NOTES for Php 4:6-9

It is unlikely that carelessness is the ideal, to which the apostle Paul summons his readers. Indeed, carelessness is always connected to irresponsibility, to the refusal of the responsibility, which the Creator commends us. But the apostle says rather how we should care correctly. Neither anxiety, nor the forfeit of sanity, nor the exhaustion of people surrounding by one’s own complaints can be called the right forms of care. Instead of all this, the apostle suggests us to always unveil our demands to God. Well then, the responsibility that God gave to each of us gets filled with His creative power.

From the point of view of the technology of spiritual life, it is not less important the fact as the apostle calls us to thanksgiving. It is also about gratitude for all the mercies which we have already received from God, and about gratitude connected to concrete demands. The fact is that, in such way not the strength of our anxiety expresses itself in our demands to God, but the strength of our faith.

And the apostle concludes his thought with the indication of the most mattering in our everyday spiritual work: the aspiration to the peace of God. This peace is much deeper than the emotional tranquility; it is especially why we can keep it for most difficult circumstances. And it {the peace} is indispensable for us, in order to be with God. Maybe, the main source of the torments of the human mind is the fact that we try to satisfy the need put in us in God's world by substitutes. But in reality this peace is reached by such childlike openness to God, which the apostle Paul talks about.

It is unlikely that carelessness is the ideal, to which the apostle Paul summons his readers. Indeed, carelessness is always connected to irresponsibility, to the refusal of the responsibility, which the Creator commends us. But the apostle says rather how we should care correctly. Neither anxiety, nor the forfeit of sanity, nor the exhaustion of people surrounding by one’s own complaints can be called the right forms of care. Instead of all this, the apostle suggests us to always unveil our demands to God. Well then, the responsibility that God gave to each of us gets filled with His creative power.

From the point of view of the technology of spiritual life, it is not less important the fact as the apostle calls us to thanksgiving. It is also about gratitude for all the mercies which we have already received from God, and about gratitude connected to concrete demands. The fact is that, in such way not the strength of our anxiety expresses itself in our demands to God, but the strength of our faith.

And the apostle concludes his thought with the indication of the most mattering in our everyday spiritual work: the aspiration to the peace of God. This peace is much deeper than the emotional tranquility; it is especially why we can keep it for most difficult circumstances. And it {the peace} is indispensable for us, in order to be with God. Maybe, the main source of the torments of the human mind is the fact that we try to satisfy the need put in us in God's world by substitutes. But in reality this peace is reached by such childlike openness to God, which the apostle Paul talks about.

We encounter once again with the paradoxicality of the Holy Scriptures. The apostle Paul practically repeats the words of Jesus, said by Him in the sermon on the Mountain - "be careful for nothing". But is it not the same Jesus who gives us the command to love one another, and thus - to care for one another. And the famous 25th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew puts our fate in direct dependence, in how we care about others. What all this really means?

Doesn’t it seem to you that the word "careful" has two meanings: an effective help to someone and a certain internal burden, "fixed" on something? Care in the first meaning absolutely enters into the notion of Christian life. But care in the second meaning is something completely improper to Christians. There is in it an impasse, despair, distrust in the fact that there is an exit from a difficult situation. After all it is distrust of God. And that is why Paul writes not only "be careful for nothing", but also "to let your requests be made known unto God" - with trust and gratitude for all that He has already made, and – in advance! - for all that He will still do.

We encounter once again with the paradoxicality of the Holy Scriptures. The apostle Paul practically repeats the words of Jesus, said by Him in the sermon on the Mountain - "be careful for nothing". But is it not the same Jesus who gives us the command to love one another, and thus - to care for one another. And the famous 25th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew puts our fate in direct dependence, in how we care about others. What all this really means?

Doesn’t it seem to you that the word "careful" has two meanings: an effective help to someone and a certain internal burden, "fixed" on something? Care in the first meaning absolutely enters into the notion of Christian life. But care in the second meaning is something completely improper to Christians. There is in it an impasse, despair, distrust in the fact that there is an exit from a difficult situation. After all it is distrust of God. And that is why Paul writes not only "be careful for nothing", but also "to let your requests be made known unto God" - with trust and gratitude for all that He has already made, and – in advance! - for all that He will still do.

Paul concludes his discussion of spiritual life with a call to joy (v. 4). Such a call may seem an ordinary wish to encourage the letter's readers, whose situation may not have been easy. But that is probably not the whole point. Joy is also a distinctive sign of the Kingdom's life. This is not, of course, ordinary human joy. Ordinary human joy can certainly have spiritual causes too, but that is not always the case. Here, however, we are speaking of a state that outwardly resembles ordinary human joy but is in fact nothing other than the human psyche's response to the breath of God that pervades the Kingdom. It is no accident that, having mentioned joy, the apostle immediately speaks of humility (‘gentleness’), of complete surrender to God's will, and of peace—apparently the very peace of which the Saviour said at the Last Supper that it was ‘not of this world’ (vv. 5–7). At the same time, he calls his readers to a virtuous life, not only in their actions but also in their thoughts (v. 8).

Clearly, for a person living in our world, which is being transformed but has not yet been fully transformed, such a life is an unattainable ideal. Clearly, it is possible to live as Paul urges only in the Kingdom. We can then see that this is precisely the way of life the apostle is proposing to his brothers and sisters in Philippi. It might seem that little depends on the person here, since no human effort can earn the Kingdom. Yet, on the other hand, it depends decisively on the person whether, having come to share in the Kingdom, they can hold on to what they have received and become rooted in their newfound life. Life in the Kingdom is a divine-human process: God's breath transforms the person who shares in the Kingdom's life to the extent that this person is willing to entrust themselves to God's hands. Here humility—that true humility which is possible only before God—plays the decisive role, allowing God to transform a person and prepare them for life in the Kingdom so fully that even what was once impossible becomes possible. It is precisely to such a life that Paul calls his readers.

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.