30 October 2020

This is my prayer,
that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight
to help you to determine what is best,
so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless,
having produced the harvest of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God..
From Philippians 1: 1-11, NRSV

Imagine sitting in Philppi and receiving a letter that is so full of enthusiasm and affirmation – especially when you know the writer is being held in a prison. It is clear that Paul has not been proclaiming a gospel of strictures and penalties but a message of love, joy and hope. Even in his captivity, he continues to pray for them – that they build on what they have received so that their lives and works are blessed and fruitful in the works of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

• • What might it have been like to have been among the first people to receive and read letters like this?
  • How can we reclaim some of that “newness” – of hearing the words as if written directly to us? 

Try reading the passage as if Paul had written Dear N…. (your name) at the beginning of it – and see what difference it makes.