Phil: Paragraph 4- Study
Posted on 13. May, 2009 by Jeremy in Study
Word studies are very interesting if you get the right word. Try this word from our passage- allow each verse to expound upon Paul’s understanding of the exciting, Christian life.
Look at “abound” or “flourish” in the Message. It’s the Greek word “perisseue”- “to abound, overflow, be more than enough, be extremely rich,” is a Pauline word, used by Paul twenty-six of the thirty-nine times it appears in the nt. There’s probably no other word that so characterized for him the new age opened up by Christ as did “perisseue”. Just look at all of the times and the variety in which he uses this word to describe our new lives in Christ—grace overflows (Rom 5:15–17), the church richly overflows in hope (Rom 15:13), in faith, in word, in knowledge, in zeal (2 Cor 8:7), and in wisdom (Eph 1:8). The new ministry overflows in edification (1 Cor 14:12) and in excellence, in contrast to the old (2 Cor 3:9); Christians overflow in ability to comfort (2 Cor 1:4–5), in generosity (2 Cor 8:2), in thanksgiving (2 Cor 4:15), in every good work (i.e., the grace of generosity [2 Cor 9:8]) in the work of the Lord (1 Cor 15:58), in everything (2 Cor 8:7). So it is not surprising, then, that Paul’s aspiration for the Philippians, people of the new age, is that they might be so rich in love that they have no room to store it. Love must not only characterize them, it must well up and flow out from them in an ever-increasing degree (“more and more” found in the NIV) toward each other and toward all (1 Thess 3:12).
