ALWAYS OFFERING PRAYER: pantote en pase
deesei:
(Phil1:9,
10,
11;
Ro1:9;
Ep1:14-23;
1Th1:2)
(See Torrey's topic "Thanksgiving",
Intercessory Prayer,
Nave's Topic "Intercession").
"always, in every supplication of mine
for you all, with joy making the supplication," (YLT).
"I always pray for you, and I make my
requests with a heart full of joy" (NLT),
"Every time I pray for
all of you, I do it with joy." (ICB),
"always
when offering any prayer on behalf of you all, finding a joy in offering
it" (Weymouth)
Always (3842)
(pantote from pás = all and has the idea of
“whole” + tóte = then) means at all times or on every
occasion. Paul labors to show them that he never forgot them;
that he always
remembered them in his prayers.
Offering
(4160)
(poieo) means to make and expresses action in this case
continued. The
present tense
indicates this was a
habitual practice in Paul's life.
Prayer (1162)
(deesis) (Click
in depth study of
deesis)
generally refers to specific supplications asked with urgency and
arising from a presumed need.
Deesis
is from déomai which means to want, to lack, be in need of, make
known one's particular need which gave rise to the meaning to request, beseech
and
use distinctively in prayers of petition.
Note the Greek word order ("with joy the prayer making") which gives
emphasis to the phrase "with joy".
Deesis was
used by the angel who assured the godly father of John the Baptist,
“Do not be afraid (stop fearing
indicating he already was fearful), Zacharias (means "Jehovah
remembers"), for your petition (deesis - specifically
their need for God to open his wife's womb) has been heard, and your
wife Elizabeth (means "my God is an oath") will bear you a son,
and you will give him the name John (means “Jehovah has shown
grace”)” (Luke
1:13).
Luke uses
deesis again of the disciples of John the Baptist, who were said to
“often fast and offer prayers (deesis)" (Luke
5:33).
Deesis was
used by Paul of his “prayer for the salvation of his fellow
Israelites...
"Brethren, my heart's (deepest,
consuming) desire and my prayer prayer (deesis - conveys
idea of pleading and entreaty, of persistent petition) to God for them
is for their salvation." (see note
Romans 10:1).
The KJV Bible Commentary has a
pertinent reminder that...
In a day when programs, publicity,
and promotion characterize much of the Lord’s work, it should be
emphasized that without prayer no lasting work will be accomplished for
God. (Dobson,
E G, Charles Feinberg, E Hindson, Woodrow Kroll, H L. Wilmington: KJV
Bible Commentary: Nelson)
WITH JOY: meta charas:
(2:2;
3:18;
4:1;
Lu15:7
15:10;
Col2:5;
1Th2:19;2:20
Phile1:7;
2Jn1:4)
Paul began with joy (singing in the Philippian jail - Acts 16:25) and
continues to experience joy over the Philippians. He specifically took joy in
the privilege of praying for them, seeing what God had already done for
them and among them.
Dwight Pentecost observes
that...
The word “joy” or “rejoice” or
its counterpart occurs eighteen times in this epistle and is one of the
major themes. Christ is referred to either by name or by personal
pronoun some seventy times in this book. Paul’s joy is the joy of
Christ. Christ is the source of the joy, and it is Christ’s joy into
which Paul has entered even in the vicissitudes of life; it is Christ’s
joy he wants them to know and to share as Christ becomes real in their
lives.
(Pentecost,
J. D. The Joy of Living: A study of Philippians. Kregel Publications)
As
Jameisson, Faussett and Brown says
"It marked his high opinion
of them, that there was almost everything in them to give him joy, and
almost nothing to give him pain."
Paul is still joyful as a prisoner in Rome as he was initially in a
prison in Philippi when "about midnight Paul and Silas were praying
and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to
them" (Acts16:25)
Joy
(5479)
(chara)
(and
rejoice) is
a feeling of inner gladness, delight or rejoicing.
Secular dictionaries define joy
as the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or the
emotion evoked by the prospect of possessing what one desires. The
world's definition of joy is therefore virtually synonymous
with the definition of happiness, for both of these "emotions" are
dependent on what "happens".
Certainly there is joy in
human life, such as joy when one experiences a victory (" We
will sing for joy over your victory, and in the name of our God we
will set up our banners. May the LORD fulfill all your petitions."
Psalm 20:5
Spurgeon's comment)
or reaps a bountiful harvest (see Isaiah 9:3), but more often
the Bible speaks of joy in a spiritual sense. For example, Nehemiah
declared to the down in the mouth (not very filled with joy) Jews that
"The joy of the Lord is
your strength" (Nehemiah
8:10).
Similarly, David pleaded with God to “restore to me the joy of Thy
salvation” (Psalm 51:12
Spurgeon's Comment).
It is not surprising that joy and rejoicing are found most frequently
in the Psalms (about 80 references) and the Gospels (about 40
references).
C. S. Lewis got a bit closer
to the Biblical meaning when he called joy an “unsatisfied desire
which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” That
statement is a bit obtuse but Lewis then goes on to add that joy
"must be sharply distinguished both from happiness and from
pleasure". Ultimately Lewis' experienced joy when he discovered that
Jesus was the wellspring of all joy.
Joy then is the deep-down
sense of well-being that abides in the heart of the person who knows
all is well between himself and the Lord. It is not an experience that
comes from favorable circumstances but even occurs when those
circumstances are the most painful and severe as Jesus taught His
disciples declaring...
Truly, truly, I say to you, that
you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be
sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned to joy. 21 "Whenever
a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but
when she gives birth to the child, she remembers the anguish no more,
for joy that a child has been born into the world. 22
"Therefore you too now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your
heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy away from
you. (John 16:20-22)
Believers have the Resident Source
of joy within for as as Paul teaches
the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness (Galatians
5:22)
Emotional fluctuations cannot
disturb this Source of joy. Note Paul’s statement of this confidence
(see note
Philippians 3:20).
In the epistle to the Philippians joy
is like a golden thread Paul interweaves throughout this epistle
(Click
for all 12v with "joy")
As Bengel says “The whole letter is ‘I rejoice,’ and ‘Rejoice!’”
The Christian life is to be a
life of
joy. It is founded on faith in Jesus, whose life on earth
began as "good news of great joy for all people" (Luke 2:10). The
theme of joy is underscored by the 59 uses of joy and the 74 uses
of rejoice in the New Testament (as noted above most are in the
Gospels) always to signify a
feeling of happiness that is based on spiritual realities.
Joy is God’s gift
to believers. Paul speaks of more than just a mood. This is a deep
confidence that was rooted in God’s sovereign control of the universe, His on
unchanging divine promises and eternal spiritual realities including the assurance
of ultimate victory for those in Christ.
Joy is a part of
God’s own nature and Spirit that He manifests in His children.
Joy is the inevitable overflow of receiving Jesus Christ as Savior
and of the believer’s knowing His continuing presence and having a sense of well
being experienced by one who knows all is well between himself and the Lord
(see note
1 Peter 1:8).
Joy not only does not come from favorable human
circumstances but is sometimes greatest when those circumstances are the most
painful and severe.
God’s
joy is full, complete in every way. Nothing human or
circumstantial can add to it or detract from it. But it is not fulfilled in a
believer’s life except through reliance on and obedience to the Lord.
Although joy is a gift of God through His Spirit to those who belong to
Christ, it is also commanded of them “Rejoice in the Lord always;
again I will say, rejoice!” Paul commands (see note
Philippians 4:4
cf note
Philippians 3:1).
Because joy comes as a gift from Him, the command obviously is not for
believers to manufacture or try to imitate it but to delight in
the blessing they already possess (see note
Romans 14:17;
Philippians 4:4). The command is to
gratefully accept and revel in this great blessing they already possess.
Warren Wiersbe
defines
joy
as
that inward peace and sufficiency
that is not affected by outward circumstances. (A case in point is
Paul’s experience recorded in Phil. 4:10–20.) This "holy optimism" keeps
him going in spite of difficulties.
Matthew Henry defines
joy
as
cheerfulness in conversation with our friends, or rather a constant
delight in God
Donald Campbell former President of
Dallas Theological Seminary says
Joy (chara) is a deep and abiding
inner rejoicing which was promised to those who abide in Christ (Jn 15:11).
It does not depend on circumstances because it rests in God’s sovereign
control of all things (cf. note
Romans 8:28)
William MacDonald says
Joy is contentment and satisfaction with God
and with His dealings. Christ displayed it in
John 4:34
Adam Clarke defines joy as
"The exultation that arises from
a sense of God’s mercy communicated to the soul in the pardon of its
iniquities, and the prospect of that eternal glory of which it has the
foretaste in the pardon of sin."
Beet defines
joy as
triumphant overflow of Christian
gladness.
Barclay adds that...
It is not the joy that comes from
earthly things, still less from triumphing over someone else in
competition. It is a joy whose foundation is God.
Joy is the byproduct of
obedience. (Source Unknown) (Ed note: Nothing like unconfessed sin to steal your
joy!)
Those that look to be happy must
first look to be holy. (Richard Sibbes)
God is not otherwise to be
enjoyed than as He is obeyed. (John Howe)
Haydn, the great musician, was once
asked why his church music was so cheerful, and he replied:
When I think upon God, my heart is so full of
joy
that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen, and since God has given
me a cheerful heart it will be pardoned me that I serve Him with a cheerful
spirit.
Men have pursued joy in every
avenue imaginable. Some have successfully found it while others have not.
Perhaps it would be easier to describe where joy cannot be found:
•
Not in Unbelief — Voltaire was an infidel of the most
pronounced type. He wrote: “I wish I had never been born...(and at his
death cried out desperately) I am abandoned by God and man! I
will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six
month's life. Then I shall go to hell; and you will go with me. O
Christ! O Jesus Christ!”
•
Not in Pleasure — Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if
anyone did. He wrote: “The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone.”
•
Not in Money — Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had
plenty of that. When dying, he said: “I suppose I am the most miserable man on
earth.”
•
Not in Position and Fame — Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more
than his share of both. He wrote: “Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old
age a regret.”
•
Not in Military Glory — Alexander the Great conquered the
known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said,
“There are no more worlds to conquer.”
•
Where then is real
joy found? — the answer is
simple, in Christ alone. (The Bible Friend, Turning Point, May, 1993)
As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a
friend:
It’s a bad world, an incredibly bad
world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people
who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy
which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life.
They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of
their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the
Christians—and I am one of them.
The eternal effect of a Christian filled with the
Joy of the Lord:
Many years ago when the great missionary
Adoniram Judson was home on
furlough, he passed through the city of Stonington, Connecticut. A young boy
playing about the wharves at the time of Judson’s arrival was struck by the
man’s appearance. Never before had he seen such a light on any human face. He
ran up the street to a minister to ask if he knew who the stranger was. The
minister hurried back with him, but became so absorbed in conversation with
Judson that he forgot all about the impatient youngster standing near him. Many
years afterward that boy—who could never get away from the influence of that
wonderful face—became the famous preacher Henry Clay Trumbull. In a book of
memoirs he penned a chapter entitled: “What a Boy Saw in the Face of Adoniram
Judson.” That lighted countenance had changed his life. Even as flowers thrive
when they bend to the light, so shining, radiant faces come to those who
constantly turn toward Christ!
It takes 72 muscles to frown—only 14 to smile!
IN MY
EVERY PRAYER FOR YOU ALL: en pase
deesei mou huper panton humon:
Again the word for prayer is deesis (1162) (Click
in depth study of
deesis)
referring to specific supplications or prayer for particular
benefits, the verb supplicate suggesting an attitude and posture of humility.
Do I
pray for all the saints or just a select few? All stand in the need of prayer.
In every prayer, Paul
made supplication for the Philippians with joy. Intercession
is not a burden to be borne but an exercise of the soul to be performed with
joy.
Vine comments of the occurrence of the
word every (or all, Greek = pas) noting that...
The recurrence of all in the
epistle (see Phil 1, 7, 8, 25; 2:17, 26 and cp. 4:21) is a reminder to his
readers that the apostle, like his Master, held them all in equal affection and
esteem. He seeks thus tactfully to counteract the tendency to alienation of
heart among them, a rumor of which seems to have reached him, and to which later
he makes a direct reference (see Phil 2:1-4; 4:2). The true pastor cares for the
whole of the flock. (Vine,
W. Collected writings of W. E. Vine. Nashville: Thomas Nelson
)
