The Scripture passage
for this week is actually Phil. 1:3-6. I had intended to look at all four of those
verses today, but it’s not going to happen.
I include all four verses here for the comparison between versions; but
today I’m only going to focus on verses 3-4.
I hate to stop in the middle of a sentence, but…
3 I thank my God every time I remember you,
4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you,
5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.
6 I am confident of this,
that the one who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
– New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
3 I thank my
God every time I remember you.
4
In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now,
6 being confident of this,
that he who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
– New International Version (NIV); Today’s New
International Version (TNIV)
3 I thank my
God whenever I think of you,
4
and every time I pray for you all, I always pray with joy
5
for your partnership in the gospel from the very first day up to the present.
6
I am quite confident that the One who began a good work in you
will
go on completing it until the Day of Jesus Christ comes.
– New Jerusalem Bible (NJB)
5 because you have been my partners
in spreading the Good News about Christ
from the time you first heard it until now.
6 And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you,
will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day
when Christ Jesus comes back again.
–
New Living Translation (NLT)
So here it is! The verse at which I usually begin paying
attention to the letter to the Philippians.
Phil. 1:3 “I thank my God every
time I remember you.”
From a memorizing standpoint, this one
shouldn’t be too hard. I don’t have to
spend much time deciding what words to memorize when most of the translations
agree on exact phrasing! The main choice
will be whether to say “remember” or “think of.” Different shades of meanings, both good
translations, and I’m OK with switching back and forth depending on what comes
to my lips at any given time. The same
is true – even more so – for “whenever” as compared to “every time.” So the only thing I might have difficulty
remembering – the only part of this beloved verse that I don’t already have
memorized, in some form – is that it’s “my
God” rather than just “God.” Why
does Paul say “my God”? Does it matter?
When I think of this verse, I don’t usually
think so much about God as about God’s children. There are people who, whenever I think of
them, a smile comes to my face. You have
been blessings to me. Chances are, most
of you who are reading this fit that category!
So I do thank God for the wonderful people God has brought into my
life.
And, of course, it feels great to be on the
receiving end of this sentence. To know
that when someone thinks of me, they get that warm, glowing feeling and thank
God because of me. (Always?! I do have some rough edges, after all…)
4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers
for all of you
Before I think about how I want to memorize this
– in what order I want to say all those little units of meaning – let’s think
about what Paul is saying. And what it
might mean for us. Who is Paul praying
for? Lydia and the other women who met
down by the riverside before Paul and his companions brought the good news
about Jesus, the Messiah. The jailer who
had been about to kill himself. And
their households, of course. Probably
the girl who used to be possessed by a spirit of divination. Clement.
Epaphroditus. Euodia. Syntyche.
Possibly Syzygus, although I suspect that would be better translated “my
true companion,” and we don’t know who it refers to. (See 4:3)
Paul is praying, with joy and thanksgiving, for each of the members of
the group of believers in Philippi.
Maybe this isn’t so surprising. Let’s add a few more congregations. Where else has Paul spread the good news? Can we assume that each time Paul prays, he
also prays for each of the people in all of those other congregations?
This verse sounds joyful and thankful…but I
can easily turn it around into an impossible-to-meet standard for my own prayer
life. Does this mean that every time I
pray, I need to think about every congregation I have been a part of and give
thanks for every person in each of those congregations? During the years that my husband and I were
in seminary, we changed congregations every year or so, because we were taking
turns doing internships. So even if I
just think about my church membership between 2002-2007 (this also includes the
congregation where we became pastors after seminary), I’m thinking of five
different congregations of wonderful people, for whom I can pray with
thanksgiving…five congregations, totaling perhaps 700 people. That’s way too cumbersome to pray for each
one of those people each and every time I pray; and it doesn’t even include the
congregation I belong to now, or the other congregations to which I’m currently
connected.
I like the concept of “praying through the
church directory” – praying for one or two people every day, but not feeling
obligated to mention every person every time.
I like the idea of thinking about different congregations on different
days of the week. I think, for me, I
need to continually remember to focus on the aspects of joy and thanksgiving in
this verse, and not turn it into a prayer to-do list.
Speaking of joy…over the weekend, I was part of a conversation where we
identified joy as one of the main themes of Philippians. (Verse 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice,” is one of the verses I
memorized long ago and still know.) Hmm…
1:4 seems to be the first appearance of “joy”…4:4 is a famous joy-related
verse…I want to be on the lookout for more joy between here and there.
So how
do I want to memorize this verse?
NRSV
constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, NIV In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy
NJB and every time I pray for you all, I always pray with joy
NLT I always pray for you, and I make my requests with a heart full of joy
The
Greek word order, transliterated, is something like:
pa,ntote evn pa,sh| deh,sei
mou u`pe.r pa,ntwn u`mw/n( always in all prayers - my for all of you,
meta. cara/j th.n de,hsin
poiou,menoj(
with joy the prayer making/doing
Or, made slightly more fluent:
always, in all my prayers for all of you,
praying the prayer with joy.
That’s still too much of a
transliteration. So the elements of the
sentence – actually, the participial phrase – need to be rearranged in some way
for them to flow well in English. And different
translations rearrange them different ways.
I think, for verses 3-6, I’m going to try to
imitate the fact that it’s all one sentence in Greek. Verse 3 is the main clause, with an actual
subject/verb: I thank. (The rest of the verse, the way I intend to
say it, also has “I remember” which is another subject/verb; but in Greek a
more literal translation would be “upon every remembrance of you.) Verse 4 is a participle phrase, which
continues into verse 5. Verse 6 is
another participle phrase. So if I use
the NRSV phrasing for verse 4, “constantly praying…”, then that could be
parallel to verse 6 “being confident of this…” [NIV]. Of course, there’s a good chance that could
turn out to be too cumbersome…but we’ll see, later this week.
So it appears that for both verse 3 and verse
4, I have strong NRSV leanings. But
looking ahead to the next two verses, I foresee at least one or two places
where I’ll lean toward NIV. Hopefully by
the time I get back to this blog, I’ll have figured out how to remember all
those little parts in verse 4!
4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you...
Hymn alert:
"I Thank My God," my own hymn setting of Phil. 1:3-6, written in late October 2013
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