Philippians 1:9Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

"And this I pray," he says, "that your love may abound still more and more." Well said, because love is an insatiable good.

See how, though he is loved, he wishes to be loved still more. Whoever so loves the beloved does not want that person's love ever to have a limit.

There is no measure to this good. Therefore Paul wishes that they always be debtors in this good: "Owe no one anything," he says, "except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law" (Rom 13:8).

The measure of love is infinity. "That your love," he says, "may abound still more and more." Notice the combination of words.

It is said, "may abound still more and more in knowledge and all perception." He values highly not simple friendship, not simple love, but love that proceeds from reason.

"And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more."

Although he is already so much loved, he wishes to be loved still more, because it is the nature of love never to stop. Notice his turn of phrase, which he intensifies when he says, "still more and more may abound."

He says this so that they may love not only him, but others as well.

"In knowledge and all perception."

That is, so that you may love not simply, but with discernment, assurance, and testing. There are many who love irrationally, and because of this such love is not firm.

Or else he means that they should not love heretics.

And for this I pray and ask, that your love may abound and increase more and more, not without knowledge, but in every spiritual wisdom, as the Syriac has it: “and in every understanding of the spirit.” Thus, by this wise love, you may know how to distinguish and determine what is best, ...

With God’s help, the Apostle wishes to instruct them in the purity of Christian doctrine. Thus, being strong in faith, they will not remain ignorant concerning credulity. They will know how to distinguish the useful from the harmful. By works of righteousness they will adorn the Lord’s teaching, gathering the fruit of immortality for an abundance of good. Thus the teacher of the nations will find glory in them.

I pray that your love may always receive increase, and that you may be filled with knowledge and the power of discernment. Then you will know what is good, what is still better, and what is in every respect incompatible with another thing. Here also, just as the Apostle hinted at those deceivers, so by his prayer he teaches what they must do in order to know which doctrine is true and which is alien to the truth.

“In knowledge and in all perception.” Knowledge and perception are distinguished as the theoretical and practical faculties of knowing. The first may be called knowledge, the second good understanding. Compare Prov 1:2-4.

Phil 1:3-11. The Apostle tells the Philippians that he "thanks God at every remembrance of them," and "with joy makes prayer for them all," for their participation in the Gospel through works of charity.

He calls God to witness that he loves them all with the love of Jesus Christ. He prays "that their love may abound yet more and more."

He prays that, "discerning what is excellent," that is, being perfected in spiritual knowledge and spiritual perception, which precisely distinguishes good from evil, they may prove "pure and blameless for the day of Christ."

This means the universal judgment of Christ. They are to be filled with the fruits of righteousness, to the glory and praise of God.

Speaking of growth in love through knowledge, the Apostle teaches them to grow in love by experience, through exercise in it. The fuller purity required on the judgment day of Christ is attained through difficult life struggle and unceasing labors.

According to St. John Chrysostom, "love needs the light of knowledge, so that it may be with discernment and reflection." Blind love can even bring harm to a person.

This is why elsewhere the Apostle praises training in the discernment of good and evil (Heb 5:14). "Recognizing what must be done and what must not be done is true wisdom," says St. Basil the Great.

Bishop Theophan writes: "Love is the moving power. Knowledge is the illumination of the path. Perception is the skill of knowing how and where to step."

While thanking God for the excellent condition of the Philippian Church, the Apostle at the same time prays to God that this Church may become more and more perfect.

It still lacks the ability to form correct and clear judgments about things, έν έπιγνώσει. Without this, their love remains blind and can take a false direction.

They also lack proper experience in the moral life, a moral tact that would indicate how one ought to act in each difficult circumstance of life, πάση αίσθήσει.

Both are necessary in order to distinguish between good and evil, and thus preserve the inner purity and outward blamelessness required of everyone who constantly has the coming of the day of Christ in view.

St. Paul had already sufficiently testified to his love for the Philippians by remembering their disposition toward him with such joy and thanksgiving to God, and by always remembering them himself.

Now he bears the same witness by a prayerful good wish for the Philippians' progress in Christian perfection. He defines this perfection in its constituent parts, in verse 9, in its manifestation in active life, in verse 10, and in its end, completion, and crown, in verse 11.

"I pray." At the beginning he had already said that he prays for them with joy in every prayer of his. But there he did not indicate exactly what he prayerfully asks of God for them. Now he does so.