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King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

Philippians, Chapter 4, verses 12-13

¹⁰ showing how he rejoiced at their liberality towards him lying in prison, not so much for the supply of his own wants, as for the grace of God in them

¹²I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

¹³I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Read more:Philippians, Chapter 4

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4

4:12 I know how to be abased - Having scarce what is needful for my body. And to abound - Having wherewith to relieve others also. Presently after, the order of the words is inverted, to intimate his frequent transition from scarcity to plenty, and from plenty to scarcity. I am instructed - Literally, I am initiated in that mystery, unknown to all but Christians.Both to be full and to be hungry - For one day. Both to abound and to want - For a longer season.

4:13 I can do all things - Even fulfil all the will of God.

NOTES

A distinctive feature of the righteous in all the times was considered, if not as a total indifference, at least, as a sober calm relation towards these circumstances of life, in which it was. And the problem here is not in the ascetic indifference to everything which takes place all...

A distinctive feature of the righteous in all the times was considered, if not as a total indifference, at least, as a sober calm relation towards these circumstances of life, in which it was. And the problem here is not in the ascetic indifference to everything which takes place all around, but in this system of values and priorities of the life, which is inherent to everyone, going on the way of righteousness. We could have said that to the one who put himself on this way, it does not simply remain time for lamentations about the difficulties of life, also, as for the demonstrations of exuberant joy about their absence. But the problem is not only in it: the way of righteousness supposes the understanding by man of the simple fact that the question of good and evil, quite as the question of choice between them (the key issue on the way of righteousness) is connected not at all with the question on the difficulties of life or with their absence.

Neither poverty, nor wealth in themselves justify any sin. When it comes to the spiritual way of the Christian, all this is true to an even greater extent. Indeed, the way of the righteous in the pre-Christian era meant the choice of the laws of the Kingdom, despite the fact that the Kingdom had not entered our world and our lives yet. After the coming of Christ, opens to every Christian the possibility of joining this Kingdom, to try what is that life, of which the righteous of early eras could only guess.

On the background of this new life, the difficulties of the old life, the life of our not yet transformed world, only go to the second plan, unless the life of the Kingdom really became for us a reality, if we are Christians in deeds, and not only in our own imagination. And Paul, for whom the Kingdom and his life became an absolute reality, witnesses of his own indifference to the difficulties of life and the external conditions, as of something obvious. That is only how the Christian should look at everything which doesn’t influence on his life in the Kingdom.

Paul gives special emphasis to humility ("meekness"), without which the Christian path, and therefore salvation, is impossible. At the same time, the apostle describes in considerable detail...

Paul gives special emphasis to humility ("meekness"), without which the Christian path, and therefore salvation, is impossible. At the same time, the apostle describes in considerable detail what humility means as a spiritual state. First of all, following Christ, he calls the recipients of his letter to be anxious about nothing, handing everything over to God, to whom Paul urges them to turn with all their desires.

It would seem simple, but in practice such simplicity turns out not to be easy to attain. Indeed, in order to live this way, one must realize that our very life does not belong to us. In fact, that is how it is, and the Bible says this quite plainly: what makes a human being human is the "breath of life" that God "breathes" into his "nostrils" at creation, and this breath belongs to God, not to the human being.

Yet the realization that his life belongs to God comes to fallen humanity with great difficulty. Direct divine intervention is needed here, the very peace about which Jesus Himself says that it is not of this world. Not of the world in the sense that it cannot be found in nature, in the world, in that space which the ancient Greeks called the cosmos; it belongs to the Kingdom, which is also not of this world. A person experiences it precisely as peace, as inner silence that stops and extinguishes in him all spiritual movements connected with fallen human nature.

The spiritual "I" of a person, which the apostle here, as in his other letters, calls by a Greek word literally meaning "mind," in the fallen state inevitably falls under the power of that nature which, according to God's design, it was meant to control and direct. Meanwhile, to be a Christian means to enter into the relationship that unites the Son with the Father, so that the person's entire spiritual life takes place within the space of these relationships. Without the direct influence of the breath of the Kingdom, which frees a person from the power of his own nature and immerses him in inner silence, it is impossible to enter there. And from inner silence one can already enter into the relationship of the Father and the Son, to "keep hearts and minds in Christ Jesus," as Paul calls it.

But in order to remain there, in order not to fall out of the spiritual space of the relationship of the Father and the Son, one must not admit into one's spiritual life any intentions or even thoughts except those that are "virtue and praise." Otherwise there will be no spiritual path: a person will only sometimes, and only for a very short time, touch the Kingdom and its life, but will not be able to enter it. This is what the apostle recalls at the end of his letter.

Perhaps someone will want to say to the apostle Paul: "Some problem! Living in abundance, what is there to learn!"...

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