Love That Abounds

For two lessons we have watched Paul thank God for the Philippians and feel Christ's affection for them. Now, for the first time, he tells us what he actually asks for them. If you wondered what a man in chains most wants for the church he loves, here it is. Not comfort. Not success. Not even safety. One thing: that their love would abound. Everything else in the prayer flows from that one request.

1. The one request

"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more" (1:9). Notice how much weight Paul puts on a single verb. Abound is river-flood language, overflow language. He is not praying that they would have love but that love would keep rising. And he prays it for love first because love is the load-bearing column under everything else he will ask of this church in the chapters ahead: their unity (ch. 2), their purity (ch. 3), their peace (ch. 4). Each of those rests on this.

David Murray catches the surprise of the request: "His first prayer for them wasn't more money, more success, more friends, more comfort, or more health, but more love. Love for whom? Love for Christ and love for his people." (Murray, "The Secret to Productivity," on 1:9–11.) It is a window into what Paul believes actually matters.

2. Not blind love

But Paul will not let love float free. The very next words tether it: love abounding "with knowledge and all discernment" (1:9). This is crucial. The love Paul prays for is intelligent, not gullible. As David Guzik puts it, "the love Paul wanted to abound in the Philippians was not 'blind love'" (Guzik on Phil 1:9); it grows with knowledge of God and with the discernment to tell things apart.

Hold these two together: love without discernment turns soft and ends up affirming what harms; discernment without love turns hard and ends up slicing what it should heal. Paul wants neither. He prays for love that abounds and sees straight. This church will soon face false teachers (ch. 3) and real divisions (ch. 2, 4). They will need a love that can tell the true from the false and still reach toward the person. So Paul prays it ahead of time.

3. What overflowing love produces

Now follow the chain in verses 10–11. Love that abounds with discernment leads to three things, each one the fruit of the last:

• Approving what is excellent (1:10), a trained taste that chooses the best over the merely good, the excellent over the acceptable. Discerning love learns to prefer rightly.
• Purity and blamelessness for the day of Christ (1:10), a life that holds together, inside and out, aimed at that final day (the same "day of Jesus Christ" from 1:6).
• The fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ (1:11), not self-manufactured goodness, but fruit that grows because we are joined to him. Fruit, by definition, is not what you produce by effort; it is what comes through a living branch (John 15:5).

And the whole chain terminates in one goal: "to the glory and praise of God" (1:11). Love rises, discernment sharpens, the excellent is chosen, purity grows, fruit appears, and God is praised. That is the purpose of the Christian life, and Paul prays it all into motion with one request for abounding love.

So here is the turn this passage asks of us. We often pray, "Lord, fix this problem; change this circumstance; give me more of this or that." Paul prays, "Lord, make my love rise and see straight, and let everything else grow from there." It is a different starting point, and it reaches the whole of life. (Murray, "The Secret to Productivity," on 1:9–11: "Pray for more passion for more productivity.")