παραλαμβάνοντα δὲ μανθάνειν), would yield a twofold designation for the one element,[186] and on the other hand would omit the point of the assensus, which is so important as a motive; moreover, from a logical point of view, we should necessarily expect to find the position of the two words reversed (comp. Gal_1:12).

ἠκούσατε] does not refer to the proper preaching and teaching of the apostle (Erasmus, Calvin, Elsner, Rheinwald, Matthies), which is already fully embraced in the two previous points; nor does it denote: audistis de me absente (Estius and others, including Hoelemann, Rilliet, Hofmann), for all the other points refer to the time of the apostles presence, and consequently not merely the de me, but also the absente would be purely imported. No, by the words ἠκούσατε and ΕἼΔΕΤΕ, to both of which ἐν ἐμοί belongs, he represents to his readers his own example of Christian morality, which he had given them when he was present, in its two portions, in so far as they had perceived it in him (ἐν ἑμοί, comp. Php_1:30) partly by hearing, in his whole oral behaviour and intercourse with them, partly by seeing, in his manner of action among them; or, in other words, his example both in word and deed.

ταῦτα πράσσετε] these things do, is not related to ταῦτα λογίζεσθε, Php_4:8, as excluding it, in such a way that for what is said in Php_4:8 the ΛΟΓΊΖΕΣΘΑΙ merely would be required, and for what is indicated in Php_4:9 the ΠΡΆΣΣΕΙΝ; on the contrary, the two operations, which in substance belong jointly to the contents of both verses, are formally separated in accordance with the mode of expression of the parallelism. Comp. on Php_2:8 and Rom_10:10.

καὶ ὁ Θεός κ.τ.λ.] in substance the same promise as was given in Php_4:7. God, who works peace (that holy peace of soul, Php_4:7), will be with you, whereby is meant the help given through the Holy Spirit; and His special agency, which Paul here has in view, is unmistakeably indicated by the very predicate τῆς εἰρήνης.

[184] Luther well renders it: lieblich, and the Gothic: liubaleik; the Vulgate: amabilia.

[185] We are not entitled to assume (with Beza) as the reason why Paul does not use this word elsewhere, that it is verbum nimium humile, si cum donis Spiritus Sancti comparetur. The very passage before us shows the contrary, as it means no other than Christian morality. Certainly in Pauls case, as with the N. T. authors generally and even Christ Himself, the specific designations of the idea of virtue, which correspond more closely to the sphere of theocratic O. T. ideas, such as δικαιοσύνη, ὑπακοή, ἁγιότης, ἁγιωσύνη, ὁσιότης, κ.τ.λ., too necessarily suggested themselves to his mind to allow him to use the general term for morality, ἀρετή, as familiar, however worthily and nobly the Platonic doctrine, in particular, had grasped the idea of it (εἰς ὅσον δυνατὸν ἀνθρώπῳ ὁμοιοῦσθαι Θεῷ, Plat. Rep. p. 613 A, 500 C, et al.).

[186] Real distinctions have, indeed, been made, hut how purely arbitrary they are! Thus Grotius (comp. Hammond) makes ἐμάθ. apply to the primam institutionem, and παρελάβ. to the exacliorcm doctrinam. Rilliet explains it differently, making the former denote: son enseignement direct, and the latter: les instructions, quil leur a transmises sous une forme quelconque.

REMARK.

It is to be noticed that the predicates in Php_4:8, ἀληθῆ … εὔφημα, do not denote different individual virtues, but that each represents the Christian moral character generally, so that in reality the same thing is described, but according to the various aspects which commended it. Comp. Diog. Laert. ii. 106: ἒν τὸ ἀγαθὸν πολλοῖς ὀνόμασι καλούμενον. Cic. de fin. iii. 4. 14: una virtus unum, istud, quod honestum appellas, rectum, laudabile, decorum. That it is Christian morality which Paul has in view, is clearly evident from Php_4:9 and from the whole preceding context. Hence the passage cannot avail for placing the morality of the moral law of nature (Rom_2:14 f.) on an equality with the gospel field of duty, which has its specific definition and consecrationas also, for the reconciled whom it embraces, the assurance of the divine keeping (Php_4:7; Php_4:9)in the revealed word (Php_4:9), and in the enlightening and ethically transforming power of the Spirit (comp. Rom_12:2).

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Phi 4:8 . The thought of this paragraph (Phi 4:8-9 ) is closely connected with that of the preceding by the resumption of the phrase ἡ εἰρήνη τ . Θ . (Phi 4:7 ) in a new form ὁ Θ . τῆς εἰρήνης (Phi 4:9 ). The peace of God will be the guardian of their thoughts and imaginations, only they must do their part in bending their minds to worthy objects. Lft [33] . and Ws [34] . have elaborate classifications of Paul’s list of moral excellences. It is not probable, in the circumstances, that any such was before the Apostle’s mind. τὸ λοιπόν is probably used to show that he is hastening to a close. See on chap. Phi 3:1 supr. Beyschl. well remarks on the “inexhaustibility” of the Christian moral ideal which is here presented. It embraces practically all that was of value in ancient ethics. ἀληθῆ and δίκαια express the very foundations of moral life. If truth and righteousness are lacking, there is nothing to hold moral qualities together. σεμνά . “Reverend.” The due appreciation of such things produces what M. Arnold would call “a noble seriousness” (so also Vinc.). προσφιλῆ . Our “lovely” in its original force gives the exact meaning, “those things whose grace attracts”. The idea seems to be esp [35] . applied to personal bearing towards others. See Sir 4:7 , προσφιλῆ συναγωγῇ σεαυτὸν ποιεῖ ; Sir 20:13 , ὁ σοφὸς ἐν λόγῳ ἑαυτὸν προσφιλῆ ποιήσει . Cf. W. Pater’s description of the Church in the second century: “She had set up for herself the ideal of spiritual development under the guidance of an instinct by which, in those serious moments, she was absolutely true to the peaceful soul of her Founder. ‘Goodwill to men,’ she said, in whom God Himself is well-pleased.’ For a little while at least there was no forced opposition between the soul and the body, the world and the spirit, and the grace of graciousness itself was pre-eminently with the people of Christ” ( Marius , ii., p. 132). εὔφημα . Exactly = our “high-toned”. (So also Ell [36] . ) “Was einen guten Klang hat” (Lips [37] . ). It is an extremely rare word. εἴ τ . ἀρετ . κ . τ . λ . “Whatever excellence there be or fit object of praise.” The suggestion of Lft [38] . , “Whatever value may exist in (heathen) virtue,” etc., goes slightly beyond the natural sense, from the reader’s point of view. Cf. Sayings of Jew. Fathers , chap. ii., 1, “Rabbi said, which is the right course that a man should choose for himself? Whatsoever is a pride to him that pursues it and brings him honour from men.” On the important range of meanings belonging to ἀρετή , see Dsm [39] . , BS [40] . , p. 90 ff. ἔπαινος , as Hort (on 1Pe 1:7 ) points out, corresponds exactly to ἀρετή and implies it, including in itself the idea of moral approbation. He observes that it refers chiefly to “the inward disposition to acts as actions” (see the whole valuable note). τ . λογίζ . “Make them the subject of careful reflection.” Meditatio … praecedit: deinde sequitur opus (Calv.).

[33] Lightfoot.

[34] . Weiss.

[35] especially.

[36] Ellicott.

[37] Lipsius.

[38] Lightfoot.

[39] Deissmann ( BS. = Bibelstudien, NBS. = Neue Bibelstudien ).

[40] . Bibelstudien

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. τὸ λοιπόν: ‘finally.’ (See on 3:1.) Introducing the conclusion of the letter. No reference to 3:1, by way of resuming after a long digression; nor does it introduce what remains for them to do in addition to God’s protecting care (De W.), since there is no indication of an antithesis. It prefaces an exhortation parallel with vs. 4-6, containing a summary of duties, to which is added a promise of the presence of the God of peace. The exhortation is not to the cultivation of distinct virtues as such (so Luth., Calv., Beza, Beng.), but each virtue represents general righteousness of life viewed on a particular side, the different sides being successively introduced by the repeated ὅσα, and summed up by the twofold εἴ τις.

ἀληθῆ: ‘true.’ God is the norm of truth. That is true in thought, word, or deed, which answers to the nature of God as revealed in the moral ideals of the gospel of his Son, who manifests him, and who can therefore say, ‘I am the truth’ (Joh 14:6). Not to be limited to truth in speaking, as Thdrt., Beng.

σεμνά: ‘reverend’ or ‘venerable.’ Exhibiting a dignity which grows out of moral elevation, and which thus invites reverence. In class. an epithet of the gods. ‘Venerable’ is the best rendering, if divested of its conventional implication of age. Matthew Arnold (God and the Bible, Pref. xxii.) renders ‘nobly serious,’ as opposed to κοῦφος, ‘lacking intellectual seriousness.’

With the exception of this passage, σεμνὸς occurs only in the Pastorals, and the kindred σεμνότης only there. (See 1Ti 2:2, 1Ti 2:3:4, 1Ti 2:8, 1Ti 2:11; Tit 2:2, Tit 2:7.) In LXX, of the name of God (2 Macc. 8:15); of divine laws (2 Macc. 6:28); of the Sabbath (2 Macc. 6:11); of the words of wisdom (Pro 8:6); of the words of the pure (Pro 15:26).

δίκαια: ‘just.’ In the broadest sense, not merely in relation to men, but according to the divine standard, satisfying all obligations to God, to their neighbor, and to themselves. (Comp. Rom 2:13.)

ἅγνα: ‘pure.’ Always with a moral sense. So ἁγνότης (2Co 6:6). Not to be limited here to freedom from sins of the flesh: it covers purity in all departments of the life, motives as well as acts. In class. ἁγνός is ‘pure,’ ‘chaste,’ in relation to life (as of female purity, purity from blood-guilt), or to religious observances, as of sacrifices. (See Schmidt, Synon. 181, 11.) Both ἁγνός and ἅγιος mean pure in the sense of ‘sinless.’ The radical difference between them is, that ἅγιος is ‘holy,’ as being set apart and devoted; ἁγνός, as absolutely undefiled. Christ is both ἅγιος and ἁγνός. See on ἁγίοις, 1:1. In 1Jn 3:3, ἁγνός is applied to Christ, and ἁγνίζειν to the imitation of his purity. In 2Co 11:2, of virgin purity. (Comp. Clem. ad Cor. xxi.) In 1Ti 5:22, of moral spotlessness. In Jas 3:17, as characterising heavenly wisdom. Ἁγνῶς (Php 1:17), of preaching the gospel with unmixed motives. Ἁγνίζειν, which in LXX is used only of ceremonial purification, has that meaning in four of the seven instances in N.T. (Joh 11:55; Act 21:24, Act 21:26, Act 21:24:18). In the others (Jas 4:8; 1Pe 1:22; 1Jn 3:3), of purifying the heart and soul. Neither ἁγνός, ἁγνότης, nor ἁγνῶς occur in the Gospels.

Ἁγνός and all the kindred words which appear in N.T. are found in LXX Ἅγνισμα (Num 19:9), not in N.T. For ἁγνιασμός (Num 8:7), the correct reading is ἁγνισμός. In LXX. ἁγνός is used of the oracles of God, of the fear of God, of prayers, of the heart, of works, of fire, of a virgin, of a man free from cowardice, and of the soul. (See Psa_12[11]:6 , 19 [18]:10; Pro 19:13, Pro 19:20:9, Pro 19:11:8; Pro_2 Macc. 13:8; 4 Macc. 5:37, 18:7, 8, 23.)

The two following qualities appeal to the affectionate or admiring recognition of others.

προσφιλῆ: ‘lovely,’ ‘amiable.’ Whatever calls forth love. Only here in N.T. In LXX in a passive sense (Sir. 4:7, 20:13).

εὔφημα: ‘fair-sounding.’ A.V. and R.V. ‘of good report.’ ‘Gracious,’ R.V. marg. is vague. Not merely having a fair sound to the popular ear, “vox et praeterea nihil,” but fair-sounding, as implying essential worthiness.

In class. of words or sounds of good omen. Hence εὔφημος, ‘abstaining from inauspicious words’; ‘keeping a holy silence.’ (See Æsch. Ag. 1247; Soph. O. C. 132.)

A comprehensive exhortation follows, covering all possible virtues.

εἴ τις: ‘if there be any’: whatever there is. For the form of expression, comp. ii. 1; Rom 13:9; Eph 4:29. Not ‘whatever other.’

ἀρετὴ: ‘virtue’; moral excellence. In class. it has no special moral significance, but denotes excellence of any kind—bravery, rank, excellence of land or of animals. It is possibly for this reason that Paul has no fondness for the word, and uses it only here. Elsewhere in N.T. only by Peter, who uses it of God (1Pe 2:9; 2Pe 1:3), and enjoins it as a Christian quality (2Pe 1:5). It is found in LXX; of God, Hab 3:3 = δόξα; Isa 42:8, Isa 42:12, plu., in connection with δόξα, and 43:21, signifying God’s attributes of power, wisdom, etc.; Zec 6:13, of him whose name is ‘the Branch,’ and who shall receive ἀρετὴν, i.e. the attributes of sovereignty; Esth. (interpol.) xiv. 10, of the pretended attributes of the vain; Sap. 4:1, of moral excellence in men.

Lightf.’s explanation is ingenious and suggestive. ‘Whatever value may reside in your old heathen conception of virtue’; as if he were anxious to omit no possible ground of appeal.

ἔπαινος: ‘praise.’ If there is any praise that follows the practice of virtue, as the praise of love (1Co_13.). Not ‘that which is praiseworthy’ (Weiss).

ταῦτα λογίζεσθε: ‘these things take into account.’ ‘Reckon’ with them. “Horum rationem habete” (Beng.). It is an appeal to an independent moral judgment, to thoughtfully estimate the value of these things. Not = φρονεῖν, as De W. ‘Think on these things’ (A.V., R.V.) is a feeble and partial rendering.

He now brings the scheme of duties more clearly before them, and at the same time reminds them, by appealing to his own previous instructions and example, that he is making no new demands upon them. “Facit transitionem a generalibus ad Paulina” (Beng.).

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Whatsoever things are such as do beautify and set you out with a holy gravity.

A general conclusion, that as they have been taught both in word and example, so they frame their lives to the rule of all holiness and righteousness.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Summary of all his exhortations as to relative duties, whether as children or parents, husbands or wives, friends, neighbors, men in the intercourse of the world, &c.

true--sincere, in words.

honest--Old English for "seemly," namely, in action; literally, grave, dignified.

just--towards others.

pure--"chaste," in relation to ourselves.

lovely--lovable (compare Mar 10:21; Luk 7:4-5).

of good report--referring to the absent (Phi 1:27); as "lovely" refers to what is lovable face to face.

if there be any virtue--"whatever virtue there is" [ALFORD]. "Virtue," the standing word in heathen ethics, is found once only in Paul's Epistles, and once in Peter's (Pe2 1:5); and this in uses different from those in heathen authors. It is a term rather earthly and human, as compared with the names of the spiritual graces which Christianity imparts; hence the rarity of its occurrence in the New Testament. Piety and true morality are inseparable. Piety is love with its face towards God; morality is love with its face towards man. Despise not anything that is good in itself; only let it keep its due place.

praise--whatever is praiseworthy; not that Christians should make man's praise their aim (compare Joh 12:43); but they should live so as to deserve men's praise.

think on--have a continual regard to, so as to "do" these things (Phi 4:9) whenever the occasion arises.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. Finally, brethren] The object of the apostle is to recommend holiness and righteousness to them in every point of view; and to show that the Gospel of Christ requires all its professors to have the mind that was in Christ, and to walk as he himself also walked. That they were not to attend to one branch of righteousness or virtue only, but to every thing by which they might bring honour to God, good to their fellow creatures, and credit to themselves.

Whatsoever things are true] οσα αληθη. All that is agreeable to unchangeable and eternal truth. Whether that which is to be learned from the nature and state of created things, or that which comes immediately from God by revelation.

Whatsoever things are honest] οσα σιμνα. Whatever is grave, decent, and venerable. Whatever becomes you as men, as citizens, and as Christians.

Whatsoever things are just] οσα δικαια. Whatsoever is agreeable to justice and righteousness. All that ye owe to God, to your neighbour, and to yourselves.

Whatsoever things are pure] οσα αγνα. Whatsoever is chaste. In reference to the state of the mind, and to the acts of the body.

Whatsoever things are lovely] οσα προσφιλη. Whatsoever is amiable on its own account and on account of its usefulness to others, whether in your conduct or conversation.

Whatsoever things are of good report] οσα ευφημα. Whatsoever things the public agree to acknowledge as useful and profitable to men; such as charitable institutions of every kind, in which genuine Christians should ever take the lead.

If there be any virtue] If they be calculated to promote the general good of mankind, and are thus praiseworthy;

Think on these things.] Esteem them highly, recommend them heartily, and practise them fervently.

Instead of ει τις επαινος, if there be any praise, several eminent MSS., as D*EFG, add επιστημης, of knowledge; and the Vulgate and the Itala have disciplinae, of discipline; but none of these appear to be an original reading.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. Finally What follows consists of general exhortations which relate to the whole of life. In the first place, he commends truth, which is nothing else than the integrity of a good conscience, with the fruits of it: secondly, gravity, or sanctity, for τὸ σεμνόν denotes both — an excellence which consists in this, that we walk in a manner worthy of our vocation, (Ephesians 4:1,) keeping at a distance from all profane filthiness: thirdly, justice, which has to do with the mutual intercourse of mankind — that we do not injure any one, that we do not defraud any one; and, fourthly, purity, which denotes chastity in every department of life. Paul, however, does not reckon all these things to be sufficient, if we do not at the same time endeavor to make ourselves agreeable to all, in so far as we may lawfully do so in the Lord, and have regard also to our good name. For it is in this way that I understand the words —

If any praise, that is, anything praiseworthy, for amidst such a corruption of manners there is so great a perversity in men’s judgments that praise is often bestowed upon what is blameworthy, and it is not allowable for Christians to be desirous even of true praise among men, inasmuch as they are elsewhere forbidden to glory, except in God alone. (1 Corinthians 1:31.) Paul, therefore, does not bid them try to gain applause or commendation by virtuous actions, nor even to regulate their life according to the judgments of the people, but simply means, that they should devote themselves to the performance of good works, which merit commendation, that the wicked, and those who are enemies of the gospel, while they deride Christians and cast reproach upon them, may, nevertheless, be constrained to commend their deportment.

The word, προσφιλὢ καὶ εὔφημα however, among the Greeks, is employed, like cogitare among the Latins, to mean, meditate. Now meditation comes first, afterwards follows action.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(8) True . . . honest (better, venerable; see margin).—Truth is the inherent likeness to God, who is Truth. Whatever is true in itself is also “venerable”—i.e., as the original word, usually rendered “grave” (as in 1Ti_3:8; 1Ti_3:11; Tit_2:2) etymologically signifies, it claims a share of the reverence due primarily to God; it has in it a certain majesty commanding worship.

Just . . . pure.—“Just” is (as St. Paul’s habitual usage of “justify” shows) righteous in act and word, as tested by the declared will of man or God. “Pure” is righteous in essence, in the thought, which cannot be thus tested—showing itself in what is just and indeed perfected thereby, but in itself something holier still.

Lovely . . . of good report.—Both words are peculiar to this passage: in both we pass from truth and righteousness to love. “Lovely” is that which deserves love. The phrase “of good report” represents a Greek word which is commonly used for “fair-sounding,” or “auspicious” and “acceptable.” It is therefore the outward expression of what is “lovely,” winning the acceptance which loveliness deserves.

If there be any virtue, and . . . praise.—Still there is the same antithesis—“virtue” is the inherent quality; “praise” is virtue’s due. But the word “virtue,” so frequent in human morality, is hardly ever used in Scripture. In fact, the only other case of application to man is in 2Pe_1:5, where it stands between “faith” and “knowledge,” and seems specially to signify the energy of practice by which faith grows into knowledge. The reason of this is clear. To the very name of “virtue” clings the idea of self-reliance—such self-reliance as the Stoic philosophy (then the only dominant system of Roman opinion which had any nobleness in it) made its essential characteristic; and that idea is, of course, foreign to the whole conception of Christian morality. The occurrence, therefore, here of an appeal to “virtue” and to “praise” seems strange. We notice, however, that it is introduced by a new phrase of mere hypothesis (“if there be,” &c.), which may be taken to mark it as an outlying consideration, occupying a less firm and important ground. Probably, therefore, it is an appeal to the lower conceptions of the society, so characteristically Roman, around them: “Nay, even if there be any truth in the virtue and praise of mere human morality,” &c.

(8, 9) Here, repeating the word “Finally,” the Apostle again draws to a conclusion, in a comprehensive exhortation to stand fast in all that is good on the foundation which he had laid in the name of Christ. The exhortation is marked by the reiteration of affectionate earnestness, in which, however, we may (as always) trace an underlying method. In each pair of epithets there seems to be reference both to an inner reality and to the outward development, by which it is at once manifested and perfected. In both St. Paul would have them grow up to perfection.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8–9. as a last spiritual entreaty, let their regenerate minds be true-thoughtful: let them remember Paul’s word and practice

8. Finally] A phrase introducing a precept, or precepts, more or less based on what has gone before. See above, on Php_3:1

He begs them to give to their minds, thus “safeguarded” by the peace of God, all possible pure and healthful material to work upon, of course with a view to practice. Let them reflect on, take account of, estimate aright, (see note below on “think on these things”), all that was true and good; perhaps specially in contrast to the subtle perversions of moral principle favoured by the persons described above (Php_3:18-19), who dreamed of making an impossible divorce between the spiritual and the moral.

true] Both in the sense of truth-speaking and truth-being. Truthfulness of word, and sincerity of character, are absolutely indispensable to holiness. Nothing is more unsanctified than a double meaning, or a double purpose, however “pious” the “fraud”.

honest] Margin, “venerable”; R.V., honourable. The adjective is rendered “grave,” 1Ti_3:8; 1Ti_3:11; Tit_2:2. It points to serious purposes, and to self-respect; no small matter in Christianity. In older English “honest” bore this meaning more than at present.

just] Right, as between man and man; scrupulous attention to all relative duties.

pure] Perhaps in the special respect of holy chastity of thought and act as regards the body. There may be more in the word: see 2Co_7:11; and cp. 1Jn_3:3. But most surely this is in it. See Trench, Synonyms, ii. § xxxviii.

lovely] Pleasing, amiable. Cp. for the English in this meaning, 2Sa_1:23. It is a meaning rare now, if not obsolete, but it was still common a century ago.—The Christian is here reminded that his Master would have him attend to manner as well as matter in his life. Grace should make gracious. Cp. 1Pe_3:8.—The Rhemish version has “amiable” here.

of good report] Better, probably, sweet-spoken; “loveliness” in the special respect of kindly and winning speech. So Lightfoot. Ellicott explains the word, however, in a different direction; “fair sounding,” “high-toned”; with a special reference to elevated truths and principles. R.V. retains the rendering of A.V., with margin “gracious”.

if there be any virtue] “Whatever virtue there is.” To complete his meaning, he bids them exercise thought on whatever is rightly called “virtue,” even if not expressly described in the previous words.

The word rendered “virtue” (arìtê) occurs here only in St Paul, and elsewhere in N.T. only 1Pe_2:9 (of God, and in the sense of “praise,” as always in LXX.); 2Pe_1:3 (of God, as rightly read), and 5 (twice), of an element in Christian character. It is remarkable that a favourite word of Greek ethics should be thus avoided; but the reason is not far to seek. By derivation and in usage it is connected with ideas of manhood, courage, and so self-reliance. The basis of goodness in the Gospel is self-renunciation, in order to the reception of grace, the undeserved gift of God.

Here however the Apostle concedes a place to the word, so to speak, as if to extend in every direction the view of what is right in action. In 2Pe_1:5 it is used with the quite special meaning of vigour in the life of grace.

any praise] “Whatever praise there is,” justly given by the general human conscience. Here again he is, as it were, conceding a place to an idea not quite of the highest, yet not at discord with the highest. It is not good to do right for the sake of the selfish pleasure of praise; but it is right to praise what is rightly done, and such praise has a moral beauty, and may give to its recipient a moral pleasure not spoiled by selfishness. St Paul appeals to the existence of such a desert of praise, to illustrate again what he means when he seeks to attract their thoughts towards things recognized as good, “There is such a thing as right praise; make it an index of the things on which you should think.”

think on] Literally, “reckon, calculate”; see above, first note on this verse.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,.... To close all with respect to the duties of Christianity incumbent on the professors of it, the apostle exhorts to a regard to everything that is true; that is agreeable to the Scriptures of truth, to the Gospel the word of truth, or to the law and light of nature; and whatever was really so, even among the very Heathens, in opposition to falsehood, lying, and hypocrisy

whatsoever things are honest; in the sight of men; or grave, or "venerable" in speech, in action or attire, in opposition to levity, frothiness, or foppery:

whatsoever things are just; between man and man, or with respect both to God and men; giving to God what belongs to him, and to man what is his due; studying to exercise a conscience void of offence to both, in opposition to all impiety, injustice, violence, and oppression:

whatsoever things are pure; or "chaste", in words and deeds, in opposition to all filthiness and foolish talking, to obscene words and actions. The Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions render it, "whatsoever things are holy"; which are agreeable to the holy nature, law, and will of God, and which tend to promote holiness of heart and life:

whatsoever are lovely; which are amiable in themselves, and to be found even among mere moral men, as in the young man whom Christ as man is said to love, Mar 10:21; and which serve to cultivate and increase love, friendship, and amity among men; and which things also are grateful to God and lovely in his sight, in opposition to all contention, strife, wrath, and hatred:

whatsoever things are of good report; are well spoken of, and tend to get and establish a good name, which is better than precious ointment, Ecc 7:1; for though a good name, credit, and reputation among men, are to be sacrificed for the sake of Christ when called for; yet care is to be taken to preserve them by doing things which may secure them, and cause professors of religion to be well reported of; and which beautiful in all, and absolutely necessary in some:

if there be any virtue; anywhere, among any persons whatever, in opposition to vice:

and if there be any praise; that is praiseworthy among men, and deserves commendation, even though in an unjust steward, Luk 16:8, it should be regarded. The Vulgate Latin adds, "of discipline", without any authority from any copy. The Claromontane manuscript reads, "if any praise of knowledge":

think on these things: meditate upon them, revolve them in your minds, seriously consider them, and reason with yourselves about them, in order to put them into practice.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Ver. 8. Whatsoever things are true] This is that little Bible, as the eleventh to the Hebrews is by one fitly called a little Book of Martyrs. In this one verse is comprised that Totum hominis, whole of man, Ecc 12:13; that Bonum hominis, good of man, Mic 6:8. For if ye do these things here enjoined, ye shall never fall, but go gallantly into heaven, as St Peter hath it, 2Pe 1:10-11.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Finally, brethren - As for what remains - τὸ λοιπὸν to loipon - or as a final counsel or exhortation.

Whatsoever things are true - In this exhortation the apostle assumes that there were certain things admitted to be true, and pure, and good, in the world, which had not been directly revealed, or which were commonly regarded as such by the people of the world, and his object is to show them that such things ought to be exhibited by the Christian. Everything that was honest and just toward God and toward people was to be practiced by them, and they were in all things to be examples of the highest kind of morality. They were not to exhibit partial virtues; not to perform one set of duties to the neglect or exclusion of others; not to be faithful in their duties to God, and to neglect their duty to people, not to be punctual in their religious rites, and neglectful of the comment laws of morality; but they were to do everything that could be regarded as the fair subject of commendation, and that was implied in the highest moral character. The word true refers here to everything that was the reverse of falsehood. They were to be true to their engagements; true to their promises; true in their statements; and true in their friendships. They were to maintain the truth about God; about eternity; about the judgment; and about every man’s character. Truth is a representation of things as they are; and they were constantly to live under the correct impression of objects. A man who is false to his engagements, or false in his statements and promises, is one who will always disgrace religion.

Whatsoever things are honest - σεμνὰ semna. Properly, venerable, reverend; then honorable, reputable. The word was originally used in relation to the gods, and to the things that pertained to them, as being worthy of honor or veneration - Passow. As applied to people, it commonly means grave, dignified, worthy of veneration or regard. In the New Testament it is rendered “grave” in 1Ti 3:8, 1Ti 3:11, and Tit 2:2, the only places where the word occurs except this; and the noun (σεμνότης semnotēs) is rendered “honesty” in 1Ti 2:2, and “gravity” in 1Ti 3:4, and Tit 2:7. It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The word, therefore, does not express precisely what the word “honest” does with us, as confined to dealings or business transactions, but rather has reference to what was regarded as worthy of reputation or honor; what there was in the customs of society, in the respect due to age and rank, and in the contact of the world, that deserved respect or esteem. It includes indeed what is right in the transaction of business, but it embraces also much more, and means that the Christian is to show respect to all the venerable and proper customs of society, when they did not violate conscience or interfere with the law of God; compare 1Ti 3:7.

Whatsoever things are just - The things which are right between man and man. A Christian should be just in all his dealings. His religion does not exempt him from the strict laws which bind people to the exercise of this virtue, and there is no way by which a professor of religion can do more injury perhaps than by injustice and dishonesty in his dealings. It is to be remembered that the people of the world, in estimating a person’s character, affix much more importance to the virtues of justice and honesty than they do to regularity in observing the ordinances of religion; and therefore if a Christian would make an impression on his fellow-men favorable to religion, it is indispensable that he manifest uncorrupted integrity in his dealings.

Whatsoever things are pure - Chaste - in thought, in feeling, and in the conversation between the sexes; compare the notes at 1Ti 5:2.

Whatsoever things are lovely - The word used here means properly what is dear to anyone; then what is pleasing. Here it means what is amiable - such a temper of mind that one can love it; or such as to be agreeable to others. A Christian should not be sour, crabby, or irritable in his temper - for nothing almost tends so much to injure the cause of religion as a temper always chafed; a brow morose and stern; an eye that is severe and unkind, and a disposition to find fault with everything. And yet it is to be regretted that there are many persons who make no pretensions to piety, who far surpass many professors of religion in the virtue here commended. A sour and crabby temper in a professor of religion will undo all the good that he attempts to do.

Whatsoever things are of good report - That is, whatsoever is truly reputable in the world at large. There are actions which all people agree in commending, and which in all ages and countries are regarded as virtues. courtesy, urbanity, kindness, respect for parents, purity between brothers and sisters, are among those virtues, and the Christian should be a pattern and an example in them all. His usefulness depends much more on the cultivation of these virtues than is commonly supposed.

If there be any virtue - If there is anything truly virtuous. Paul did not suppose that he had given a full catalogue of the virtues which he would have cultivated. He, therefore, adds, that if there was anything else that had the nature of true virtue in it, they should be careful to cultivate that also. The Christian should be a pattern and an example of every virtue.

And if there be any praise - Anything worthy of praise, or that ought to be praised.

Think on these things - Let them be the object of your careful attention and study, so as to practice them. Think what they are; think on the obligation to observe them; think on the influence which they would have on the world around you.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, &c. Here the apostle enumerates general precepts of morality, which they ought to practise. --- Whatsoever things are true. In words, in promises, in lawful oaths, &c. he commands rectitude of mind and sincerity of heart. --- Whatsoever things are modest. By these words he prescribes gravity in manners, modesty in dress, and decency in conversation. --- Whatsoever things are just. That is, in dealing with others, in buying or selling, in trade or business, to be fair and honest. Whatsoever things are holy. By these words may be understood, that those who are in a religious state professed, or in holy orders, should lead a life of sanctity and chastity, according to the vows they make; but these words being applied to those in the world, indicate the virtuous life they are bound by the divine commandments to follow. --- Whatsoever things are amiable. That is to practise those good offices in society that procure us the esteem and good will of our neighbours. --- Whatsoever things are of good repute. That is, that by our conduct and behaviour we should edify our neighbours, and give them good example by our actions. --- If there be any virtue, if there be any praise of discipline: that those in error, by seeing the morality and good discipline of the true religion, may be converted. And finally, the apostle commands not only the Philippians, but all Christians, to think on these things: that is, to make it their study and concern, that the peace of God might be with them. (Challoner)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

As to what remains, he doth, with the fair compellation of

brethren, furthermore propose to their serious consideration, living in the neighbourhood of the Gentiles, what he doth here, hastening to a conclusion, heap up and fold together: especially,

whatsoever things are true, agree with truth and doctrine, in word and conversation, which show candour and sincerity of conscience, both with reference to believers and to infidels, Psa 15:2; Eph 4:14,15,25.

Honest; venerable and grave, as becometh the gospel, Phi 1:27, to adorn the gospel of God our Saviour, Rom 12:17; 13:13; Tit 2:10; avoiding what may argue levity or dishonesty in gesture, apparel, words, and deeds, 2Co 7:2.

Just; giving what is due to every one by the law of nature, or nations, or the country, without guile, and not injuring any one, Rth 3:13; Neh 5:11; Mat 22:21; Rom 13:7,8; Col 4:1; 1Ti 5:8; Tit 1:8; 2:12.

Pure; keeping themselves undefiled in the way, Psa 119:1, from the pollution of sin, 1Jo 3:3, and the blemishes of filthy words and deeds, Eph 4:29; 5:3-5.

Lovely; whatsoever may gain the real respect of, and be grateful to, good men, in an affable deportment acceptable to God, Tit 3:2.

Of good report; whatsoever is in a tendency to maintain a good name; not to court vain-glory or popular applause, Gal 1:10, but that which may be for the honour of Christ, and the reputation of the gospel among the Gentiles, Rom 15:2; 1Pe 2:12; in agreement with the word of God; otherwise we must pass through evil as well as good report, Luk 16:15; 2Co 6:8.

If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise; and upon supposition there be really any other commendable practice amongst any, any praiseworthy deportment.

Think on these things; diligently consider and prosecute these things.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. Finally—Certain things on man’s part are important to this manifestation of God’s peace.

True—Morally truthful.

Honest—The old English for our honourable, decorous, becoming.

Just—In accordance with eternal right.

Pure—Untainted and unstained.

Lovely—Calculated to win the heart as well as the judgment.

Good report—Spoken well of among thoughtful and good men. These are so many elements of practical Christian morality. The first four go to make up virtue, or moral excellence; exhibited in actual life, they appear as the lovely and well spoken of, and are worthy of praise.

Think—Ponder them well.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true. He repeats the "finally" of Php_2:1, He again and again prepares to close his Epistle, but cannot at once bid farewell to his beloved Philippians. He urges them to fill their thoughts with things good and holy. Christ is the Truth: all that is true comes from him; the false, the vain, is of the earth, earthy. Perhaps the verb (estin) may be emphatic. Sceptics may deny the existence of absolute truth; men may scoffingly ask, "What is truth?" Truth is real, and it is found in Christ, the Truth. Whatsoever things are honest. The word (semna) occurs only here and four times in the pastoral Epistles.

It is a word difficult translate. "Honourable" or" reverend" (the renderings of the R.V) are better equivalents than "honest." It points to a Christian decorum, a Christian self-respect, which is quite consistent with true humility, for it is a reverence for the temple of God. Whatsoever things are just; rather, perhaps, righteous, in the widest meaning. Whatsoever things are pure; not only chaste, but free from stain or defilement of any sort. The word used here (agnov) is not common in the New Testament. The adverb occurs in Php_1:16, where it is rendered "sincerely," and implies purity of motive. Whatsoever things are lovely (prosfilh); not beautiful, but pleasing, lovable; whatsoever things would attract the love of holy souls. Whatsoever things are of good report. The word (eufhma) means "well-speaking" (not "well spoken of"), and so "gracious," "attractive;" in classical Greek it means "auspicious," "of good omen." Of these six heads, the first two describe the subjects of devout thought as they are in themselves; the second pair relate to practical life; the third pair to the moral approbation which the contemplation of a holy life excites in good men. If there be any virtue. This word, so very common in the Greek moralists, occurs nowhere else in St. Paul. Nor does any other of the New Testament writers use it except St. Peter. (1Pe_2:9 (in the Greek); 2Pe_1:3, 2Pe_1:5) Bishop Lightfoot says, "The strangeness of the word, combined with the change of expression, ei tiv , will suggest another explanation: "Whatever value may reside in your old heathen conception of virtue, whatever consideration is due to the praise of men;" as if the apostle were anxious not to omit any possible ground of appeal." And if there be any praise; comp. Rom_12:17 and 2Co_8:21, where St. Paul bids us "provide for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men." Nevertheless, in the highest point of view, the praise of the true Israelite is not of man, but of God. Think on these things; or, as in the margin of R.V, take account of. Let these be the considerations which guide your thoughts and direct your motives. The apostle implies that we have the power of governing our thoughts, and so are responsible for them. If the thoughts are ordered well, the outward life will follow.

Vers. 8, 9. Exhortation to cultivate habits of holy thought.

I THE IMPORTANCE OF GOVERNING THE THOUGHTS.

1. The thoughts are an index of the character. The current of thought seems ever changeful, dependent on the varying circumstances of the passing hour. It may be so within certain limits; but in truth its general direction is determined by the character. The thoughts run in channels worn for them By the oft-repeated actions which form our habits, good or bad. If the peace of God rules in the heart, the thoughts will be holy; if room is left for the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, they will be of the earth, earthy. The thoughts show what the character is.

2. And, on the other hand, the thoughts react powerfully on the character. A sinful thought, brought again and again before the mind, strengthens the natural tendency of the will to evil and leads to the sinful deed. Therefore the thoughts must be disciplined and brought into captivity to the law of Christ. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Here is the hardest battle of the Christian life; to govern the thoughts there is need of constant watchfulness and persevering prayer.

II THE LESSON DRAWN OUT INTO DETAILS.

1. Whatsoever things are true. " God is true; his promises are true, so are his most awful warnings. Christ is true; he is the Truth; his gospel is true. Holiness is true, real; "Now abideth faith, hope, charity. The devil is a liar and the father of lies. He said to Eve, "Ye shall not surely die;" it was the first wicked falsehood, The world is false with its cheating pleasures; it passeth away and the lusts thereof.

2. Whatsoever things are honest. " Whatsoever things are deep and earnest, honorable and reverend. The Christian life hath a decorum of its own, a calm, grave dignity. Reverence and godly fear are essential to acceptable service. Charity "cloth not behave itself unseemly.

3. Whatsoever things are just. " The saintly life is not of the world, but it is in the world and hath its duties there. Holiness is not separate from morality; it transcends morality, but it implies it. We must bear always in our thoughts the Savior"s rule: "Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.

4. Whatsoever things are pure. " The pure in heart shall see God. "He is of purer eyes than to behold evil." Nothing that defileth can enter into his presence. The Christian heart is the chosen temple of God the Holy Ghost. To bring unclean thoughts into that most sacred presence is an awful sin. The Christian"s thoughts must be pure and holy.

5. Whatsoever things are lovely. " The Christian character is lovable; gentleness, humility, charity, naturally attract love. "Think on these things;" see them in their perfection as exemplified in the Lord Jesus Christ; meditate much on his perfect holiness.

6. Whatsoever things are of good report. " Think on such things as are gracious and attractive. Let nothing coarse or vulgar occupy your thoughts; let images of true beauty fill your souls.

7. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise. " "Provide things honest in the sight of all men." Do not neglect even the more human conceptions of goodness. All good thoughts have their value; think on every form of virtue, all things worthy of praise.

III THE LESSON ENFORCED BY EXAMPLE.

1. Holy thought leads to holy living. St. Paul was able to illustrate his precepts by his own holy life. Nothing enforces religious teaching so powerfully as the example of the teacher. He gave them a rule of thought; he exhibited in his own life a rule of conduct.

2. The blessed result. St. Paul"s holiness flowed from the presence of God; the God of peace will abide with all who, like St. Paul, strive always to think holy thoughts and to live holy lives.

Lessons.

1. Pray for grace to govern the thoughts.

2. It is most important to mark what the thoughts naturally turn to in timesof leisure; this should be a frequent subject for self-examination; it shows the bent of the character.

3. Remember the influence of example.

Subjects for Christian study.

The gospel does more than hold out a refuge to the guilty; it takes all who accept Christ under its supreme and exclusive direction. Therefore, in his parting words to his converts, the last counsel of the apostle is of a beautifully practical character: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are venerable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.

I SUBJECTS OF CHRISTIAN CONTEMPLATION. There is a certain order in the series here exhibited.

1. Things that concern us absolutely. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are venerable.

(1) Things true. That is, true as opposed to false; for lying is, according to the apostle, a breach of the social contract. (Eph_4:25) True as opposed to insincerity; true in speech, true in conduct. Things true stand at the head of the series, because the truth is the ground of all God"s commands, and the ground of our obedience. The love of truth is the intellectual part of piety. It raises the moral temper and tone of the world. As it is by the truth we are sanctified, it is natural that things true should be the subject of constant Christian thought.

(2) Things venerable. A man is very much what he thinks; therefore make venerable themes the subjects of your deepest thought. Grave things strengthen and deepen Christian character and intensify Christian feeling. Character formed on such a basis will be dignified. "Acceptable to God and approved of men". (Rom_14:18)

2. Things that concern us relatively. "Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure.

(1) Things just or righteous. Justice maintains right relations between man and man, holds the balance fairly between conflicting interests, coordinates the rights of each with all. Love of justice is the moral part of piety, as the love of truth is the intellectual part of it. Justice is peculiar in this respect, that there are no degrees of it, as there are degrees of goodness or generosity; for a man less than just is unjust. A man, again, may do a hundred kindly acts, but if he fail in one act of justice the blemish is fatal to character. There is, therefore, great need that Christian people should be just in all their acts. Religion does not exempt them from the laws which bind men of the world.

(2) Things pure. Not merely chastity, but purity in the widest sense. There must be pure thinking, pure reading, pure action. "Blessed are the pure in heart." Let the mind dwell on pure themes.

3. Things that suggest moral approbation from the outside. "Whatsoever things are lovely... of good report." The four things already mentioned describe their character in themselves. These two mark the impression made upon the world.

(1) Things lovely. They suggest the kindly graces of character. There is such a thing as being dignified, majestic, and venerable, but not lovely. A Christian ought not to be morose, unkind, or faultfinding. Nothing tends to injure the cause of religion more than an unlovely temper, an eye severe and unkind, a brow hard and stern. Yet the apostle gives only the fifth place to "things lovely," as if to indicate that personal kindness or good nature is not to supply the room of justice or purity.

(2) Things of good report. Things such as all men agree in commending courtesy, urbanity, justice, temperance; purity, truth, respect to parents. Men of the world will not withhold their praise from men distinguished by these virtues. Christians ought to remember the words, "Let not your good be evil spoken of." They are to "walk in wisdom toward them that are without.

4. Things to be included in a larger category. "If there be any virtue, if there be any praise." This clause is thrown in as an after-thought, to cover possible omissions, for the subjects of Christian contemplation are endless.

(1) Virtue. The apostle never uses this old heathen term except in this place, but he seems to say that Christian people are not to neglect the study of that which is best in heathen conception,

(2) Praise. He had open despised the praise of men, but he concedes here that some consideration ought to be given even to what is worthy of praise among men.

II THE DUTY AND ADVANTAGE OF CONTEMPLATING THESE THINGS. "Think on these things.

1. The mind takes the stamp of what it thinks on. There is an assimilating process by which the graces or virtues we have specified are stamped deeply upon Christian character. It is with these graces as it is with Christ himself. He is the glass "in which we behold the glory of God, and so are changed into the same image from glory to glory.

2. There are blessed effects,won the world. A life exemplifying the graces of holy living is the most likely to arrest the careless and the wicked. The living epistles of Christ are made to be known and read of all men. T.C.

Vers. 8, 9. Categories of morality.

Conclusion announced. "Finally, brethren." This is his second attempt to conclude. In the usual form he intimates that all he has to say, in addition to what he has already said, he is now to state shortly. In other Epistles Paul gives a considerable place to ordinary morality, including the relative duties. He does not deem it necessary (there being no urgency) to write at length to the Philippians upon this subject. He only puts it into his conclusion, where brevity is a necessity. And there is not that plain mode of expression which is found elsewhere: " Let him that stole steal no more." But, as for advanced or skilled Christians, there is a certain transcendental mode of expression, with an added reference to apostolic interpretation.

I CATEGORIES OF MORALITY FOR THOUGHT. The summarizing under "virtue and praise" points to morality, as does also their being presented for practice in the ninth verse. They are emphatically separated as categories by the repetition of "whatsoever things," while the summary is made emphatic by the repetition of the words, "if there be any." They seem to be arranged in pairs, according to the following division.

1. Things in themselves.

2. Things in relation to law.

3. Things in relation to the estimation in which they are held.

4. Summary.

It will be most suitable to our homilectic purpose to name them separately. "Whatsoever things are true." There are things that are true in themselves that would have been true if there had never been a Bible, that would have been true if there had never been the placing of man under law. There is an eternal standard by which things are to be judged. There are immutable principles which lie at the foundation of morality. The things that are necessarily true subsist in God, and as subsisting in God he is immutable a rock on which we can absolutely depend. The things that are true are also to be in ourselves. That certainly means that we are to speak the truth. For veracity belongs to the eternal order of things, while a lie, however glossed over, is an infringement of that order. But our whole life is to be founded in truth. If it is to be founded in the work of Christ, yet is it in the work of Christ, as wrought out in accordance with eternal principles, and in that work as giving, relatively to us, added sanction and lustre to those principles, as what must regulate our life. We are, therefore, under all temptation to have to do with falsehood, to hold close by the true as that alone which can give stability to our life. "Whatsoever things are honorable." There are things which are honorable in themselves. They are more than venerable from antiquity. They are to be honored from their essential and eternal worth. As subsisting in God, they are the ground of his being infinitely to be honored. The things that are honor-able are also to be in ourselves. That certainly means that we are to be honest, as the word used to be in the translation. For there is disgrace necessarily attaching to a dishonest action. But more than that, it means that our whole life is to be based on what can be thoroughly respected on what can bear looking into as in its nature and bearings honorable; on what is to be honored, whether men honor it or not; on what we cannot respect ourselves if we do not honor. If we, amid all temptation to act basely, keep our mind open to the honorable, then we shall have a dignity, gravity, taken from that to which we look and with which we converse. "Whatsoever things are just." This brings in relation to law. The things that are just are in God in the position in which he is placed as Lawgiver and Administrator. He absolutely fills up what belongs to him in the position; he acts according to the eternally true and honourable, i.e. according to his own eternal excellence as moral Governor. He is just in placing us under law, in the nature which he has given us, in what he exacts of us, and in all his dealing with us as under law. He never can do wrong to any of his creatures. Though clouds and darkness are round about him, yet judgment and justice are the habitation of his throne. And the things that are just are to be in us, as placed under law to God. We are to fill up the measure of duty that belongs to us in the position. Obedience, compliance with the Divine will in all matters, is what we owe to God. Justice requires that, as dependent creatures, we should humbly acknowledge and worship him. We are to do the duty of every relation in which we stand to our fellow-men. We are to be in subjection to the higher powers, and not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience sake. We are to honor all men, whatever their condition, because of the dignity of their nature. And far be it from us that we should do any of our fellow-men the injustice of defrauding them or of treating them uncharitably. We are to be characterized by universal, deep-reaching conscientiousness. "Whatsoever things are pure." There is not only justice, but purity in relation to law. The things that are pure are absolutely in God. He is so pure that even the stars are not pure in his sight. He rules in the interests of purity. He holds up before us a high conception of purity in his Statute-book. "The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times;" "The commandment of the Lord is pure." He looks upon purity wherever it is with complacency, and it has a place with him; but he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and evil shall not dwell with him. The things that are pure are also to be in ourselves. We are to be pure in the narrower sense. We are to be chaste in our thoughts, in our words, in our actions. More than that, we are to have chastity as a preservative and a defense to our whole nature. We are to be kept within the Law, by our great sensitiveness and strong attraction to snow-white purity, to heavenliness, and by our repelling the slightest suggestion of impurity, by our shrinking from the slightest touch of worldliness. We are to have God"s own love for that which makes and keeps us pure, and his own abhorrence and loathing of sin as that which defiles. "Whatsoever things are lovely." This brings in relation to the estimation in which things are held. For the Greek word seems to point to things which are worthy of love. There are, indeed, things which are lovely according to the eternal standard of taste. As subsisting in God they are the ground of his being infinitely to be loved. We read of the beauty of the Lord our God. He is beautiful in his whole character, but especially in his love in Christ. God is love; and herein is love. In this he as it were surpasses himself. He magnifies his Word above all his Name. He is beautiful as he comes forward and does not spare his own Son, but delivers him up for us all. He is beautiful in his forbearance towards sinners and his exercising towards them the prerogative of pardon. His beauty is manifested in him who, standing upon our earth, said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will. draw all men unto myself." And the things which are lovely are to be in us. It is true of virtue as a whole that it is lovely. Cicero says, there is nothing more lovely than virtue, nothing which more allures to loving." But the things that are lovely are especially those that rise to a high standard. We must not be merely righteous; but we must be good. Even Lot is called righteous in Scripture; but there was one that towered high above him, having the things that are lovely. How beautiful to see Abraham exercising the grace of hospitality! How beautiful to see his generous treatment of Lot, his not standing on his rights with him, his forgiving his selfishness, his heaping on his head coals of kindness! How beautiful especially to see him going so far in his self-denial toward God as not to withhold from him his son, his only son! Did he not have the qualities of a noble, royal nature? "Whatsoever things are of good report." This is distinctly estimation. There are things which sound well in the ear. Of even God in connection with the redemption from Egypt it is said that he had gotten himself a name. It sounded well in the cars of the Israelites, and of the uncovenanted nations too. And so God has gotten him a name in connection with the great redemption from sin. It can be said of the name of Redeemer that it sounds well. And we are to have the things of good report in us too. Virtue, says an ancient philosopher, is the concurring voice of the good. The things that are well reported of are especially those that rise above the common standard that show disinterestedness and devotion. If a thing is lovely in itself, it is an additional advantage that it is well spoken of, especially among the good. "If there be any virtue." This, showing a change of form, but still universality, seems to summarize the preceding, with the sole exception of the last. The derivation of "virtue" points to manliness or valor. But it is to be taken as inclusive of every form of moral excellence. We are to have the excellence that comes from the true, from the honorable, from the just, from the pure, from the lovely. But, lest that should not cover the whole ground of excellence, he adds, "If there be any virtue." "And if there be any praise? We are not to understand anything that is praiseworthy, but the actual bestowment of praise. It covers the things that are of good report; but points rather to the distinct embodiment of moral judgment regarding things in eulogy, such as Paul"s praise of love in the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, and our Lord"s praise of humility and other virtues in the beatitudes. "Think on these things." We come to the things which have been mentioned partly by intuition, but we must dwell upon them and converse with them, if we would have a clear apprehension of them and have skill in detecting their counterfeits. The thought of the psalmist is that the use of the understanding is necessary to the right keeping of God"s Law. If we allow the intellect to slumber, do not examine into circumstances and carefully investigate the moral character of what we are doing, we may go far enough astray from the true, and honorable, and just, and pure. It is by constantly judging our conduct by these things that they come to have the shaping of our life. "To cover human life with beauty, to carve it into nobleness, requires thought as truly as to cover canvas with lovely forms or to make the hard and unwilling marble assume a shape of majesty and grace. Is there any nobler use of the intellect of man than this, to serve the conscience and the heart with faithful loyalty, to master the moral laws by which life should be ruled, and the motives which may assist the vacillating will in keeping them? Among common men, what restless, incessant thought there is about how they may extend their trade and increase their profits, come to live in a larger house and keep a better table, and how little thought about the eternal law of righteousness and their obligation to keep and honor it! Do Christian men believe that he who gave them their intellect meant them to think incessantly of the price of iron, the rate of wages, the condition of the money market, the furniture of their houses, the fruit in their gardens never or only sluggishly about his own awful majesty, his glorious perfection, his ideas of what human life ought to be?

II THESE CATEGORIES OF MORALITY ALSO FOR PRACTICE WITH THE HELP OF APOSTOLIC INTERPRETATION.

1. Interpretation of his teaching. "The things which ye both learned and received." The only difference between these verbs seems to be that in the former we are pointed more to the activity of the taught, in the latter more to the activity of the teacher. The fact that Paul holds up these high categories before the Philippians shows that they were in an advanced state. At the same time, it was not long since they had come out of heathenism. And the apostle refers them to such simple rules as he had laid down for their conduct, of which there are examples in other Epistles.

2. Interpretation of his example. "And heard and saw in me." They heard when he was absent and saw when he was present. It is well when both teaching and life go together. It was a great advantage to the Philippians that, when the rules of their life were completely changed for them, these were not only presented in their particularity, but were exemplified in their teacher of whom they heard, or, what was better, whom they saw among them. Thus could they be led on from the state of childhood to the state of maturity, in which they could be thought of as conversing with the high categories of morality. "These things do." Calvin properly remarks, "Meditation precedes, practice follows." Once we have carefully thought of our conduct in the light of the great categories, there is the carrying our thought into practice. If we have thought well beforehand, we have a great advantage; but it will never be but difficult, considering the treachery of our hearts, the strength of our temptations, to bring our daily practice up to our thought. It is difficult enough to do the things that are true, that are honorable, that are just, that are pure; how much more to do the things that are lovely, that are of good report!

III PROMISE ATTACHED TO PRACTICE FOLLOWING ON THOUGHT OF THE CATEGORIES, "And the God of peace shall be with you." There is a recurrence with a difference of form to the thought of Ver. 7. There peace was to guard those who prayed. Here the God of peace is to be with those who practice the moralities. He has peace in his own mind, in his own balanced perfections; and he has peace in what he thinks of us. And, as we strive to carry out his holy purposes, he stands by us to banish our fears, to soothe our minds. "Great peace have they who love thy Law; and nothing shall offend them." Let us bring the six great categories into our life, and we shall assuredly have the peace which God himself has in their absolute possession. R.F.

Vers. 8, 9. Meditation and action.

Having insisted on the duties of prayer and thanksgiving and the reward which accompanies them, St. Paul proceeds to point out the need of meditation on all that is of God, and of practically living out the God-like life upon earth. To such also is attached a special reward.

I THE NEED OF MEDITATION. This is. universal. All persons meditate on that which is to them of absorbing interest. By meditation the stock of our ideas is increased and a mental atmosphere is formed in which we live and move. Every great work and every great life has been produced by much meditation.

II THE BEST SUBJECTS FOR MEDITATION. "Whatsover things are true," etc. We need not limit these to the subject-matter of the Christian revelation, although undoubtedly each of these forms of goodness will find its highest expression in that. But since all good things are of God, we may find him reflected in every act of virtue, in every prompting of love, in every aspiration after a higher life, in whatever way these may be manifested. The terms selected include all that is noble towards God, all that is purifying to ourselves, and all that commends itself to the better instincts of men. Meditating on such an exhaustive catalogue of high ideas, how can we become anything else than filled with all that is true and Divine?

III TRUE MEDITATION WELL PRODUCE ACTION. If it does not do this it enervates the will and dissipates the motive forces of the character. A truth acted upon provides us with an unanswerable evidence that it is a truth. It becomes worked into our nature and forms part of ourselves.

IV TRUE ACTION IS LEARNED FROM EXAMPLE RATHER THAN FROM PRECEPT. "That which ye have...seen in me, do." Action is in life and not in theory. Note how the same truth is to be found in the Beatitudes. They begin with a description of abstract blessedness, such as is to be found in poverty of spirit; they end by translating this idea of blessedness into a living reality in the ease of the disciples who were being taught. "Blessed are they" turns into "Blessed are ye," and their blessedness is to be found in such an active life of righteousness as is to involve persecution for Christ"s sake.

V THE REWARD OF TRUE ACTION PROCEEDING OUT OF PROFOUND MEDITATION. "The God of peace shall be with you." The peace of God is the reward of prayer and trustfulness; this is an inward gift bringing God into the soul. But true action secures the presence of the God of peace, externally defending and guiding, as well as internally teaching and blessing. VW.H.

The contemplation of goodness.

I OUR MINDS SHOULD BE OCCUPIED WITH THE CONTEMPLATION OF GOOD THINGS.

1. It is not enough that our deeds are pure, our thoughts must be pure also,

a. because the inner life is the true life, and

b. because our ideas will ultimately color our actions.

2. Good thoughts spring from the study of good things. We cannot touch pitch and remain undefiled. But the consideration of worthy characters and actions will insensibly fill our minds with a kindred spirit. This fact. should govern our choice of literature, friends, scenes, and occupations. It is particularly important to study objective goodness outside ourselves. This is a cure for dreamy subjectivity, for self-conceit, and for narrow notions.

II THE GOOD CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN OF THE WORLD SHOULD BE GENEROUSLY ADMITTED. It is remarkable than the list of good things here drawn out by St. Paul consists chiefly of pagan virtues. He appears to be calling upon Christians to consider the goodness that is to be found outside the pale of the Church. I These good characteristics exist. The world is not wholly depraved. It was not even so in the dark days of the Roman empire. One who had a keen sympathy with goodness was able then to detect the genuine indications of light amidst the gloom. The life of Care and the writings of Seneca, for example, contain much that commands our profound admiration. "There is a soul of goodness in things evil.

3. These good characteristics should be ungrudgingly recognized

(1) in justice to men;

(2) for the glory of God, who is the Source of all goodness in the world as well as in the Church, pagan as well as Christian;

(3) for our own sakes. A narrow censorious spirit is most unchristian. A follower of the innocent Christ should be a lover of all things good.

III CHRISTIANS MAY GREATLY PROFIT BY THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE GOODNESS OF MEN OF THE WORLD. It might be thought that, if this is a lower form of goodness, it would be useless to study it. But:

1. The consideration of it will widen our syrmpa-thies. It will help us better to appreciate and love our brother man. Approaching them through their good points, we shall the better influence them (e.g. see Act_17:22). Compare Clement and Origen in their recognition of what was good in paganism, with Tertullian and his denunciation of heathen religion and philosophy as diabolical, and with Arnobius and his railing against human nature itself. Surely the Alexandrian apologists were wisest as well as most charitable.

2. The contemplation of these good things will reveal virtues not sufficiently studied by Christians. The Church has not the monoply of the virtues. If she excels in the higher graces men who do not own her name may sometimes shame her with their excellence in other respects. Christians may learn much from Plato and Epictetus and from Goethe and Carlyle.

IV DETAILS OF GOODNESS MAY BE USEFULLY CONSIDERED. St. Paul makes a list of good things. He was in the habit of drawing out such lists. We must begin with the inward spirit of holiness in love to God and man, but we must develop our character by attention to details.

1. This excites our attention. Our imagination flags at generalities. Objective details please it best.

2. This prevents our goodness from evaporating in value sentiment.

3. This gives breadth and variety to our character. Good things are numerous and of varied types. We must beware of a narrow morality. "Whatsoever things are good," etc. , are worthy of study, in order that every possible attainment of character may be reached in every possible direction. W.F.A.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Finally - To sum up all. Whatsoever things are true - Here are eight particulars placed in two fourfold rows; the former containing their duty; the latter, the commendation of it. The first word in the former row answers the first in the latter; the second word, the second and so on. True - In speech. Honest - In action. Just - With regard to others. Pure - With regard to yourselves. Lovely - And what more lovely than truth? Of good report - As is honesty, even where it is not practiced. If there be any virtue - And all virtues are contained in justice. If there be any praise - In those things which relate rather to ourselves than to our neighbour. Think on these things - That ye may both practice them yourselves, and recommend them to others.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Christian progress in all virtues:

v. 8. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, what soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

v. 9. Those things which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do; and the God of peace shall be with you,

In order that peace and joy may remain within the Christian hearts and within the Christian congregations, it is necessary that Christians avoid all things which might disturb such harmony in the Spirit. Their thoughts must be directed solely to things that are well-pleasing to God. That is evidence of true progress in sanctification, to seek what pleases God and is of benefit to one’s neighbor. The apostle enumerates the virtues which the believers must keep in mind, upon which they should think Their minds should be engaged with matters which are true, truthful, truth-speaking, sincere, frank, and open, especially toward God who searches hearts and minds; with things which are honest or honorable, belonging to and fitting true Christian dignity, since the Christians must never forget what they owe to their station as children of God in the world; with matters which are just and right, which agree with all just expectations of men, which are in accord with the Law. The believers should reflect carefully also upon things which are pure, chaste, clean in words and deeds, never become guilty of lascivious allusions or of filthy deeds; upon things which are lovely, well-pleasing, not only omitting all vain and empty conversation, but, above all, offensive garrulity; upon things of good report, which reflect credit upon the Christian religion and do not cause people to place Christian conversation on a level with that of the world. All such things the Christians will choose as the subject of their meditations, to these they will pay attention. In general, all that is excellent and laudable should be the constant object of every Christian’s thoughts. In all things, at all times, in all places, the sanctification of the Christians should be evident.

To bring home this admonition, Paul cites his own example: What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, this do; and the God of peace will be with you. Those are the things which he has just enumerated. He has the good conscience that he has walked in these virtues, that he has proved a good example to the Philippians under all conditions, in every way. The daily life and example of a pastor, as a sermon in deeds, is of the greatest importance in the work of the Church. In this manner the relation of the redeemed to God will be upheld. These points are necessary for the preservation of peace and harmony in the Church. The assurance of the presence of God, the God of peace, is given to believers if they follow the words of the apostle.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here we have a very comprehensive precept, describing the duties of all christians: Whatsoever things are true; truth is the principal character of our profession, and is to be expressed in our words and actions.

Whatsoever things are honest, venerable, or grave; that is, answer the dignity of our high calling, and agree with the gravity and comeliness of the christian profession.

Whatsoever things are just, according to divine and human laws.

Whatsoever things are pure and chaste; intimating that we must preserve the heart, the hand, the tongue, the eye, from all impurity.

Whatsoever things are lovely, and of good report; as easiness to pardon, readiness to oblige, compassion to the afflicted, liberality to the distressed, sweetness of conversation, without gall and bitterness; these are of universal esteem with mankind, and soften the most savage tempers and dispositions.

Note here, 1. That there are things naturally honest, just, and lovely, in their own nature, and praise-worthy in themselves, which do raise and refine the human nature; and, without a command, their goodness is a strong obligation to observe them.

Note, 2. That christianity doth adopt morality, or precepts of good life and manners, into its frame and constitution, and it is indeed an integral part of the christian religion; not that any moral precepts, though never so good, can raise a soul from the death of sin to a life of holiness, without faith in Christ, and assistance from his Spirit; but the morality which the scriptures teach us, is founded not barely upon principles of reason, but divine revelation, and obliges us to the practice of moral duties, in obedience to Christ’s command, in conformity to his example, in the strength of his assistance, and with an eye to his glory.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8, 9. Finally, brethren. As he concludes his letter, he sums up Christian duties into a single paragraph. Whatsoever things are true. Truth in word, in action, and in thought, must be cherished. Christ is The Truth. His followers must be truth itself. Honest. The Greek is “reverend.” Whatever is worthy of reverence. Just. Strict justice in all dealings; an upright life. Pure. Chaste lives and clean hearts and thoughts. Lovely. Such deeds as spring from love and inspire love in others. Of good report. A life of which no evil thing can be truthfully said. If there be any virtue. Lest he may have omitted some excellency he adds, “If there be aught else which is virtuous or praiseworthy, let these all be the things to which you give your minds.”

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Finally

As Paul ends his letter, he gives a summary of how believers should live to have peace with God.

brothers

See how you translated this in Philippians 1:12.

whatever things are lovely

"whatever things are pleasing"

whatever things are of good report

"whatever thing people admire" or "whatever things people respect"

if there is anything excellent

"if they are morally good"

if there is anything to be praised

"and if they are things that people praise"

that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me

"that I have taught and shown you"

translationWords

brother

true

honor

just

pure

praise

peace

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

8–9. A LAST SPIRITUAL APPEAL: LET THEIR MINDS BE TRUE TO ALL THAT IS GOOD: LET THEM FOLLOW PAUL’S TEACHING AND PRACTICE

8. Τὸ λοιπόν. See above, on Php 3:1. Once more he gathers up the thought towards a close.—Are their “hearts and thoughts” thus “sentinelled,” in Christ, by the peace of God? Then let them, in their safe Castle, “in the Secret of the Presence,” not sleep, but give their minds all possible pure material to work upon, with a view to holy practice. Let them reckon up, think over, estimate aright (λογίζεσθε), all things true and good; perhaps specially in contrast to the subtle “reckonings” of the teachers denounced above (Php 3:18-19), who would divorce the “spiritual” and the moral.

ὅσα ἐστὶν ἀληθῆ. “All things which are true.” Truthfulness of word and act, sincerity of character, is utterly indispensable to the holiness of the Gospel.

σεμνά. “Honourable,” R.V.; almost, “dignified”; like the old English use of “solemn.”—Vulg., pudica.—Cp. 1Ti 3:8, where the children of the ἐπίσκοπος are to be ruled μετὰ πάσης σεμνότητος: 11, where the γυναῖκες of the διάκονοι are to be σεμυναί: Tit 2:2, πρεσβύτας … εἶναι σεμνούς. The word points to seriousness of purpose and to self-respect in conduct.

δίκαια. As between man and man. The Christian will be a model of dutifulness.

ἁγνά. Probably in the special respect of true bodily chastity, in thought and act. “Ἁγνός and καθαρός differ from ἅγιος in that they admit the thought or the fact of temptation or pollution; while ἅγιος describes that which is holy absolutely, either in itself or in idea” (Westcott, on 1Jn 3:3). See also Trench, Syn. II., xxxviii.

προσφιλῆ. “Pleasing,” “amiable.” The Christian must remember manner. Grace must make him gracious; he is to “adorn (κοσμεῖν) the doctrine of God his Saviour” (Tit 2:10).

εὔφημα. “Sweet spoken”; προσφιλῆ in a special respect. “Not ‘well-spoken of, well-reputed,’ for the word seems never to have this passive meaning; but with its usual active sense, ‘fair-speaking,’ and so ‘winning, attractive’ ” (Lightfoot). In the classics a frequent meaning is “auspicious,” the opposite of δύσφημος: so εὔφημον ἦμαρ, æsch. Ag. 636; and it thus glides into the meaning “silent,” with the silence which precludes δυσφημία. But such aspects of the word can hardly be supposed present here. Ellicott explains, “fair-sounding,” “high-toned.” R.V. (with A.V.) renders, “of good report”; margin, “or, gracious.”

εἴ τις ἀρετὴ. “Whatever virtue there is.” “St Paul seems studiously to avoid this common heathen term for moral excellence.… [It is not] found elsewhere in the N.T. except in 1Pe 2:9 [τὰς ἀρετάς, “the excellencies,” of God], 2Pe 1:3 [τοῦ καλέσαντος ἡμᾶς ἰδίᾳ … ἀρετῇ], 5 [ἐπιχορηγήσατε ἐν τῇ πίστει ὑμῶν τὴν ἀ.], in all which passages it seems to have some special sense. In the O.T. it always signifies ‘glory, praise’ … In the Apocrypha it has its ordinary classical sense. Some [e.g. Alford] treat εἴ τις ἀ., εἴ τις ἔπαινος, as comprehensive expressions, recapitulating the previous subjects under two general heads, the intrinsic character and the subjective estimation. The strangeness of the word, however, combined with the change of expression εἴ τις, will suggest another explanation; ‘Whatever value may reside in your old heathen conception of virtue, whatever consideration is due to the praise of men’; as if the Apostle were anxious not to omit any possible ground of appeal. Thus Beza’s remark on ἀρετή seems to be just; ‘Verbum nimis humile, si cum donis Spiritus Sancti comparetur’ ” (Lightfoot). By origin and usage ἀρετή is connected with thoughts of manhood and self-reliance. In the Gospel, the basis of goodness is self-renunciation, in order to the reception of χάρις, the undeserved gift of God.

ἔπαινος. It is not right to do good for the selfish pleasure of praise. But to praise good deeds is right, and so may give the recipient of the praise a pure moral pleasure. St Paul appeals to the fact of such desert of praise, and uses it to attract thought in right directions. “Make right praise an index of the things on which you should spend thought.”

λογίζεσθε. “Reckon up,” “calculate.” To illustrate negatively, ἀγαπὴ οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν (1Co 13:5), “does not reckon up the evil” done against her; does not dwell on it, brooding over it, counting up the elements of the grievance.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8.] τὸ λοιπόν resumes again his intention of closing the Epistle with which he had begun ch. 3., but from which he had been diverted by incidental subjects. It is unnatural to attribute to the Apostle so formal a design as De W. does, of now speaking of man’s part, as he had hitherto of God’s part:—Chrys. has it rightly,—τί ἐστι τὸ λοιπόν: ἀντὶ τοῦ, πάντα ἡμῖν εἴρηται. ἐπειγομένου τὸ ῥῆμά ἐστι, καὶ οὐδὲν κοινὸν ἔχοντος πρὸς τὰ παρόντα.

This beautiful sentence, full of the Apostle’s fervour and eloquence, derives much force from the frequent repetition of ὅσα, and then of εἴ τις.

ἀληθῆ] subjective, truthful: not, true in matter of fact. The whole regards ethical qualities. ταῦτα γὰρ ὄντως ἀληθῆ, ἡ ἀρετή, ψεῦδος δὲ ἡ κακία. κ. γὰρ ἡ ἡδονὴ αὐτῆς ψεῦδος. κ. ἡ δόξα αὐτῆς ψεῦδος, κ. πάντα τὰ τοῦ κόσμου ψεῦδος. Chrys.

σεμνά] τὸ σεμνὸν ὄνομα, τὸ καλόν τε κἀγαθόν, Xen. Œc. vi. 14. It is difficult to give it in any one English word: ‘honest’ and ‘honourable’ are too weak: ‘reverend’ and ‘venerable,’ ‘grave’ are seldom applied to things: Nor do I know any other more eligible.

δίκαια] not ‘just,’ in respect of others, merely—but right, in that wider sense in which δικαιοσύνη is used—before God and man: see this sense Act 10:22; Rom 5:7.

ἁγνά] not merely ‘chaste’ in the ordinary confined acceptation: but pure generally: “castimoniam denotat in omnibus vitæ partibus.” Calv.

προσφιλῆ] lovely, in the most general sense: no subjects need be supplied, as τοῖς πιστοῖς, or τῷ θεῷ (Chrys.): for the exhortation is markedly and designedly as general as possible.

εὔφημα] again, general, and with reference to general fame—of good report, as E. V. The meaning ‘sermones qui bene aliis precantur,’ adopted by Storr and Flatt, though philologically justified, is evidently not general enough for our context.

εἴ τις ἀρετὴ …] sums up all which have gone before and generalizes still further. The E. V. ‘if there be any virtue,’ &c. is objectionable, not for the reason alleged by Scholefield, Hints, &c. p. 85, as ‘expressing a doubt of the existence of the thing in the abstract,’ which it does not,—but as carrying the appearance of an adjuration, ‘by the existence of,’ &c. which conveys a wrong impression of the sense—whatever virtue there is (not ‘there be,’ as Scholef.) &c.

ἀρετή] virtue, in the most general ethical sense: ἔπαινος, praise, not ‘pro eo quod est laudabile,’ as Calv., al., but as Erasm., ‘laus, virtutis comes.’ The disciplinœ, which follows ‘laus’ in the Vulg. &c., is a pure interpolation, and beside the meaning: see various readings.

ταῦτα—viz., all the foregoing—the ἀληθῆ &c.,—the ἀρετή, and the ἔπαινος—these things meditate: let them be your νοήματα.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Honest [σεμνα] . Rev., honorable, reverend in margin. In classical Greek an epithet of the gods, venerable, reverend. The word occurs only here and in the pastoral epistles, 1Ti 3:8, 11; Tit 2:2, where it is rendered grave, both in A. V. and Rev. There lies in it the idea of a dignity or majesty which is yet inviting and attractive, and which inspires reverence. Grave, as Trench observes, does not exhaust the meaning. Gravity may be ridiculous. "The word we want is one in which the sense of gravity and dignity, and of these as inviting reverence, is combined." Ellicott's venerable is perhaps as near as any word, if venerable be divested of its modern conventional sense as implying age, and confined to its original sense, worthy of reverence.

Pure [αγνα] . See on 1Jo 3:3.

Lovely [προσφιλη] . Only here in the New Testament. Adapted to excite love, and to endear him who does such things.

Of good report [ευφημα] . Only here in the New Testament. Lit., sounding well. The kindred verb is commonly used in an active sense. Hence not well spoken of, but fairspeaking, and so winning, gracious (Rev., in margin).

Virtue [αρετη] . With this exception the word occurs only in Peter's epistles; 1Pe 2:9; 2Pe 1:3, 5; see notes on both.

Praise [επαινος] . Commendation corresponding to the moral value of the virtue. In the Septuagint, ajreth virtue is four times used to translate the Hebrew praise. The two ideas seem to be coordinated. Lightfoot remarks that Paul seems studiously to avoid this common heathen term for moral excellence, and his explanation is very suggestive : "Whatever value may reside in your old heathen conception of virtue, whatever consideration is due to the praise of men."

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.