Paul singles out one very important aspect of spiritual life: constancy. And, judging from the apostle's words, this should be constant thanksgiving...
Paul singles out one very important aspect of spiritual life: constancy. And, judging from the apostle's words, this should be constant thanksgiving. To people without faith, such a call sounds somewhat artificial: the demand to thank God for everything, even for what cannot in any way be called good for a person, seems unnatural to them, and often hypocritical.
Still, one has to admit that even a believer, if he remains within traditional religious boundaries, usually gives thanks for problems, hardships, and misfortunes, if he does so at all, with some strain and more out of religious duty. That is understandable: God does not want evil for a person and does not create it at all; any evil is the work of the hands and wills of those who either directly oppose God or ignore Him. Evil does not come from God, although at times He permits it to exist, and then the Bible speaks of such evil as "evil from God."
But even permission turns out not to be God's desire to do evil in order, for example, to punish someone, as religious consciousness sees the situation, but a consequence of the abuse of the freedom that God gives every being He has created who possesses self-awareness and therefore the ability to build a conscious relationship with Him. What, then, can a person thank God for when, as it appears, nothing good is happening in his life?
The answer may be Paul's mention of prayer, the very constancy in which he urges. Of course, if we treat prayer only as a religious duty, as words we are required to say to God some number of times a day, it can hardly help us, especially in a difficult situation. With that kind of prayer, what usually happens is what believers who find themselves in such a situation often complain about: there are already plenty of problems, there is no strength and no time, and now one still has to find time to pray...
But the apostle is plainly not speaking about that kind of prayer. He speaks of real prayer, the kind that involves the meeting of two wills, God's and human, in that inner space of a person where his spiritual life is born. This is something entirely different: such prayer opens another reality to a person, the reality of God's world, the reality of the Kingdom. And here there is always something for which to thank God. Here is the fullness of life, which is always with the one who prays and which no one will take away from him. A fullness for which thanksgiving is entirely natural, just as the apostle says.
4
4:1 Just - According to your contract. Equitable - Even beyond the letter of your contract.
4:3 That God would open to us a door of utterance - That is, give us utterance, that we "may open our mouth boldly," Eph 6:19, and give us an opportunity of speaking, so thatnone may be able to hinder.
4:6 Let your speech be always with grace - Seasoned with the grace of God, as flesh is with salt.
4:10 Aristarchus my fellowprisoner - Such was Epaphras likewise for a time, Pmn 1:23.Ye have received directions - Namely, by Tychicus, bringing this letter. The ancients adapted their language to the time of reading the letter; not, as we do, to the time when it was written. It is not improbable, they might have scrupled to receive him, without this fresh direction, after he had left St. Paul, and "departed from the work."
4:11 These - Three, Aristarchus, Marcus, and Justus.Of all the circumcision - That is, of all my Jewish fellowlabourers. Are the only fellowworkers unto the kingdom of God - That is, in preaching the gospel. Who have been a comfort to me - What, then, can we expect? that all our fellowworkers should be a comfort to us?
4:12 Perfect - Endued with every Christian grace.Filled - As no longer being babes, but grown up to the measure of the stature of Christ; being full of his light, grace, wisdom, holiness.
4:14 Luke, the physician - Such he had been, at least, if he was not then.
4:15 Nymphas - Probably an eminent Christian at Laodicea.
4:16 The epistle from Laodicea - Not to Laodicea.Perhaps some letter had been written to St. Paul from thence.
4:17 And say to Archippus - One of the pastors of that church. Take heed - It is the duty of the flock to try them that say they are apostles to reject the false, and to warn, as well as to receive, the real. The ministry - Not a lordship, but a service; a laborious and painful work; an obligation to do and suffer all things; to be the least, and the servant, of all. In the Lord - Christ by whom, and for whose sake, we receive the various gifts of the Holy Spirit.