Philippians 4:20

Paul writes from prison (Philippians 1:7, 1:13), most likely in Rome around A.D. 60–62, though some have placed this imprisonment in Ephesus or Caesarea. He has just finished the exhortations of Philippians 4:1–9 on standing firm, rejoicing, prayer and right thinking, and now he turns to thank the church for a gift carried to him by Epaphroditus, their messenger (Philippians 2:25). This closing section of the letter is about that gift, the contentment Paul has learned, and the God who provides for his people.

“I rejoiced in the Lord greatly.” The verb chaírō is the word for gladness that runs all through this letter, and “greatly” (megálōs) makes it strong. Paul has just told the church, “Rejoice in the Lord alway” (Philippians 4:4), and here he does it himself. His joy is “in the Lord”, the kýrios, the Master who rules over all, so his gladness reaches past the gift and the givers to God, who cared for his servant through his people. God often provides in this way, and when kindness comes to us through another believer, we thank them and we thank him.

“Your care of me hath flourished again” is a picture from the garden. The verb anathállō, found only here in the New Testament, comes from thállō, to flourish, and means to sprout again or grow green again, like a plant that has lain dormant through a season and now blossoms. “Now at the last” (ḗdē poté) tells us that some time had passed since their last gift.

Paul at once guards them from feeling blamed. “Wherein ye were also careful” uses phronéō, a steady concern of the mind, so they had been thinking of him the whole time. “But ye lacked opportunity” is akairéomai, to be without a fitting occasion. Their care had lived all along. What they lacked was the right moment or the means, and Paul leaves unsaid whatever stood in their way. He assumes the best of them, and his words free them from any guilt over the delay.

“Not that I speak in respect of want.” Paul adds this at once so that his thanks will be heard as gratitude for their love, free of any complaint about his situation or hint that he would like more. The word for want, hystérēsis, means a falling short, a state of lack. His gladness in verse 10 comes from a contented heart.

“For I have learned.” The verb manthánō is the ordinary word for learning by instruction, practice and experience. Contentment came to Paul over time, and he learned it in a hard school of beatings, shipwreck, hunger and imprisonment (2 Corinthians 11:23–28). Because it is learned, it is open to every believer who walks with God through the seasons he sends. It is also active. Learned contentment is a trust that chooses again and again to rest in God’s will and his goodness, which is a very different thing from resigning oneself to fate.

“In whatsoever state I am” is literally “in what I am”, the relative hós with the verb eimí. It reaches across every condition Paul has known, from plenty to scarcity, freedom to prison, honour to dishonour. The KJV translators added “therewith” to make the sense clear, and the meaning is “to be content in it”.

“I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound.” To be abased, tapeinóō, is to be pressed down and brought low, whether by poverty, suffering or humiliation. To abound, perisseúō, is to have more than enough, to overflow. Paul has lived at both ends, and he names plenty as something that also has to be learned. A believer needs Christ as much at a full table as at an empty one, so as to be free of anxiety when there is little and free of complacency when there is much.

“Every where and in all things I am instructed.” The verb is myéō, found only here in the New Testament. It comes from the same root as mystḗrion, mystery, and it means to initiate someone into a secret, and so to teach. Paul is saying that he has been let into the secret of living through every condition. The verb is passive, which may point to God as the teacher, and Paul learned this secret through his walk with God and through the trials and successes of his ministry. “Every where and in all things” covers every place and every kind of circumstance.

“Both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” The pairs repeat the contrast to show the whole range of his life. To be full, chortázō, comes from chórtos, fodder, and was used first of feeding animals and then of people filled to satisfaction. To suffer need, hysteréō, is to fall short, to lack. Christ’s grace carried Paul through all of it, just as the Lord told him: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

Verse 13 gives the reason behind verses 11 and 12. “I can do” is ischýō, to have strength, to be able, to prevail, so Paul is claiming real power to act and to endure. “Through Christ” uses the small preposition en, “in”. Paul’s strength is found in Christ, in his union with him, so that Christ is both the sphere Paul lives in and the means of his power. “Which strengtheneth me” is endynamóō, to empower or make strong, and it is a present participle in Greek. Christ goes on strengthening him day after day, with a strength that comes from Christ alone.

The philosophers of Paul’s world praised the self-sufficient man. Paul says that he is sufficient for every state, and he names Christ as the one who makes him so. Jesus said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). Paul prays for the Colossians to be “strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness” (Colossians 1:11).

“Notwithstanding ye have well done.” “Notwithstanding” is plḗn, and it turns back from Paul’s contentment to their gift. He was content before it came, and still he praises them warmly. “Well”, kalōs, means rightly and honourably, and here it marks an act that is good in God’s sight.

“That ye did communicate with my affliction.” The verb synkoinōnéō joins syn, with, to koinōnéō, to share, and it means to share in company with someone, to become a partner in his circumstances. “Affliction”, thlîpsis, comes from a root meaning to press or crush, and it covers pressure, distress and persecution, which for Paul now includes prison. By their gift the Philippians stepped into his trouble with him, and taking the side of an imprisoned apostle may well have carried some risk for them. This is the bearing of one another’s burdens that Paul commands (Galatians 6:2), and the life of the body in which, when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it (1 Corinthians 12:26). Hebrews says, “But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Hebrews 13:16).

“Now ye Philippians know also.” The particle dé marks the turn, and eídō, to know, appeals to something they remember well. Paul is reminding them of their own history.

“In the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia” takes them back to Paul’s second missionary journey. He founded the church at Philippi, the first church he planted in Europe, where Lydia and the jailer came to faith (Acts 16), and then he left the city (Acts 16:40). He travelled on through Amphipolis, Apollonia, Thessalonica and Berea, then to Athens, and from there to Corinth (Acts 18:1). From the very start of their life as a church the Philippians gave to his work, and Paul thanked God at the opening of the letter for their “fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:5).

“No church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only.” The verb is koinōnéō, to share or be partners, from koinōnos, a partner. “Giving and receiving” pairs dósis, a giving or a gift, with lēmpsis, a receiving, and the whole phrase, ekoinṓnēsen eis lógon dóseōs kaì lḗmpseōs, is the language of business accounts, of debit and credit. The Philippians alone had opened such an account with him. They gave him material help, and they received a share in the fruit of the gospel he preached, so that material and spiritual blessings passed both ways. Paul speaks the same way elsewhere: “If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?” (1 Corinthians 9:11). He says that the Gentile churches who shared in Jerusalem’s spiritual things owe it to the saints there to minister to them in material things (Romans 15:26–27).

“Not because I desire a gift.” Once again Paul guards his thanks, so that nobody could take it as a request for more, and so that his own motives are plainly set apart from those of anyone who would preach for gain. The verb epizētéō, which he uses twice in this verse, is an intensive one, to seek after earnestly or to crave. The gift itself, dóma, lies outside his aim.

“But I desire fruit that may abound to your account.” What he longs for is karpós, fruit, the spiritual increase that their giving produces for them. It will “abound”, pleonázō, increase and multiply, to their lógos, a word that here means an account or a reckoning, as in a ledger. Paul pictures God crediting their gifts to them, and Hebrews says the same: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love” (Hebrews 6:10). The ledger is a picture of God’s faithful remembrance and reward. Paul’s joy is in the givers’ blessing more than in his own gain.

Jesus taught the same, “Give, and it shall be given unto you” (Luke 6:38), and he told his disciples to lay up treasures in heaven, where their hearts would be also (Matthew 6:19–21). Paul wrote that “he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6–7).

“But I have all, and abound: I am full.” The first verb, apéchō, was used of receiving payment in full, so “I have all” (pâs, all) reads like a receipt. The account is settled, and Paul has everything. He adds perisseúō, I overflow, and plēróō, I am filled. He is fully supplied by their gift, and his fullness goes deeper still, since he has learned contentment in Christ. The gift confirmed a sufficiency he already had in the Lord.

“Having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you.” The verb déchomai means to receive or welcome. Epaphróditos was a trusted member of the Philippian church who travelled to Paul with the gift and stayed to minister to him, and he fell ill while he was there (Philippians 2:25–30). “The things which were sent from you” (hymōn, from you) is everything the church had sent.

Then Paul names the gift in the language of worship: “an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.” “An odour of a sweet smell” joins osmḗ, a fragrance, with euōdía, a sweet scent. These are the words of the “sweet savour” of the offerings God accepted. When Noah offered burnt offerings after the flood, “the LORD smelled a sweet savour” (Genesis 8:21), and the law calls the burnt offering of the priests’ consecration “a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD” (Exodus 29:18). A thysía is a sacrifice, and Paul calls their gift one. It is dektós, acceptable, and euárestos, well-pleasing, to theós, God. So a gift sent to a man in prison rose to God like the smoke of an offering and delighted him. God counts practical love for his servants as true worship.

The same language belongs first of all to Christ, who “hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Ephesians 5:2). The sacrifices of the old covenant were shadows of his perfect offering, and believers and their gifts are acceptable to God through him. Hebrews calls our praise and our doing good sacrifices that please God (Hebrews 13:15–16). In Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”, and we are complete in him (Colossians 2:9–10), and that is where Paul’s fullness has its root.

The Philippians had given sacrificially to meet Paul’s need, and now Paul assures them that their giving will be met by God’s own supply. “My God” is the God Paul knows and trusts, the one who has kept him in plenty and in want. “Shall supply” is plēróō, the same verb as “I am full” in verse 18, so God will fill them as their gift has filled Paul. The word means to fill to the brim, to level up a hollow, to make complete. “All your need” uses chreía, the word for Paul’s necessity in verse 16.

“According to his riches in glory.” ploûtos is wealth and abundance. Paul says “according to” those riches, so the measure of the supply is God’s own glorious wealth, and giving takes nothing from it. “In glory” speaks of the majesty and splendour of the God who gives. In a city where patrons provided for those who depended on them, Paul points to a provider whose wealth is beyond any earthly benefactor’s.

“By Christ Jesus.” All God’s provision comes to us in and through Christ. “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). He is God’s greatest provision, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and our deepest need, to be reconciled to God, is met in him. In him God has blessed us “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3).

The same assurance runs through Scripture. “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). Jesus said, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). Paul told the Corinthians that God is able to make all grace abound toward them, so that they would always have all sufficiency in all things (2 Corinthians 9:8).

When Paul has said all this, he breaks into praise. “Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” The dé, “now”, ties the doxology to the promise before it. A doxology, a short ascription of glory to God, was part of the worship of the Jews and of the early church, and it often closed a prayer or a stretch of teaching, as it does here.

The one praised is theós, God, and patḗr, our Father. He is God over all, he is our Father who cares for his children, and he is the giver behind every gift in this passage. dóxa, glory, is honour, splendour and majesty, and to give God glory is to acknowledge his supreme worth. We give it for what he does and for who he is. “For ever and ever” translates eis toùs aiṓnas tōn aiṓnōn, “unto the ages of the ages”. Eis means unto, aiṓn means an age and by extension perpetuity, and the doubled plural is the fullest way the New Testament has of saying “for ever”, so God’s glory lasts without end. amḗn comes from Hebrew and means firm or sure. Here it seals the praise as true and asks for it to be so, and it calls the readers to say it with him.

All things are “of him, and through him, and to him”, Paul writes, “to whom be glory for ever” (Romans 11:36). The elders in heaven say, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things” (Revelation 4:11). Paul gives “honour and glory for ever and ever” to “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God” (1 Timothy 1:17).

We know the Father and come to him through Christ. The Son is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). Through him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father (Ephesians 2:18), and we do all in his name, giving thanks to God and the Father by him (Colossians 3:17). Christ shares the Father’s glory, and every creature in heaven and on earth says, “Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever” (Revelation 5:13).

Each part of this passage has its pattern in Christ. Paul learned to be abased and to abound, and Christ, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). He laid aside his glory (Philippians 2:5–8) and “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). The Son of man had “not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20), and yet he fed thousands with abundance (Matthew 14:13–21). “For the joy that was set before him” he “endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2), and God has highly exalted him (Philippians 2:9–11), so the way of lowliness he walked ended in glory. His sufficiency was always in the Father, and through his Spirit he gives his people the same trust.

The Philippians shared Paul’s affliction, and Christ entered fully into ours, bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4–5). He came “to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45), and he died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8), meeting the greatest need we have. When his people care for one another, he counts it as done to himself: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40), and he will say to them, “Come, ye blessed of my Father” (Matthew 25:34–40). The fruit Paul wants for the Philippians is the fruit Jesus spoke of: “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit” (John 15:8).

Contentment is learned, as Paul learned it, in the seasons God gives, the lean ones and the full ones, and Christ’s strength is there for both. When help comes to us through another believer, we can thank them warmly and thank God who sent it. When someone who loves us has been slow to help, we can think of them as Paul thought of the Philippians, who cared all along and lacked the opportunity.

Our gifts to God’s work and to the needs of his people, “distributing to the necessity of saints” (Romans 12:13), are offerings that please him, and “God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Their worth in his sight lies in the love and faith behind them more than in their size. The God who received the Philippians’ gift as a sweet savour is the same God who promises to supply all our need from his riches in Christ Jesus. All of it, the giving, the receiving and the supplying, ends where Paul ends, in glory to our Father for ever and ever.