Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Philippians · About this commentary
Practice These Things
Philippians 4:9
9 Do the things which you learned, received, heard, and saw in me, and the God of peace will be with you. · WEB
Four verbs of transmission, and the last one is the test — what was watched, not only what was taught.
The things which you learned, received, heard, and saw in me: do these things.
Four verbs, and they divide into two pairs. Learned and received describe instruction handed over — the second is the word for taking delivery of a tradition. Heard and saw describe observation, and the last is the one that costs something to write.
Paul offers his own conduct as evidence twice in this letter Philippians 3:17, and the Philippians had seen him at his least dignified: stripped, beaten, and singing in the stocks at midnight Acts 16:23–25. What they saw was a man's behavior under conditions nobody chooses.
The command is a present imperative — keep doing these things — so the instruction is habitual rather than a single decision.
And the promise attached is not success or safety: and the God of peace will be with you.
Verse 7 promised the peace of God as a garrison; this promises the God of peace himself. The gift and the giver are named in two consecutive paragraphs, and the second is the larger. What follows the first is guarding; what follows the second is company.
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