For this series in Philippians, I am going to limit each post to one verse, and hopefully produce a short, succinct read for my friends who follow.

4:7   And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

If my readers remember our last post, I had mentioned that Philippians 4:6 was a favorite memory verse, I often resorted to when I was anxious and troubled. I suppose the command was last post and the benefit is this post.

Have you noticed that under the grace of God, when He gives a command, He also provides a blessing associated with it. Case in point with this pair of verses.

Command – Don’t be anxious but pray about everything

Result – Peace of God guarding our heart.

What a great God we have when He provides a command to honor Him and to help us and it turns out the result is a blessing. Amazing, yet let us look at this passage for a moment to “understand” our blessing.

When I think of peace, I often think of a cessation of hostilities between two warring factions, whether it be two neighbors or two nations. Peace that is established for the most part out of fear that the alternate is not desirable.

Is this what is communicated with us in this passage? Simply a cessation of hostilities? Let us remember that within the Godhead there is and never has been any type of “war” within the fellowship of the persons of the Trinity.

This peace of God is much more than simply a truce amongst parties. When Paul speaks of the peace of God, I sense he is speaking of the tranquility and harmony found within the Godhead. What else might the peace of God represent? He is not describing some type of peace found by the the cessation of any warlike activity within my own heart and mind. This peace is otherworldly, found only in the Godhead and is amazingly offered to the saint.

I would have been content to simply have the lack of anxiousness that is replaced by the activity of prayer. This would have been sufficient in my mind, but the Lord does not skimp on His blessings to the believer. We often – too often – run past the blessings in our hurried lives, only to become anxious and worried. What a rat race!

Yet let us continue considering the blessing of the peace of God entering our lives. No – that is not what Paul is speaking of now, is it? He says the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

To Guard

The specific word Paul uses is not found very often in the New Testament. As a matter of fact it is only found in three other verses.

2 Corinthians 11:32

At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me,

This passage speaks of closing up all exit points in a city to restrict Paul from escaping. We get a general idea here that this guarding is not primarily against an outside attacker, but to restrict the release of one who is already within the city. There is a difference, and it may come up again in our little study.

Galatians 3:23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

Here we see Paul teaching of the purpose of the law, and that we were “held captive” under the law. Again this concept of a prisoner occurs in our brief study on the word “guarded” Paul uses. Interesting. Lets quickly review our last verse.

1 Peter 1:4-5 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,

who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

This passage is somewhat more interesting and I included verse 4 to get a sense of where Peter is headed with this passage. Notice that Peter refers to believers being guarded through faith, and that our inheritance is being kept (or guarded) in heaven for us. Although the two actions of guarding use different Greek words, this passage speaks of the Lord watching over not only our lives but our inheritance. He is truly a perfect Father.

But let us refocus on Philippians 4:7. Paul tells us that this otherworldly peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Might Paul continue to use the image of restriction in the guarding, as in 2 Corinthians and Galatians? Is it that the peace of God actually restricts us from falling into anxiousness and worry?

In all of this, we may have missed the most important part of the verse. Notice that the peace of God guards our heart and minds in Christ Jesus.

As we pray, offering up our requests to God, we are actually conforming to the image of Christ in a small way. Of course, as believers, our standing is in Christ Jesus, but Paul is describing an experience we may enter into as we practice the Christian life.

What thinkest thou? Does the peace of God guard us from outside enemies, or in the midst of trials, simply keep us secure in Christ Jesus?

---

Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion. If you know someone this blog may bless (or challenge), send them a link, so they may join us in our discussion

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com