Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Philippians · About this commentary
Make My Joy Full
Philippians 2:1-2
1 If therefore there is any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassion, · WEB
Four things they already have become the leverage for the one thing Paul wants.
If there is therefore any exhortation in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any tender mercies and compassion. Four conditions, and none is in doubt — the construction assumes each is true. Paul is listing what they already possess before asking for anything.
Then the request: make my joy full by being like-minded. The verb is phronein, the letter's word for a settled way of thinking, and this is where it starts doing structural work.
What he asks is spelled out in three more phrases — having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind — and the piling is the point. Paul returns to the idea four times in a single verse because the thing is fragile.
And the leverage he uses is his own gladness. He does not command; he says his joy is incomplete without it. A man in prison, writing to a church with a quarrel in it, names the one gift they can still send him.
settled What this mark means