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Selected Verse: Philippians 1:9 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
Php 1:9 |
King James |
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
The subject of his prayer for them (Phi 1:4).
your love--to Christ, producing love not only to Paul, Christ's minister, as it did, but also to one another, which it did not altogether as much as it ought (Phi 2:2; Phi 4:2).
knowledge--of doctrinal and practical truth.
judgment--rather, "perception"; "perceptive sense." Spiritual perceptiveness: spiritual sight, spiritual hearing, spiritual feeling, spiritual taste. Christianity is a vigorous plant, not the hotbed growth of enthusiasm. "Knowledge" and "perception" guard love from being ill-judged. |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
And this I pray - We pray for those whom we love, and whose welfare we seek. We desire their happiness; and there is no way more appropriate of expressing that desire than of going to God, and seeking it at his hand. Paul proceeds to enumerate the blessings which he sought for them; and it is worthy of observation that he did not ask riches, or worldly prosperity, but that his supplications were confined to spiritual blessings, and he sought these as the most desirable of all favors.
That your love may abound ... - Love to God; love to one another; love to absent Christians; love to the world. This is an appropriate subject of prayer. We cannot wish and pray for a better thing for our Christian friends, than that they may abound in love. Nothing will promote their welfare like this; and we had better pray for this, than that they may obtain abundant riches, and share the honors and pleasures of the world.
In knowledge - The idea is, that he wished them to have intelligent affection. It should not be mere blind affection, but that intelligent love which is based on an enlarged view of divine things - on a just apprehension of the claims of God.
And in all judgment - Margin, "sense;" compare the notes at Heb 5:14. The word here means, the power of discerning; and the meaning is, that he wished that their love should be exercised with proper discrimination. It should be in proportion to the relative value of objects; and the meaning of the whole is, that the wished their religion to be intelligent and discriminating; to be based on knowledge, and a proper sense of the relative value of objects, as well as to be the tender affection of the heart. |
Vincent's Word Studies, by Marvin R. Vincent [1886] |
Judgment (αἰσθήσει)
Only here in the New Testament. Rev., better, discernment: sensitive moral perception. Used of the senses, as Xenophon: "perception of things sweet or pungent" ("Memorabilia," i., 4, 5). Of hearing: "It is possible to go so far away as not to afford a hearing" ("Anabasis," iv., 6, 13). The senses are called αἰσθήσεις. See Plato, "Theaetetus," 156. Plato uses it of visions of the gods ("Phaedo," 111). Compare αἰσθητήρια senses, Heb 5:14. Discernment selects, classifies, and applies what is furnished by knowledge. |
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
And this I pray, that your love - Which they had already shown. May abound yet more and more - The fire which burned in the apostle never says, It is enough. In knowledge and in all spiritual sense - Which is the ground of all spiritual knowledge. We must be inwardly sensible of divine peace, joy, love; otherwise, we cannot know what they are. |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
This I pray - This is the substance of all my prayers for you, that your love to God, to one another, and to all mankind, may abound yet more and more, ετι μαλλον και μαλλον περισσευη, that it may be like a river, perpetually fed with rain and fresh streams so that it continues to swell and increase till it fills all its banks, and floods the adjacent plains.
In knowledge - Of God's nature, perfections, your own duty and interest, his work upon your souls, and his great designs in the Gospel.
And in all judgment - Και πασῃ αισθησει· In all spiritual or moral feeling; that you may at once have the clearest perception and the fullest enjoyment of those things which concern your salvation; that ye may not only know but feel that you are of God, by the Spirit which he has given you; and that your feeling may become more exercised in Divine things, so that it may he increasingly sensible and refined. |
2 I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord.
2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
4 Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy,
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.