Spiritual Obligations

so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;  Philippians 1:10  NASB In order to be – Read it slowly.  Paul has just proclaimed that God and God alone will complete the good work in us (v. 6).  God won’t stop the…

Blameless

“so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ” Philippians 1:10 Blameless – Blame, blame, go away, come again some other day.  Well, not exactly.  We want the blame to go away but we certainly don’t want it back later.  God deals…

Sincere

“so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ” Philippians 1:10 Sincere – But what’s the point of being sincere if you are sincerely wrong?  Paul isn’t interested in sincerity.  Sincerity by itself has never been enough.  In this verse, “sincere” is…

Excellent

“so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ” Philippians 1:10 Excellent – Ah!  But it really doesn’t say this.  In this translation, the text presumes that the intention of “testing” is to determine excellence.  But the verse really says, “testing the…

Approve

“so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ” Philippians 1:10 Approve – All that glitters is not gold.  In fact, even gold comes in various denominations.  Ten carat, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-four and pure.  You need to know the difference when you…