Philippians 1:9

Philippians 1:9. And this I pray. Hitherto we have heard nothing of the subject of the apostle's prayer. The mention of the joy with which he made his supplication turned his thoughts aside, and so far he has dwelt only on the reason for that joy, the constancy of the Philippians in the faith, the certainty of God's aid to them, and his own affection. Now we come to that for which he prays.

that your love may abound yet more and more. He asks for them the highest Christian grace, ‘the greatest of these is love,' and that it may be ever growing within them. And this Christian love, to express which the Greek word seems to have been specially conserved, and only applied by the heathen to that kind of affection which involved self-sacrifice, is to be exhibited towards all men. It is not for himself that St. Paul asks it, but that it may extend and embrace every one who may be, or become, a brother in Christ.

In knowledge. This is not the simple word for knowledge which in St. Peter's list of Christian graces (2 Peter 1:5) is part of the series of which ‘love' forms the culminating-point; but implies that process of adding ever more and more to the spiritual insight which comes from a diligent prosecution of all that is already known. It is a knowledge which increaseth more and more unto the perfect day.

and all discernment. The Christian is placed amid circumstances which constantly call upon him to make a choice. The apostle supplicates for the Philippians that they may be able to do this rightly. The word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and by the two nouns the apostle seems to intend to express spiritual insight, the inner growth of heavenly light; and wisdom in the world's concerns, of such a kind as may keep men from an evil choice in any of its ways.