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The Acts of the Apostles
God fixes no limit to the advancement of those who desire to be
“filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual un-
derstanding.” Through prayer, through watchfulness, through growth
in knowledge and understanding, they are to be “strengthened with all
might, according to His glorious power.” Thus they are prepared to
work for others. It is the Saviour’s purpose that human beings, purified
and sanctified, shall be His helping hand. For this great privilege let
us give thanks to Him who “hath made us meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power
of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.”
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Paul’s letter to the Philippians, like the one to the Colossians,
was written while he was a prisoner at Rome. The church at Philippi
had sent gifts to Paul by the hand of Epaphroditus, whom Paul calls
“my brother, and companion in labor, and fellow soldier, but your
messenger, and he that ministered to my wants.” While in Rome,
Epaphroditus was sick, “nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him,”
Paul wrote, “and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have
sorrow upon sorrow.” Hearing of the sickness of Epaphroditus, the
believers at Philippi were filled with anxiety regarding him, and he
decided to return to them. “He longed after you all,” Paul wrote, “and
was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick....
I sent him therefore the more carefully, that, when ye see him again,
ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. Receive him
therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation:
because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding
his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.”
By Epaphroditus, Paul sent the Philippian believers a letter, in
which he thanked them for their gifts to him. Of all the churches,
that of Philippi had been the most liberal in supplying Paul’s wants.
“Now ye Philippians know also,” the apostle said in his letter, “that
in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no
church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving,
but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto
my necessity. Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may
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abound to your account. But I have all, and abound: I am full, having
received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odor
of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God.”