Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Phil 4:6-7
Before we begin to dissect this, don’t miss the fact that this second verse with its promise of God’s peace is inextricably linked to the verse before it. Technically this second verse is an apodosis of the first verse. That means the second verse is the main clause of the two verses or a consequence of the first verse. “. . .then you will experience God’s peace.” If you will make your requests earnestly and fervently with all the kinds of prayers you know how to offer, you will experience God’s peace, the kind that exceeds all other peace you can think or imagine and which passes understanding. Don’t separate these two verses; they belong together as a couplet. You can’t have one without the other.
Now let’s dissect Paul’s propositions. The result of believing prayer is the enjoyment of God’s peace. Notice that it is God’s peace. The relationship between peace and God is expressed as ‘the peace of God’. It’s a subjective genitive which denotes the origin of the peace. I.e. this peace originates from God. Little wonder then that it surpasses understanding. Not God’s understanding, but the understanding of man! Did you catch the point in a quick reading of that sentence; it surpasses understanding. There are two things to note about Paul’s point, made by using the word [huperecho], which is a compound of [huper] and [echo]. No, it has nothing to do with echoes. The first word [huper] means to ‘surpass‘, ‘excel‘, ‘be so much better than‘, ‘go far beyond‘, “to rise above‘, ‘go beyond the standard‘, ‘be far superior‘, ‘be the top standard‘, ‘go to utmost‘, ‘be greater, higher, better than‘, ‘be the preeminent one‘, ‘dominant, incomparable‘, ‘far outstrip any other‘, ‘more than a match for anything else in the field‘.
Are you getting the idea of the sense of [huper]? Well, when you add [echo] to it which has the primary meaning “to have” or “possess”, the sentence is now transformed into you ‘having’ this peace, ‘taking hold of‘ as in ‘possessing’ ‘the peace a mind set on God has‘. Does this remind you of something? Yes of course it does. When we walk in the example of Christ, we have the mind of Christ. Paul wrote, “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus”. Now, you have the peace of God as something to hold on to. It is yours to keep, to have and to hold from this time forward. Now you have to admit that is mind blowing.
The sense that this peace which comes from God, or is God-given, embodies the idea that the peace of God is both more effective than human reasoning but also is beyond human comprehension. Both senses are present in this sentence. The source of this idea of Paul’s is not found in the Greek philosophers, nor is it in the possession of the latest psychologists of the 21st Century. Neither is it the brain wave of any eastern meditation or transcendental practitioner, irrespective of their religious background. It is not a product of the cleverness of man. It comes straight from God and God is the one who grants or gives it. This peace completely surpasses and surplants anything else under the sun. Actually it is under the Son, but in a totally different sense.
Did you notice the combo in this sentence? Not only is this peace better than human philosophy from any and all sources and this peace will not only blow your mind in terms of being able to understand or comprehend it. It will also guard your heart and your mind as you follow Christ. Why is that significant? Well firstly, we have the parts of the anatomy that are used to depict the core of the essence of a person in both Hebrew and Greek. For the Jews, the centre of the being was the heart (Heb: Lēv; Grk: Kardia); while for the Greeks, the centre of being was the mind (noēma). The totality of being was found in the heart in Hebrew. That was the centre of operations. In Greek thought it was the mind that controlled everything. [Nous] refers in Greek to the faculty of thinking, the understanding, the rationale of human beings to work things out. Ingenuity, intellectual prowess and the skill of the academic to calculate and work out the world. Paul skilfully combined both Hebrew and Greek thought together in telling the Philippians this peace was totally more than they could imagine and far more unexplainable than any human understanding. This peace that comes from God, was far above and beyond human comprehension.
But there is one more feature I need to focus on and that is the military term which Paul uses. I don’t think it was by chance that Paul used the word [phroureo] which means to ‘keep‘, ‘guard‘ or ‘protect‘. It is not a coincidence that Philippi was a military garrison town with Roman troops stationed there to keep the peace. The troops were there to protect the city gates and keep the inhabitants safe from any and all external forces. But also they were present to keep the peace among the inhabitants themselves. Cast your mind back to the role the Roman troops played in Philippi (Acts 16), in Ephesus (Acts 19) and in Jerusalem (Acts 21) when the public peace was disturbed. Interesting isn’t it that Paul uses this military word [phroureo] which has two meanings according to Arndt, Gingrich and Bauer:- 1. to guard, keep watch, maintain the civil and public peace and 2. hold in custody or confine under guard.
Have you realised that God is in the business of helping you to maintain your peace when faced with a lack of peace? The wording of these two verses was particularly meaningful and poignant for the Philippians, given their collective experience with Paul. Oh they knew exactly what he was referring to and the significance it had for both the saints of Philippi and what it meant for Paul who had been held in custody while writing this letter. This is not nice Christian, religious terminology being used here. Rather this is real life, everyday experience under Roman occupation. But of course there is another dimension added to it. The Jewish opposition of those who Paul calls the Circumcision Brigade. Not only were these saints in Philippi having to contend with the Romans, they also have to contend with the Judaisers who are insisting they don’t leave their Jewish roots like Paul has done. (Phil 1:14-15; 1:30; 3:2; 3:18-19)
I am sure I have filled in the details sufficiently now for you to have a sound understanding of the background to this passage and the specifics of some of the words used. But I have one last thing to do and then I need to tie off the connections for us (you and me) one last time. If you think about it carefully you will know what I have not done yet. I am sure you don’t need to be told. You have probably already wondered, “Why hasn’t Ian covered X?”
It’s coming in the next Gem.
When you stay in peace, the devil doesn’t know what to do with you.
Your part is prayer and focused thoughts. God’s part? Peace and protection.
Some people say we live in a world of irreconcilable differences. Others say that true peace, lasting peace, can’t be obtained because we haven’t found a way yet to change the human heart.
When prayer is at it’s highest we wait in silence for God’s voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace to flow over us.
William Barclay
Elisabeth Elliot, a missionary who found peace ministering to the Aucas who massacred her husband wrote: ‘Only in acceptance lies peace, not in resignation.’ There’s a big difference.
Elisabeth Elliot