Philippians 1:5

Philippians 1:5. for your fellowship in furtherance of the gospel. The preposition requires a fuller rendering than is given by the Authorised Version. There the sentence indicates a state of rest; that they with St. Paul were living under the Gospel. He meant much more than this. He spoke of a state of progress and advance. In their own persons they had been growing daily more and more into the spirit of the Gospel, and thus they were his fellows, for he was ever pressing forward, and never counting himself to have attained. But not only in their own spiritual life was this fellowship manifested, but in their labours for the spread of the Gospel. There must have been a zeal in the Philippians akin to that of the apostle himself, to bring about so great a result as is indicated by the language of this letter. The Gospel had been furthered in themselves, and also in the people among whom they lived. In this they and communion or fellowship with St. Paul, whether he were absent or present.

from the first day until now. And this fellowship had been continuous, from the time of that first act of Christian love, when Lydia constrained the strangers to come and abide in her house, to the sending of relief to his necessities in Rome. These were the outward visible signs of the inward spiritual grace.