9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Having told the Philippians how much he cares for them, Paul now prays for them. In the first part of the prayer, in verse nine, Paul prays that they may grow in love. Indeed, he wants them to “abound” or overflow with love, which means to become Godlike since God is love. He is the source of love, and his love is so boundless that he sent Jesus to assure our salvation. Shakespeare said that love is blind, but Paul does not think so. Notice how, in verse nine, he prays that their love may grow which will lead to greater knowledge and insight. Part of his point is that we should try to get to know God better and to understand him. And from this love of God will flow love for others.
Note that Paul does not see a difference between love and knowledge although we tend to think of love as something emotional and knowledge as purely intellectual. Because we love, we want to understand what or who we love. The more we understand, the more we love. When we charitably try to see things from someone else’s point of view, it makes us more forgiving because we understand them better. Of course, knowledge can exist without love, but Paul says in the very famous passage of 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that such knowledge is pointless. And love without knowledge is not truly love. If you care for someone, you want to know them.
Indeed, Paul may be trying to combat here certain religions, popular at the time, that promised secret knowledge. Paul prays for understanding but does not see Christians as possessing any special information. All can grow in knowledge of God. And, unlike these mystery religions, he sees knowledge as important because of how it leads to practical action, notably to helping others.
In verse ten, Paul tells us that the more we love God, the better we know his will and his purpose for us. He also tells us at the end of this verse, that this knowledge prepares us for “the day of Christ”, that final encounter. Of course, this day is also Judgment Day, and we are very unlikely to be blameless. We must prepare now for this day and be ready for it. This emphasis on being prepared for the end has led to criticism that Christianity is not concerned enough with this world. Marcus Maxwell observes that we should not fall into this trap: “Christians should not have to justify their faith in non-Christian terms, as though knowing God were only useful if it could make us healthy, wealthy and wise.”
But preparing for Christ’s return should also motivate how we live now. As we seek to live according to God’s will, the Spirit grows within us and works to transform us into the image of Christ. A true Christian seeks to imitate Christ. And, as we grow and move closer to Christ, we bring him to others. Sadly, we all know of Christians who fail in this direction (indeed, we all sometimes fail) and, instead of bringing others to Christ, push people away from him
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