Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Philippians 4:6

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

6. Be careful for nothing ] Better, in modern English, In nothing be anxious (R.V.). Wyclif, “be ye no thing bisie”; all the other older English versions are substantially as A.V.; Luther, Sorget nichts; Latin versions, Nihil solliciti sitis (fueritis). On the etymology of the Greek verb, and on the thought here, see note above, Php 2:20. There the mental action here blamed is commended; a discrepancy fully harmonized by a view of different conditions. Here, the saints are enjoined to deal with every trying circumstance of life as those who know, and act upon, the fact that “the Lord thinketh on me” (Psa 40:17). Cp. Mar 4:19; Luk 8:14; Luk 10:41; Luk 21:34; 1Co 7:32; 1Pe 5:7.

The English word “ care ” is akin to older Teutonic words meaning lamentation, murmur, sorrow, and is not connected with the Lat. cura (Skeat, Etym. Dict.). English literature, from “Piers Plowman” (cent. 14) to Shakspeare and the A.V., abounds in illustrations of the meaning of the word here. E.g., Vision of Piers Plowman, v. 76: “carefullich mea culpa he comsed to shewe”; i.e. “he anxiously commenced to unfold” his sins in the confessional. So, in the same writer, a mournful song is “a careful note.”

in every thing] An all-inclusive positive, to justify the all-inclusive negative just before. Observe here, as so often, the tendency of Christian precepts to a holy universality of scope. Cp. Eph 4:29; Eph 4:31; Eph 5:3, and notes in this Series.

by prayer and supplication ] We might almost paraphrase the Greek, where each noun has an article, “by your prayer &c.”; by the prayer which of course you offer.

“Prayer” is the larger word, often including all kinds and parts of “worship”; “supplication” is the more definite. Cp. Eph 6:18, and note in this Series. The two words thus linked together are meant, however, less to be distinguished than to include and enforce the fullest and freest “speaking unto the Lord.”

with thanksgiving ] “The temper of the Christian should always be one of thanksgiving. Nearly every Psalm, however deep the sorrow and contrition, escapes into the happy atmosphere of praise and gratitude. The Psalms, in Hebrew, are the Praises. All prayer ought to include the element of thanksgiving, for mercies temporal and spiritual” (Note by the Dean of Peterborough). The privilege of prayer is in itself an abiding theme for grateful praise.

be made known ] Exactly as if He needed information. True faith will accept and act upon such a precept with very little questioning or discussion of its rationale. Scripture is full of illustrations of it in practice, from the prayers of Abraham (Genesis 15, 17, 18) and of Abraham’s servant (Genesis 24) onward. It is for the Eternal, not for us, to reconcile such humble but most real statements and requests on our part with His infinity.

This verse is a caution against the view of prayer taken by some Mystic Christian thinkers, in which all articulate petition is merged in the soul’s perpetual “ Thy will be done.” See Mme. Guyon, Moyen Court de faire Oraison, ch. 17. Such a doctrine has in it a sacred element of truth, but as a whole it is out of harmony with the divinely balanced precepts of Scripture.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Be careful for nothing – That is, be not anxious or solicitous about the things of the present life. The word used here – merimnate – does not mean that we are to exercise no care about worldly matters – no care to preserve our property, or to provide for our families (compare 1Ti 5:8); but that there is to be such confidence in God as to free the mind from anxiety, and such a sense of dependence on him as to keep it calm; see the subject explained in the notes on Mat 6:25.

But in everything – Everything in reference to the supply of your wants, and the wants of your families; everything in respect to afflictions, embarrassments, and trials; and everything relating to your spiritual condition. There is nothing which pertains to body, mind, estate, friends, conflicts, losses, trials, hopes, fears, in reference to which we may not go and spread it all out before the Lord.

By prayer and supplication – The word rendered supplication is a stronger term than the former. It is the mode of prayer which especially arises from the sense of need, or want – from deomai, to want, to need.

With thanksgiving – Thanksgiving connected with prayer. We can always find something to be thankful for, no matter what may be the burden of our wants, or the special subject of our petitions. When we pray for the supply of our wants, we may be thankful for that kind providence which has hitherto befriended us; when we pray for restoration from sickness, we may be thankful for the health we have hitherto enjoyed, and for Gods merciful interposition in the former days of trial, and for his goodness in now sparing our lives; when we pray that our children and friends may be preserved from danger and death, we may remember how often God has interposed to save them; when, oppressed with a sense of sin, we pray for pardon, we have abundant cause of thanksgiving that there is a glorious way by which we may be saved. The greatest sufferer that lives in this world of redeeming love, and who has the offer of heaven before him, has cause of gratitude.

Let your request be made known unto God – Not as if you were to give him information, but to express to him your wants. God needs not to be informed of our necessities, but he requires that we come and express them to him; compare Eze 36:37. Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Php 4:6-7

Be careful for nothing

I.

The evil. An incessant concern for our temporal affairs; that over thoughtfulness so pointedly condemned by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. Consider–

1. The dishonour it reflects on God as the moral Governor of the universe. It distrusts His care of His own, and the man who cannot trust the God of providence will not trust Him as the God of grace.

2. Its effects on self. Though it is certain that it can produce no good effect, yet it is indulged in, and it corrodes the mind, sours the heart, and influences the whole system. Most maniacs are produced by this, not to speak of thousands cut down in the eagerness of their worldly pursuits, destroying soul and body together.

3. Its effects on others. It excites envy. I envy in others something which my covetous heart desires. I hate the person possessing it, and am therefore a murderer in my heart.

II. The cure.

1. Be careful for nothing. Retire from the world into yourself. Let the matter lie between God and you. Call not the world in as umpire.

2. Make your requests known unto God. He is your friend, able and willing to bear your burden and supply all your need.

(1) In prayer: there is no other way of approaching Him, and it is only prayer which will throw off the load.

(2) Prayer brings the plea, supplication urges it. God frequently delays to try your faith, and the persistence and energy of your supplication. But His name is yet Jehovah Jireh.

(3) With thanksgiving, which manifests the right state of heart.

(4) Without reserve. God cares for the least of His creatures as well as for the greatest. What we call little things are often of the greatest importance, either in themselves or their consequences.

III. The effect. The peace of God. (J. Summerfield, A. M.)

Care

I. An evil. Anxiety is to be avoided.

1. For our own sakes. The exhortation does not discourage economy and industry, although some fanatics make it do so. The same religion which tells us to be careful for nothing tells us also to be diligent in business, and if anyone under the cloak of the text becomes careless of the duties of life he denies the faith and is worse than an infidel. Still there are some virtues which become vices.

(1) Here is a man who by unstinted economy heaps up riches, and knows not who will reap them. The world promised him happiness in riches, and outside people say, What a happy man. But look at the wrinkles on his face; he is fearful of losing his riches and is apprehensive of beggary and dies, sometimes by his own hand.

(2) Here is another, careful of his good name–a good thing in itself–but the least thing said about him he feels acutely, and his peace is destroyed. The Christians duty is clear. He must not fritter away his life in anxiety about circumstances or good name. Anxiety cumbers people as it did Martha, and is both unwise and injurious. There are trials enough without making them. The anxious man is a wholesale trouble maker.

2. Because we are not our own. This is a question which affects both conscience and honesty. God made us. What we possess is not our own. God has purchased us by the precious blood of Christ.

3. Because anxiety is distrust of God. The promises cannot be broken; however adverse the circumstances. Anxiety is thinking meanly of God. While religion allows of grief, she forbids excessive grief. It is difficult to bear with affliction, but it is cowardly to succumb.

II. A preventative. Prayer is an appeal to Deity, which shows that we are not independent of Him; but it is an appeal to a Father. To be successful it must fulfil certain conditions.

1. It must be thankful–even in time of sorrow. Who of us has not something to be thankful for–food, raiment, etc.

2. It must be particular. There are some things which people think too insignificant; but who has sufficient knowledge to determine that. Has God ever rebuked you for going to Him? God cares for the sparrows, much more then for you.

3. Continual. No solitary supplication was ever forgotten. The answers will surely come, although in an unexpected way.

III. A consolation.

1. The peace of God. We do not know how it is infused into the heart, It passeth all understanding; but we may all feel it if we like.

2. It is the Saviours legacy; and nobody should be defrauded of it–My peace.

3. Some people try to keep the peace of God instead of letting the peace of God keep them.

4. Its medium is Christ Jesus. (W. M. Punshon, LL. D.)

Peace by Tower and power by prayer

I. The mistake from which we are dissuaded. Be careful for nothing.

1. This does not mean that we are to be stoically indifferent, and just to take life as it comes. Such a notion would be the death of all holy manly ambition, and would mean good for nothing. Man is not intended to be the sport of circumstances. His duties imply an earnest exercise of his powers, which is impossible without a measure of solicitude. Note the commendation which carefulness receives in 2Co 7:11. Were a Christian to fall into indifference Christianity would be gone.

2. The mistake against which we are dissuaded is that of laying the mind open to the worries which are ready to invade it–the disposition condemned in Martha. St. Paul would have us rise into the calm region of faith above all fret and paralysing fear.

3. Such an exhortation is not uncalled for. Over anxiety is one of the commonest of sins. Strange that it should be so we profess to believe that the Lord knows our sorrows, that His peace is sufficient, that He supplies all our need, and causes all things to work together for good. Surely such a belief should make us trustful, fearless, and calm. We may well cry, Help our unbelief.

II. The instrumentality for the repression of over anxiety (Psa 62:8).

1. Let your requests, etc. True, God knows our needs before we pray; but we may, nevertheless, find relief in telling them out to Him with the confiding love of a child. Enlightened prayer does not ask for miracle or any change in the Divine will. It only implies that asking is one of the appointed conditions of receiving, that the giving of the best things that the soul craves is the sole prerogative of God.

2. In everything. Prayer properly belongs to the whole of our condition. Whatever touches our life is important enough to be taken to the throne of grace.

3. By prayer and supplication. The language implies entreaty. Not vain repetitions, not noise as if God were afar off or indifferent, but the fresh warm cry of the hungry for bread.

4. With thanksgiving. Prayer should be animated with gratitude. While we are with God let us think of His goodness in welcoming us, His former gracious answers, His countless undeserved and even unsought blessings. Gratitude is one of the sweetest and most useful ingredients. Whilst it honours God it disposes to that faith without which we cannot pray aright. So we come to that trust which is the antithesis of inordinate anxiety. In prayer, distrust is distraction, and distraction weakness. The prayer of faith is the natural and appointed instrumentality for the repression of over anxiety.

III. The method in which this instrumentality works for the production of the desired result. Peace comes by power and power by prayer.

1. In prayer itself there is often a priceless enjoyment.

2. We obtain specific answers to prayers; not always, indeed, according to our fancies, but invariably according to Gods all-wise and perfect goodness, which is immeasurably preferable.

3. It is in the nature of prayer to soothe away unnecessary anxiety, and to sweeten such solicitudes as are wholesome; for prayer takes us into the presence of God, where all is calm. (J. P. Barnett.)

Be careful for nothing

Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. He is launched on the storm-tossed sea of life. He is a reed which grows up to be shaken of the wind. The pleasantest paths are not without their sorrows. The rose, however sweet it is, has its thorns. What then shall we do with our sorrows?

1. It is impossible to eradicate them, for in the very resistance we find a new cause of suffering. As the fabled Hydra of old, with one head severed from his body, sprang forward with a hundred in its place, so shall our resisted troubles be.

2. It is folly to resist them; as idiotic a task as Don Quixotes against the windmills.

3. Shall we suffer, then? We could if we were as strong as Atlas, who bore the world on his shoulders; but we are not Atlases.

4. Take them quickly, then, to the Divine Burden bearer. This is the panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to.

I. Be careful for nothing.

1. Because there are higher considerations. Here we spend no end of time and thought on things which are not worth it, and neglect matters which deserve our most earnest attention. The life is more than meat, and the soul than life. The doctors bell and knocker never seem at rest; nor are the poor patients to be blamed for their importunity; but how is it that the body casket is so cared for and the soul jewel so neglected. Men are careful even to madness about their money, but utterly careless about eternal riches.

2. Because those necessary trifles about which we are obliged to think in some degree are all seen to and arranged by God. Cast, then, all your care upon Him; He careth for you.

3. Because the smallest affairs of life are entirely beyond our control. Man can do a great deal–he can flash a message round the world, and through the microphone hear the footstep of a fly, but he cannot add one cubit to his stature.

4. Because nothing is too small for God to arrange for. We are ready to believe that nothing is too great for God to care for, but it is difficult for us to confide in Him in little things. But the God who made the ocean makes the dew drop, and cares for both.

II. Be prayerful for everything. Some mercies will come unasked for; but those are sweetest which come in answer to prayer.

1. Because of the privilege of prayer. We have not only the care but the heart of God. The blood of Gods dear Son has opened the way to the mercy seat.

2. Because of the power of prayer. It has a soothing effect, as we know from earthly confidences.

3. Because there is no limit to prayer. There is nothing we may not ask Him about. It is His will. I will be enquired of.

III. Be thankful for anything.

1. Because we do not deserve anything but wrath.

2. Because ingratitude is one of the worst of sins. We are thankful for the hospitality of earthly friends, and yet though we have so much from God how thankless we are. Thankless hearts are like scentless flowers. (Thomas Spurgeon.)

Carefulness

I. Its nature. The root of the original word is a verb which signifies to divide. Such care as diverts and distracts the mind from its true and tranquil bent towards God. It is not common forethought and prudence that is forbidden. There is no warrant for carelessness, supineness, inactivity. Neither the indifference of the fatalist or of the sensualist are sanctioned here. But here is warrant for the man who believes that all things work together for good; that in things both great and small the Lord will provide.

1. In disappointment–adversity where prosperity was expected–the loss of those on whom our strongest trust was reposed.

2. In the pressing claims of business or the family.

3. Relax not any reasonable and temperate exertion, but listen God will provide sing the birds of the air, and whisper the lilies of the field.

II. Its causes.

1. An undue value of this present world. We reverse the apostles rule and walk by sight.

2. Practical distrust of God. The most orthodox are often guilty of this heresy. Faith in God is useless in the creed if it be absent from the heart.

3. Neglect of Christian privilege. All things are yours. The promises are ours, but we neglect to plead and to trust them.

III. Its evils.

1. Its essence is worldly mindedness. Unseen and eternal things are thrown into the background. And the snare is doubly dangerous and successful from the fact that it is not viewed as a sin, but cloaked under the specious names of prudence and care for family.

2. It cramps our benevolence. It knows nothing of lending unto the Lord and giving cheerfully. It anticipates the day when what can now be spent will be wanted. It will not trust God.

3. It engenders a close illiberal spirit in all the transactions of life. It stands by its rights, drives hard bargains, exacts the uttermost farthing. I cannot afford it. I must not wrong my family.

IV. The remedy. Prayer, including blessings sought and evils deprecated (supplication), joined with an acknowledgment of mercies past.

1. Be it what it may it is the Christians privilege to spread it before the Lord, like Hezekiah. You have kind friends, sound advisers; but go first to God; and when before Him pour out your whole heart, and you shall find a calm and stillness in heart prayer, which shall soothe every grief and care to rest. If you do not find it all at once pray on.

2. Be thankful, i.e., draw upon your experience as well as your faith; and remember that the Lords hand is not shortened that it cannot save, etc. (Canon Miller.)

Anxiety

I. Its folly. What good can anxiety do?

1. It is an idle thing; the mind hovers and flutters round the subject; goes over the same ground again and again, wearies itself in vain repetitions of the same cares and fears; but what has it done? has it advanced the matter one real step? Has it arrived at one good counsel, or set itself to one wise act?

2. It is an enfeebling thing; it eats the very life out of the energies; it leaves the man not only where he was, but ten times less capable and vigorous than at the beginning.

3. It is an irritating thing; it ruffles the temper, upsets the balance of the spirit; is the sure source of moodiness, sharpness, petulance, and anger; it sets a man at war with himself, his neighbour, Gods providence, and Gods appointments.

4. It is a sign of mistrust, of feeble faith, of flagging energy, and languid obedience.

II. Its cure.

1. St. Paul knew better than to attempt the correction of anxiety by human arguments. It may be useless, wrong, mischievous, but it is in us all; and let a man be sharply tried, he is anxious still. The conflict with any one of our evil tendencies is too strong for us single handed.

2. Bring in another person; introduce a new consideration; suggest a new motive. Tell us of One who amongst our other griefs has borne this, amongst our other sorrows has carried this (Isa 53:4); of One who in all our afflictions is Himself afflicted; in all our cares is Himself troubled (Isa 63:9); above all, of One who is not in some different and distant world, where the sound of human groans scarcely penetrates, where the burden of human distress is regarded as unreal, but who is here, in our world, at hand, present; who both foresees and remembers with us, feels with as well as for us, is touched with a sense of our infirmities, yea, was Himself tempted in all points (Heb 4:15). Then, in His presence, in His human soul, in His compassionate heart, we will lay aside our anxieties, rest from our burdens, take refuge from our fears and from our sins. (Dean Vaughan.)

The prayer of faith

In everything make your request known unto God, and then be careful for nothing. It is committed into Gods hands, rest and rejoice. These early converts were filled with an overwhelming sense of the blessings with which their lives were crowned. They found it easier to praise than we do.

I. The principle of deliverance from care is placed by our Lord, in the Sermon on the Mount, in a two-fold light.

1. The things about which we are tempted to be careful are things that perish. Their worth is but for a little time, and stretches but a little way. What matters a little more or less of earthly treasure. The souls satisfaction is independent of it. The true and enduring riches are within reach. To men who believed in and pined for the heavenly treasure, the appeal was conclusive. What matters the earthly substance which moth and rust are wasting daily, when we have a glorious treasure which defies decay and violence. They believed this and were careful for nothing. We believe less and are consumed with care.

2. This superiority to earthly things demands a keen discernment, a pure unworldly heart, which are rare. Who is sufficient for these things. The Saviour, pitying our infirmity, has another assurance to meet the needs of our trembling apprehensive natures. Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. We are not alone in this great universe, whose awful order, indifferent to our needs, strikes a shivering dread into our hearts. Behind the veil a Father is watching and caring, and by His vigilant providence is adding, in the measure in which He sees we need them, all these things unto us. Be careful for nothing; rest calmly in the care of God.

3. But we can not only rest but pray. He is no unknown Friend to whom we can commend our cause and then leave it. He is here in the silent sanctuary of our hearts. Perhaps our requests are shortsighted and foolish. Be it so. The best thing that we can do is to take them to God, and lay them before Him. His light will reveal, His fire consume the sensual, selfish element in our petitions; His burning presence will purify our hearts, and make our prayers powerful with Him. Prayer is the channel of communication between the careworn soul and its helper; and it fills its desolation with the sense of a living, loving presence, which charges the very atmosphere with benediction; it quickens a pulse of joy and hope in the numbness of its despair. He who has never known what prayer can do to calm a troubled and uplift a despairing spirit is dead to the deepest, richest experience of life.

II. But it must be the prayer of faith.

1. Christians complain bitterly that their prayers are not answered. But they do not understand the conditions. God nowhere binds Himself to answer our shortsighted requests. Did we see more clearly we should tremble lest He should. That would prove His heaviest chastisement. But He binds Himself to answer our prayers, in His own way. No praying soul is sent empty away.

2. The prayer of faith is the prayer which recognizes God as the supreme and perfect God. No man is in the way of blessing until he understands that in God alone can he be supremely blessed. Until he has made God his portion there is the deepest want of his being unsatisfied. This being recognized his wants fall into their true proportion. They are not extinguished, but they are no more imperative. It is no longer, Give me this or I die; it is, Give me Thyself and I live; and this, Give or withhold at Thy will. I have all, and abound in Thee.

3. The prayer of faith seeks conformity with the mind of God, without which it is idle to hope or pray for peace. Nine-tenths of our cares grow out of our mad desires for some unreal and delusive good. All cares that eat into the soul arise really from a striving against God. The first request of prayer is, Show me Thy will, and rule my will by Thine. Root out self-will, tame passion, calm desire, bring me into harmony with Thy pure and perfect mind, and then bestow what Thou seest is for my good. When a soul has said that, its brooding cares and wearing sorrows have gone as the mists of the morning vanish in the sunlight.

4. The prayer of faith never leaves out of its account the Hand that is always working for our deliverance, and never so mightily as when the storm gathers, and the great waters seem to overwhelm. And the prayer of faith never fails. (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)

Prayer with thanksgiving

The two precepts balance each other. The first especially would be misunderstood if it stood alone. They are so connected with but as to exclude each other. You may have either, but you cannot have both. The careful is not prayerful; the prayerful is not careful.

I. Let your requests be made known unto God.

1. Requests.

(1) All creatures are dependent. The earth by dumb signs asks the rain from heaven to refresh its dust and make it fruitful. The air asks moisture from the ocean; the ocean from the rivers. All are needy and seek their supply from Him in whom all fulness dwells.

(2) Man with the greatest capacity is distinguished by the greatest need. The child is much more dependent on its parents care than the young of other creatures, So the child of Gods family needs much more from the Fathers hand. How many times has a man of sixty breathed? How vast the supply of air, and how close to his lips? The act of breathing seems an emblem at once of the creatures continual need, and of the Creators abundant supply. His goodness has compassed us about like the atmosphere; and when we open our mouth it is filled with good.

2. Make them known to God.

(1) The lower part of our nature is supplied as God supplies that of the beasts. But God desires company among His creatures. He did not find among them any fit for this until He made man in His own image. Fathers love to supply their childrens wants; inconceivably greater is Gods delight. Human fathers have a defective love in their hearts and a defective supply in their hands: they sometimes will not, and sometimes cannot, give what their children require. But our Father in heaven is not limited on either side.

(2) When man fell the relation was broken off it a great price the channel was opened again. God has, through Christ, made known His fulness: we should, through Christ, make known to Him our need.

3. Your requests–your own–not what other people have asked, or what you have learned to repeat. Jesus set a little child in the midst of His disciples, and said, Give me a childs simplicity. The wants it cries for are its own, and whether intelligible or not are real, not feigned. What element in the request of his little child goes home to the fathers heart, filling it with delight and opening sluices for a flood of gifts? It is this–they are his own childs own requests. This quality, yours, will cover a multitude of sins against grammar and other earthly laws.

II. By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

1. Prayer. This is the souls believing and reverential approach unto God. It is the prelude to the request and thanksgiving. The pattern prayer commences with Our Father. The prayer and supplication follow.

2. Supplication–the specific request. The word means asking, but its radical signification is want: hence it came to mean a craving for supply.

3. With thanksgiving–for past favours.

4. The relation of these two elements of a souls communion with God.

(1) Supplication with thanksgiving seems to intimate that we are apt to omit this latter ingredient, and to warn us that the omission will vitiate all. To ply the asking without the song of praise seems like taking some ingredients of the physicians prescription and leaving out one.

(2) The currents of grace run in circles as well as in nature–the believer draws from God a stream of benefits and returns the incense of praise.

III. Is everything.

1. Pray. At all times, in all places, about everything. Not on the Sabbath, or in church only. Our Father takes it ill if we send in our request for the pardon of sin, but ask not His counsel about the choice of a companion or an investment in trade. He is not a man of little faith who puts little things into his prayers.

2. Give thanks. There is nothing here contrary to nature. Gods commandments are not grievous. You need not give thanks for suffering, but even in sorrow there is room for praise. E.g.

(1) In the things you do not suffer–when in bodily pain that the mind is clear; or when suffering from calumny that you have a good conscience towards God; or when you have lost your money that your children survive.

(2) For the good sorrow brings in fruit unto holiness.

(3) But in all cases there is room for thanks in the unspeakable Gift. (W. Arnot, D. D.)

Prayer perfumed with praise

1. By prayer is meant the general, and by supplication the particular act of devotion. Do not forget the second element. There is a good deal of generalizing in prayer. What we want is more definite pleading with God. When Abraham prayed he did not merely adore God but offered specific petitions, and Elijah prayed for rain there and then.

2. But whether general or specific we are to offer thanksgiving. Hence it follows–

(1) That we ought always to be in a thankful condition of heart. Thus will I bless Thee while I live.

(2) That the blending of thanks with devotion is always to be maintained. Though the prayer should struggle upward out of the depths, yet must its wings be silvered oer with thanksgiving. These two holy streams flow from a common source and should mingle as they flow; like kindred colours they shade off into each other.

(3) This commingling of precious things is admirable. Prayer is myrrh, and praise is frankincense. The holy incense of the sanctuary yielded the smoke of prayer which filled the holy place, but with it was the sweet perfume of praise. Prayer and praise are like the two cherubim, they must never be separated. Note how our Lord mingles both in the model prayer, and David in the Psalms (Psa 18:3). And so St. Paul (Rom 1:8-9; Col 1:3; 1Th 1:2; 2Ti 1:3; Php 1:3-4), and when he and Silas, when in the Philippian jail, they prayed and sang praises.

I. The reasons for mingling thanksgiving with prayer. In the nature of things it should be so. We do not come to God as if He had left us penniless. Thanksgiving is our right attitude towards One who daily loadeth us with benefits. You have cause for thanksgiving.

1. That such a thing as prayer is possible–that God should have commanded and encouraged it, and supplied all things necessary for its exercise–the blood-besprinkled mercy seat, the perpetual Intercessor, the spirit of grace and supplication who helpeth our infirmities.

2. That we are spared and permitted to pray. It is of the Lords mercy that we are not consumed. Like David we may not be able to go up to the house of prayer, but we can still pray. The prodigal has lost his substance, but not his power to supplicate.

3. That we have already received great mercy at Gods hands. If we never received another favour we have had enough for ceaseless praise. Whatever we may ask for cannot be one-half so great as what has been received. We have life in Christ; and that is more than food or raiment. If Christ is thine, He who gave thee Him will deny thee nothing.

4. That prayer has been answered so many times before.

5. That we have the mercy which we seek. We antedate our gratitude with men. Your promise to pay a mans rent when it has become due is the object of thanks before a farthing has left your pocket. Shall we not be willing to trust God a few months or years beforehand.

6. If the Lord does not answer the prayer we are offering, yet, still, He is so good that we will bless Him whether or no. How devoutly might some of us thank Him that He did not grant the evil things we sought in the ignorance of our childish minds. We asked for flesh and He might have sent us quails in His anger. The Lords roughest usage is only love in disguise.

II. The evil of the absence of thanksgiving.

1. We should be chargeable with ingratitude. Aristotle said, A return is required to preserve friendship between two persons; and if we have nothing else but gratitude let us abound therein.

2. It would argue great selfishness. Can it be right to pray for benefits and never honour our Benefactor.

3. Thanksgiving prevents prayer from becoming an exhibition of want of faith. If when I am in trouble I still bless God for all I suffer, therein my faith is seen. Is our faith such that it only sings in the sunshine? Have we no nightingale music for our God? Is our trust like the swallow, which must leave us in winter? Is our faith a flower that needs a conservatory to keep it active? Can it not blossom like gentian at the foot of the frozen glacier.

4. Not to thank God would argue wilfulness and want of submission to His will. Must everything be ordered according to our own mind? Much of the prayer of rebellious hearts is the mere growling of an angry obstinacy, the whine of an ungratified self-conceit.

III. The result of thanksgiving in connection with prayer.

1. Peace (verses 5, 7). Some men pray, and therein they do well; but for lack of mixing thanksgiving with it they come away from the closet even more anxious than when they entered it.

2. Thanksgiving will warm the soul and enable it to pray. Do not pump up unwilling formal prayer. Take the hymn book and sing.

3. When a man begins to pray with thanksgiving he is on the eve of receiving the blessing. Gods time to bless you has come when you begin to bless Him (2Ch 20:20, etc.). Our thanksgiving will show that the reason for our waiting is now exhausted; that the waiting has answered its purposes, and may now come to a joyful end. When you put up a thanksgiving on the ground that God has answered your prayer, you have really prevailed with God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The ideal manhood

1. This is a command given by one of the ablest professors in the school of Christ. Different schools turn out different sorts of scholars. A military school is understood to turn out good fighting soldiers; a law school good lawyers; a medical school good doctors; a classical school good scholars; the school of Christ a certain style of manhood after the pattern of Christ.

2. Here is a man trained in this school, and now a teacher. He is a prisoner, advanced in life, most sensitive, one who had been subjected to every pain and indignity, who lived a life enough to make anyone turn pale; and yet after all he had undergone he says, Let your disposition be such that you will see how many things you have to be thankful for; and when you ask for anything do it through the radiant atmosphere of gratitude. When the pendulum swung up and Paul was in the midst of abundance he knew how to be a simple humble man; and when it swung to the other extreme and he bore chains, he said, I have learned to be content. My manhood is more than my condition. I am master of circumstances, they are not master of me. Such was the style of manhood to be turned out in the school of Christ.

3. I am far from saying that this is easy or rapid of attainment; but I do say that such is the ideal portraiture of Christianity in the school of Christ. His school is like every other in that there is a difference of apprehensiveness in the scholars; but from the lowest to the highest there is this ideal set before them which they are to strive after–to give power to the inward man, to overcome appetites and passions, to endure troubles of every kind, and not stoically but rejoicingly, to have a hope that quenches fear, faith that annihilates doubt, endurance that can bear as much as God lays on. Not every man that comes from the university is a perfect scholar, but there is a bright ideal held up, and if the scholar does not approximate to it in a measure it is not the fault of the university but his own.

4. Can this ideal of Christianity ever be set aside? We live in a sceptical age, but a thing that has happened is a fact; and nothing can make it not to have happened; and since religion discloses what it is to live in Christ Jesus, and lifts up the conception of our higher being in its developed state, we are not going to lose it out of the world. There is nothing so powerful as a soul brought under such inspiration as St. Pauls, and no scepticisms will ever sweep it away. If you can live as Paul lived, and as thousands of Christians have lived, by other than Christian instrumentalities, then you are bound to show what they are, and where they are to be found.

5. If Pauls conception of the Christian life be true then every other is false–the ascetic view, e.g., pain, self-denial, of course, come, but with them come a spirit that welcomes the pain and turns the cross into a benediction. (H. W. Beecher.)

Be careful for nothing

The Christian is not half saved. God does not pay half his debts for him, and leave him to work off the rest. (Harry Jones, M. A.)

Casting care on God

Bulstrode Whitelocke, Cromwells envoy to Sweden, was one night so disturbed in mind over the state of his nation that he could not sleep. His servant observing it said, Pray, sir, will you give me leave to ask you a question? Certainly.–Do you think that God governed the world very well before you came into it? Certainly.–Then, pray, sir, excuse me, do you not think that you may trust Him to govern it as long as you live? No answer could be given, and composure and sleep followed. (J. L. Nye.)

Preaching and practice

Not many weeks before his death, Dr. William Arnot came on this verse in the course of expounding the Epistle to the Philippians. He gave a short summary of it, which he had found somewhere, and thought well worth preserving: Be careful for nothing. Be prayerful for everything. Be thankful for anything. A little child some time afterwards, overhearing his father speaking with anxiety about business, quoted these words, saying: Do you remember what Mr. Arnot told us?

Trusting God in little things

He is not a man of little faith who puts little things into his prayer. That very thing shows him to be a man of great faith. A feeble pulsation in the heart may keep the life blood circulating for a while near the centre and in the vitals; but it requires a great strong life in the heart to send the blood down into the tips of the fingers, and make it circulate through the outmost, smallest branches of the veins. In like manner, it is the strongest spiritual life that animates the whole course, even to the minutest transactions, and brings to God the smallest matters of our personal history as well as the great concern of pardon and eternal life. Everything: whatever is a thing to you, whatever lodges about your heart, either as a joy that you cherish or a grief that you are unable to shake away–in with it into your prayer, up with it to the throne. It is not right to choose, out of the multitude of thoughts within you, all the grave and goodly, and marshal them by themselves into a prayer. This is like one who had wheat to sell, and sat down and picked out all the full and plump seeds and brought them to market, while the heap was half made up of shrivelled, unripened grains. Prayer in secret, is a pouring out of the soul before God; and if it is not a pouring, it is not prayer. Anything left behind, cherished in you but concealed from God, vitiates all–takes away the comfort from you, and hinders the answer from God. (W. Arnot, D. D.)

Trust in God the secret of happiness

There was once a poor coloured woman who earned a precarious living by daily labour, but who was a joyous, triumphant Christian. Ah, Nancy, said a gloomy Christian lady one day, who almost disapproved of her constant cheerfulness, and yet envied it–Ah, Nancy, it is well enough to be happy now; but I should think that the thoughts of your future would sober you. Only suppose, e.g., you should have a spell of sickness, and be unable to work; or suppose your present employers should move away, and no one else should give you anything to do; or suppose Stop! cried Nancy, I never supposes. De Lord is my Shepherd, and I know I shall not want. And, honey, she added, to her gloomy friend, its all dem supposes as is making you so miserable. Youd better give them all up, and just trust the Lord.

A short line best

Walk through today as well as you can, and God will undertake for your future. When you go forward out of today, to worry about it, you are over the fence, you are trespassing, and God will scourge you back into your own lot. When I have been fishing in a mountain stream, I have always found that so long as I kept a short line I could manage my fishing very well; but when I let my line run out, the stream took it down, and there I was, at the mercy of every stick that stuck up in the stream, and every rock that jutted out from the banks. I lost my fish, and I tangled my line; very likely I lost my footing also, and got over head and ears in the stream. Now, most men have cast out their line into life forty years long, when it ought to be but one day long. In consequence, they are not able to manage their tackle at all; but are pulled after it, stumbling first into this hole, and then into that; slipping up here, and slipping down there; straggling and splashing about in far more distressed fashion than the fish at the other end of the line–and, as a general thing, there is no fish there. Haul in your line! (H. W. Beecher.)

We may pray always

In the vestibule of St. Peters, at Rome, is a doorway which is walled up and marked with a cross. It is opened but four times in a century; on Christmas-eve, once in twenty-five years, the Pope approaches it in princely state, with the retinue of cardinals in attendance, and begins the demolition of the door, by striking it thrice with a silver hammer. When the passage is opened the multitude pass into the nave of the cathedral and up to the altar by an avenue which the majority of them never entered thus before, and never will enter thus again. Imagine that the way to the throne of grace were like the Porta Santa, inaccessible save once in a quarter of a century, on the 25th of December! With what solicitude we should wait for the coming of the holy day! It would make us fear we should die before that year of jubilee. How many years, or months, or weeks now to the time of prayer we should be constantly asking ourselves!

Pray about little things

Little cares should be brought to the Lord. Some persons, however, will bring their great cares to Him, but not their little cares. But this is foolish. It is the little cares of life that wear the heart out. One of the most cruel torments of the Inquisition was to place the poor victim beneath a trap, and let the cold water fall upon the head drop by drop. This was not felt at first, but at last the monotony of the water dropping always on one spot became almost unendurable; the agony was too great to be expressed. It is just so with little cares. When they keep constantly falling drop by drop upon one individual they tend to produce irritation, calculated to make life well nigh insupportable. To prevent this, then, God would have us take our little trials to Him as well as our great trials, and that, too, because we often bear up more bravely under the great and faint under the lesser.

Universal prayer

Do not keep prayer for grand and difficult occasions, and think that you can manage well enough by yourself in little, trifling things. Without God you can do nothing well, not the smallest. Get into the habit of looking and referring everything to Him. Just as the cautious shopman rings every coin upon his counter to see if it be true, the penny as well as the pound, so do you try all that you do by the test of God. Nothing is too common to be brought before Him who made the earthworm as well as the archangel. Nothing is too frequent for Him who regulates the pulse of the slave who sweats in the field, and the long-stretched career of the planets which sail in space. You cannot appeal to Him too often. He is never tired, of whom it may always be said, He worketh hitherto. (Harry Jones, M. A.)

The cares of life not to be unduly anticipated

A person says, I cannot understand how I am to get along when I leave my fathers house. Why should you see it till that time comes? What if a person going on a journey of five years should undertake to carry provisions, and clothes, and gold enough to last him during the whole time, lugging them as he travelled, like a veritable Englishman, with all creation at his back! If he is wise he will supply himself at the different points where he stops. When he gets to London, let him buy what he needs there; when he gets to Paris, let him buy what he needs there, when he gets to Rome, let him buy what he needs there; and when he gets to Vienna, Dresden, Munich, St. Petersburgh, and Canton, let him buy what he needs at these places I He wilt find at each of them, and all the other cities which he visits, whatever things he requires. Why, then, should he undertake to carry them around the globe with him? It would be the greatest folly imaginable. As to gold, why should he load his pockets with that? Let him take a circular letter of credit, which is good, yet not usable till he arrives at the places where he needs it. When he gets to London, let him present it to Baring Brothers; when he gets to Paris, let him present it to the Rothschilds. And as he proceeds, let him place it in the hands of the bankers of the various places at which he stops; and he will get the means for prosecuting his journey. Now, God gives every believer a circular letter of credit for life, and says, Whenever you get to a place where you need assistance, take your letter to the Banker, and the needed assistance will be given you. (H. W. Beecher.)

Prayer with thanksgiving

The currents of grace, like those of nature, run in circles. Take the case of ventilation. A tube divided longitudinally into two, or two tubes joined together, stretch from the interior of a building through the roof into the air. The air flows up through one lobe of the tube out of the building, and down through the other lobe into the building. When the process is set ageing, it continues. But if you stop the ascending current, you thereby also make the descending current cease; and if you stop the descending current, the ascending one is arrested, too. Ten lepers came to Christ with prayer and supplication. He gave them their request. But only one of the ten put in his request with thanksgiving; only one continued the circle and answered the getting of mercy by the giving of praise. The Lord marked and mentioned the omission. He felt well pleased with the circle of communion completed in the one who returned to give thanks; but He left on record for all ages His disappointment with those who greedily snatched the gift and forgot the Giver: Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? When there is spiritual life, the weight of Gods mercies pressing down forces the sacrifice of thanksgiving up. The pressure of the air does not make the heavy, sluggish water rise; whatever weight of air may press upon it, the water lies heavy in its bed. But when water is etherealized into vapour, then the weight of the air makes the vapour rise. The load of benefits that pressed on the nine lepers, finding their souls dull and dead, did not move them upwards; but the same load on the one Samaritan, finding him spiritually quickened, pressed his thanksgiving up to the Throne. The circulations of the ocean constitute a plain and permanent picture of these relations between a human soul and a redeeming God. The sea is always drawing what it needs down to itself, and also always sending up of its abundance into the heavens. It is always getting, and always giving. So, when in the covenant the true relation has been constituted, the redeemed one gets and gives, gives and gets; draws from God a stream of benefits, sends up to God the incense of praise. (W. Arnot, D. D.)

Thanksgiving the ornament of prayer

Let your prayers be like those ancient missals which one sometimes sees, in which the initial letters of the prayers are gilded and adorned with a profusion of colours, the work of cunning writers. Let even the general confession of sin and the Litany of mournful petitions have at least one illuminated letter. Illuminate your prayers; light them up with rays of thanksgiving all the way through; and when you come together to pray forget not to make melody unto the Lord with psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Submission involved in prayer and thanksgiving

To refuse to praise unless we have our own way is great presumption, and shows that like a naughty child we will sulk if we cannot he master. I might illustrate the wilfulness of many a supplication by that of a little boy who was very diligent in saying his prayers, but was at the same time disobedient, ill tempered, and the pest of the house. His mother told him that she thought it was mere hypocrisy for him to pretend to pray. He replied, No, mother, indeed it is not, for I pray God to lead you and father to like my ways better than you do. Numbers of people want the Lord to like their ways better, but they do not intend to follow the ways of the Lord. Their minds are contrary to God and will not submit to His will, and therefore there is no thanksgiving in them. Praise in a prayer is indicative of a humble, submissive, obedient spirit, and when it is absent we may suspect wilfulness and self-seeking. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Prevalence of thanksgiving

Suppose you had promised to some poor woman that you would give her a meal tomorrow. You might forget it, you know; but suppose when the morning came she sent her little girl with a basket for it, she would be likely to get it, I think. But, suppose that she sent in addition a little note, in which the poor soul thanked you for your great kindness, could you have the heart to say, My dear girl, I cannot attend to you today. Come another time? Oh dear no; if the cupboard was bare you would send out to get something, because the good soul so believed in you that she had sent you thanks for it before she received your gift. Well, now, trust the Lord in the same manner. He cannot run back from His word, my brethren. Believing prayer holds Him, but believing thanksgiving binds Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Day of thanksgiving

Dr. Franklin says that in a time of great despondency among the first settlers of New England, it was proposed in one of their public assemblies to proclaim a fast. An old farmer arose, spoke of their provoking heaven with their complaints, reviewed their mercies, showed that they had much to be thankful for, and moved that instead of appointing a day of fasting, they should appoint a day of thanksgiving. This was done, and the custom continued ever after. (J. L. Nye.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 6. Be careful for nothing] . Be not anxiously solicitous; do not give place to carking care, let what will occur; for anxiety cannot chance the state or condition of any thing from bad to good, but will infallibly injure your own souls.

By prayer and supplication] God alone can help you; he is disposed to do it, but you must ask by prayer and supplication; without this he has not promised to help you.

By prayer – solemn application to God from a sense of want. Supplication – continuance in earnest prayer. With thanksgiving, for innumerable favours already received; and for dangers, evils, and deaths turned aside. And let your souls be found in this exercise, or in the disposition in which this exercise can be performed, at all times, on all occasions, and in all places.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Be careful for nothing; he dissuades not from a spiritual care, arising from a good principle, according to a right rule, for a good end; this care of diligence, in a due manner, within our own sphere, is incumbent on us, both for spirituals and temporals; as Phi 2:20; with Rom 12:11; 2Co 11:28; 12:14; 2Th 3:10; 1Ti 5:8; 2Ti 2:15; yet he earnestly dissuades from and prohibits all carnal solicitude, or carking, distrustful, worldly care, which doth divide and, as it were, split the heart in pieces; that anxious solicitude which doth torture the mind with such thoughts as our blessed Lord will not allow so much as one of them to be predominant in his real disciples, Mat 6:25, because such immoderate, distracting care, is on our part a disparagement to our heavenly Fathers good providence, Mat 6:32; with Psa 55:22; 127:1,2; Mt 4:18,19; 1Pe 5:7. The remedy against which he doth here subjoin.

But in every thing; but in all things, or in every occurring necessity, whether prosperous or adverse; sacred or civil, public or private: some render it, every time, in every condition, on every occasion.

By prayer; by petition or apprecation of good to ourselves or others; mercies, or blessings, temporal, spiritual, and eternal.

And supplication; and by a deprecation of evils felt or feared, wrath and judgments deserved.

With thanksgiving; with a grateful acknowledgment of mercies received, benefits conferred, and deliverances vouchsafed; implying that no prayer is acceptable to God, without this ingredient of thankful resentment of his favours.

Let your requests be made known unto God: our affectionate desires should be opened to God, and poured forth before him; not that he is ignorant of us or our wants in any circumstances, but that he accounts himself glorified by our addresses to him, in seeking to be approved and assisted of him in every condition.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

6. Translate, “Be anxiousabout nothing.” Care and prayer are as mutually opposed as fireand water [BENGEL].

by prayer andsupplicationGreek, “by the prayer and thesupplication” appropriate to each case [ALFORD].Prayer for blessings; and the general term. Supplication,to avert ills; a special term, suppliant entreaty (see on Eph6:18).

thanksgivingfor everyevent, prosperity and affliction alike (1Th 5:18;Jas 5:13). The Philippians mightremember Paul’s example at Philippi when in the innermost prison (Ac16:25). Thanksgiving gives effect to prayer (2Ch20:21), and frees from anxious carefulness by making allGod’s dealings matter for praise, not merely for resignation,much less murmuring. “Peace” is the companion of”thanksgiving” (Phi 4:7;Col 3:15).

let your requests be madeknown unto Godwith generous, filial, unreserved confidence;not keeping aught back, as too great, or else too small, to bringbefore God, though you might feel so as to your fellow men. So Jacob,when fearing Esau (Ge32:9-12); Hezekiah fearing Sennacherib (2Ki 19:14;Psa 37:5).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Be careful for nothing,…. This must be understood not in the most extensive sense, but with a limitation and restriction. There are many things that saints are to be careful for, as men and Christians; they are to be careful of their bodies, as well as of their souls; of the health of them, which is to be preserved by all lawful means, and not exposed to unnecessary danger; and for their families, to provide things honest for them, proper food and raiment, and the necessaries of life; for whoever does not do that, denies the faith, and is worse than an infidel; and even for the things of this world in a moderate way, using all diligence and industry in obtaining them; men ought to be careful to discharge the duties of their calling in civil life, and to care and concern themselves for the honour of God, the interest of religion, and the support of the Gospel; and that they offend not God, by sinning against him: but the carefulness the apostle speaks of, is an anxious solicitude for worldly things, an immoderate concern for the things of life, arising from diffidence, or negligence, of the power, providence, and faithfulness of God: saints should not be anxiously, or in a distressing manner concerned for the things of this world, but be content, whether they have less or more; nor be over much pressed with what befalls them, but should cast their care upon the Lord, and carry every case to him, and leave it there:

but in everything. The Syriac and Ethiopic versions render it, “in every time”: always, constantly, every day, as often as there is opportunity, and need requires. The Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions join it with the following clause, “in every prayer and supplication”; but the grammatical construction of the words will not admit of such a version; it is best to understand it of every thing, or case, which should be brought to God; whether it be of a temporal or spiritual kind, relating to body or soul, to ourselves or others, to our families, relations, and acquaintance, the church, or the world:

by prayer and supplication: which may include all sorts of prayer, mental or vocal, private or public, ordinary or extraordinary, and every part of prayer: prayer may design petition, or asking for good things that are wanted; and “supplication”, a deprecating of evils that are feared; though these two are often used together for the same thing, for prayer in general: which ought always to be accompanied

with thanksgiving; for mercies received; for a man can never come to the throne of grace, to ask for grace and mercy, but he has mercies to bless God for, and so to do is very acceptable to God; nor can a person expect to succeed in the enjoyment of future mercies, when he is not thankful for past and present ones: in this manner therefore, at all times, upon every occasion, in a way of humble petition and supplication, joined with thankfulness for all favours,

let your requests be made known to God; not to men; fly not to an arm of flesh, but to God, to him only, and that in the most private mariner, as not to be known by men; and put up such requests, as there may be reason to hope and believe God will “know” and approve of; such as are agreeable to his will, to the covenant of his grace, and the declaration of his word: use familiarity with God, tell him as you would do a friend, freely and fully, all your case, pour out your souls and your complaints before him. This God would have his people do, and he expects it from them; and though he knows all their wants, and what are their desires before they express them, yet he will seem not to know them, or take any notice of them, until they open them to him in some way or other; either by vocal prayer, or mental; by ejaculations, or sighs and groans, by chattering as a crane or a swallow, all which he understands: and be the case made known in what way or manner soever, with ever so much weakness, so be it, it is made known, it is enough, it shall be regarded and not despised.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

In nothing be anxious ( ). Present imperative in prohibition, “stop being anxious.” See in Mt 6:31.

With thanksgiving ( ). In all the forms of prayer here named thanksgiving should appear.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Be careful [] . See on Mt 6:25. Rev., better, be anxious.

Prayer and supplication. General and special. See on Luk 5:33; Luk 8:38. Proseuch prayer, only of prayer to God. The two words often occur together, as Eph 6:18; 1Ti 2:1; 1Ti 5:5.

Requests [] . Specific details of supplication.

Unto God [ ] . The force of prov is rather in your intercourse with God. See on with God, Joh 1:1.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Be careful for nothing;” (meden merimnate) “Be ye anxious about not one thing,” or “do not have anxiety, fretting, or worrying about one thing,” Mat 6:25; 1Pe 5:7.

2) “But in everything” (all en 0anti) “But in each thing” nothing is too trivial to carry to the Lord in prayer, if it is cause for mental or soul anguish to one; it is for the infinite God to reconcile such humble requests with his Majesty, 1Th 5:18.

3) “By prayer and supplication” (te proseuche kai ta dessei) by prayer and by petition, or appeal, strong request; prayer is an act of worship or devotion, and petition is an appeal or a cry for a personal need, Psa 40:1-3.

4) “With thanksgiving” (meta eucharistias) “closely associated with thanksgiving” Psa 95:2; Col 4:2; 1Ti 4:3; 2Co 4:15.

5) “Let your requests be made known unto God” (ta aitemata humon gnorizestho pros ton theon) “Let your requests, strongly expressed desires, be made known to the God” of heaven. To pray otherwise is to clip the wings of prayer, Jas 1:6; Mar 11:24.

TRUST IN GOD THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS

There was once a poor colored woman who earned a precarious living by daily labor, but who was a joyous, triumphant Christian. “Ah, Nancy,” said a gloomy Christian lady one day, who almost disapproved of her constant cheerfulness, and yet envied it – “Ah, Nancy, it is well enough to be happy now; but I should think that the thoughts of your future would sober you. Only suppose, for example, you should have a spell of sickness, and be unable to work; or suppose your present employers should move away, and no one else should give you anything to do; or suppose– “Stop!” cried Nancy, “I never supposes. De Lord is my Shepherd, and I know I shall not want. And, honey,” she added, to her gloomy friend, “it’s all dem supposes as is making you so miserable. You’d better give them all up, and just trust the Lord.”

–Bib. 111.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

6 But in all things It is the singular number that is made use of by Paul, but is the neuter gender; the expression, therefore, is equivalent to omni negotio , (in every matter,) for ( prayer) and ( supplication) are feminine nouns. In these words he exhorts the Philippians, as David does all the pious in Psa 55:22, and Peter also in 1Pe 5:7, to cast all their care upon the Lord. For we are not made of iron, (234) so as not to be shaken by temptations. But this is our consolation, this is our solace — to deposit, or (to speak with greater propriety) to disburden in the bosom of God everything that harasses us. Confidence, it is true, brings tranquillity to our minds, but it is only in the event of our exercising ourselves in prayers. Whenever, therefore, we are assailed by any temptation, let us betake ourselves forthwith to prayer, as to a sacred asylum. (235)

The term requests he employs here to denote desires or wishes. He would have us make these known to God by prayer and supplication, as though believers poured forth their hearts before God, when they commit themselves, and all that they have, to Him. Those, indeed, who look hither and thither to the vain comforts of the world, may appear to be in some degree relieved; but there is one sure refuge — leaning upon the Lord.

With thanksgiving As many often pray to God amiss, (236) full of complaints or of murmurings, as though they had just ground for accusing him, while others cannot brook delay, if he does not immediately gratify their desires, Paul on this account conjoins thanksgiving with prayers. It is as though he had said, that those things which are necessary for us ought to be desired by us from the Lord in such a way, that we, nevertheless, subject our affections to his good pleasure, and give thanks while presenting petitions. And, unquestionably, gratitude (237) will have this effect upon us — that the will of God will be the grand sum of our desires.

(234) “ Car nous ne sommes de fer ni d’acier (comme on dit) ne si insensibles;” — “For we are not of iron nor steel, as they say, nor so insensible.”

(235) “ Comme a vne franchise;” — “As to a privilege.”

(236) “ Autrement qu’ils ne doyuent;” — “Otherwise than they ought.”

(237) “ La recognoissance des benefices de Dieu;” — “Gratitude for God’s benefits.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Php. 4:6. Be careful for nothing.R.V. in nothing be anxious. The word suggests the idea of a poor distraught mind on which concerns have fastened themselves, which drag, one in one direction, another in the opposite. Well says Bengel, Care and prayer are more opposed than water and fire. In all things, prayerin nothing, care. By prayer.The general idea of an expression of dependence. Supplication.The specific requestthe word hinting too at the attitude of the petitioner, e.g. clasping the feet of the person from whom the favour is asked. With thanksgiving.The preservative against any possible defiance which might otherwise find its way into the tone of the prayer, or on the other hand against a despair which creeps over those who think God bears long and forgets to answer.

Php. 4:7. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.If we say the peace of God is so profound that the human mind cannot comprehend it, no doubt that is an admissible interpretation of these words; but it seems better far to say, the peace of God excels all that the mere reason of man can do. The , the highest faculty of man as such, intended to be the guide of life, oftener brings anxiety than a calm heart. Shall keep your hearts.As a watchman keeps a city. Lightfoot says we have a verbal paradox, for to keep is a warriors duty; Gods peace shall stand sentry, shall keep guard over your hearts. And minds.R.V. much better, and thoughts, for it is not the mind which thinks, but the products of thinking which the word indicates. The sentry questions all suspicious characters (cf. Pro. 4:23, and Mat. 15:19).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Php. 4:6-7

The Cure of Care.

I. That all anxious care is needless.Be careful for nothing (Php. 4:6). It is not forethought that is here condemned, but anxious, distracting care. Care is a kill-joy, and is the great enemy of Christian peace. The future is not ours; why be anxious about it? The past is done with, and regrets about it are unavailing. The future is provided for, for God, the great Provider, is ahead of every step we take towards that future. The ancient custom of distracting a criminal by tying him to the wheels of two chariots which were then driven in opposite directions well illustrates how cares may be allowed to distract the mind. We put ourselves on the rack when we ought to cast our care on God, not in part, nor occasionally, but in all things and at all times. Care depreciates the value of all our past blessings, and dims our vision of the blessings we now actually possess. After the great military victories of Marlborough in 1704, he one day said: I have for these last ten days been so troubled by the many disappointments I have had, that I think if it were possible to vex me so for a fortnight longer, it would make an end of me. In short, I am weary of my life.

II. That all anxious care should be taken to God in thankful prayer.But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God (Php. 4:6). The best system of heathen philosophy regarded equability of mind, undisturbed alike by the troubles and allurements of the world, as the most perfect state of the soul; but it did not provide any adequate motive for attaining this desirable equipoise. It could only state the theory and insist on its importance; but refractory human nature had its own way, in spite of philosophy. The apostle supplies in these words a nobler and more workable philosophy. He not only exhorts us to tranquillity of mind, but shows us how it may be attained and kept. In all kinds of anxieties, and especially in the struggles of religious doubt, prayer is the truest philosophy. Our difficulties vanish when we take them to God.

By caring and by fretting,

By agony and fear,

There is of God no getting;

But prayer He will hear.

We should cast our care on God because He is our Father. A fathers office is to provide for his family. It is out of place for a child to be anxiously making provision for emergenciesasking where to-morrows food and clothing are to come from, and how the bills are to be paid. We should rebuke such precocity, and send the child to school or to play, and leave all such matters to the ordained caretaker. The birds of the air are taken care of; so shall we be, even though our faith is small. Our prayers run along one road, and Gods answers by another, and by-and-by they meet. God answers all true prayer, either in kind or in kindness (Judson).

III. That the peace of God in the heart will effectually banish all care.And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Php. 4:7). The enemies of peace are: melancholy, to which the apostle opposed joy in the Lord (Php. 4:4); want of self-restraint or intemperance of feeling or conduct, to which he opposes moderation (Php. 4:5); care and anxiety, or unthankfulness and unbelief, to which he opposes grateful and earnest prayer (Php. 4:6); the final result is peace (Php. 4:7). The peace that God gives passeth understanding; it is deep, precious, immeasurable. God alone fully understands the grandeur of His own gift. It is an impenetrable shield to the believing soul; it guards the fortress in peace though the shafts of care are constantly hurled against it.

Lessons.

1. Our sins breed our cares.

2. God is ever willing to take up the burden of our cares.

3. Only as we commit our cares to God have we peace.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Php. 4:6-7. The Remedy for Worldly Care.

I. A caution or warning.Be careful for nothing.

1. This does not respect duty.We must have a care for our Lords interests.

2. But having performed duty, we are not to be careful as to consequences.

(1) Because unnecessary. Christ cares.
(2) Because useless. It cannot ward off the evil. The evil only in imagination. The evil often a good. Itself the greatest evil.
3. Because positively sinful.

(1) It breaks a commandment.
(2) It sets aside promises.
(3) It undervalues experience.
(4) It distrusts Gods wisdom and goodness.
(5) It is rebellion against Gods arrangements.
(6) It is an intrusion into Gods province.
4. Because hurtful and injurious.

(1) It often deters from duty.
(2) It destroys the comforts of duty.

II. Counsel or advice as to the manner in which the evil is to be avoided.But in everything by prayer and supplication.

1. The correction is not a needless and reckless indifference.

2. The emphatic word here is everything. This describes the range of prayer. This precept is generally neglected.

3. The performance of this duty would correct carefulness. It places everything under Gods government, and leaves it there. It leads to a study of the divine will in secular affairs. Our prospects and plans are thus tested. It gives to every event the character of an answer to prayerevil as well as good. Prayer, i.e. direct entreaty or petition. Supplication, i.e. deprecation. Thanksgiving for all past and present.

III. A promise as to the result of following this counsel or advice.And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds.

1. The mind and the heart are the seat of care.The mind calculates, imagines. The heart feels fear, grief, despair.

2. The mind and heart are made the seat of peace.The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. The peace which God has flows from unity, from omnipotence. This is the peace of God, because He gives it.

3. This peace comes through Jesus Christ.He produces the unity. He encircles with omnipotence.Stewart.

Php. 4:6-7. Anxious Care.

I. The evil to be avoided.

1. Care is excessive when it is inconsistent with peace and quietness.

2. When it induces loss of temper.

3. When it makes us distrustful of Providence.

4. When it hurries us into any improper course of conduct.

(1) Anxiety is useless.
(2) Is positively injurious.
(3) Exerts a mischievous influence on others.
(4) Is criminal.

II. The proper course to be pursued.

1. Prayer.

2. Supplication.

3. Thanksgiving.

III. The happiness to be enjoyed.The peace of God, which passeth understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.Dr. Robt. Newton.

Php. 4:6. Subjects of Prayer.

I. For temporal blessings.

1. Our health. Value of health. Dependence on God.

2. Our studies. Not to supersede diligence. Communicates a right impulse. Secures a right direction.

3. Our undertakings. Agricultural, commercial.

II. For spiritual blessings.

1. For pardon. Of our daily sins in thought, word, and deed. Of all our sins.

2. For holiness in heart and life. Regeneration, faith, love, hope, meekness, zeal, resignation, obedience.

3. For usefulness and happiness.

III. For the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

1. On ourselves.

2. On our relatives and friends.

3. On the Church. 4. On the world.

IV. For the spread of the gospel.

1. For the multiplication of the necessary means.

2. For the removal of obstacles.

3. For the success of labourers.

4. For the conversion of sinners.G. Brooks.

True Prayer.

I. True prayer is specific as well as earnest.Nothing is too little to be made the subject of prayer. The very act of confidence is pleasing to God and tranquillising to the suppliant. God is not only willing to hear the details, but He desires that we should tell Him.

II. True prayer consists of confession, supplication, and thanksgiving.We are to confess our sins, ask forgiveness, and do it with gratitude and thankfulness. God will not answer the requests of unthankful beggars. Without thanksgiving what we call prayer is presumption.Homiletic Monthly.

Php. 4:7. The Peace of God keeping the Heart.

I. The nature of this defending principle.It has as its basis forgiving mercy.

II. Its author.The peace of God. It is called His peace, because that work of mercy on which it rests is His work, and He Himself communicates the peace.

III. Its property.Passeth all understanding.

1. The understanding of such as are strangers to it.

2. They who enjoy it the most cannot fully comprehend it.

IV. Its effects.Shall keep your hearts and minds.

1. In temptation it secures the heart by satisfying the heart.

2. It keeps the heart in affliction.

3. It keeps the mind by settling the judgment, and keeping doubts and errors out of the mind.

V. Its source and the instrumentality by which it works.Through Christ Jesus.C. Bradley.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

6. In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.

Translation and Paraphrase

6. Do not be anxious (and worried) about a thing; instead (of worrying) let your requests be made known to God in everything (you do) by prayer (of devotion) and supplication (for your needs), with thanksgiving.
7. And (if you will do this) the peace of God which exceeds all (human) understanding will keep guard over your hearts and thoughts (protecting both your emotions and your mind, and keep them safe) in Christ Jesus.

Notes

1.

These verses tell of the peace that comes through thankful prayer.

2.

Be careful for nothing means Be anxious (or worried) about nothing. Be full of cares over nothing.

3.

These verses sound like an echo of the sermon on the mount. See Mat. 6:25-34. Compare Psa. 145:18-19.

4.

The remedy for anxiety is prayer (this word give prominence to the element of devotion) and supplication (gives prominence to the expression of personal needs). Compare Luk. 18:1; 1Pe. 5:8.

In prayer, however, we must not forget to let our requests be made known with thanksgiving,

5.

God likes us to offer specific requests in prayers. Vague generalities are usually meaningless formalism.

6.

The peace of God here promised is that inward peace of soul which comes from God, and is based on Gods presence and promises. Compare Col. 3:15; Php. 4:9.

7.

Peace which passeth all understanding is peace that transcends the power of the human mind to understand it. It can also mean that the peace that God gives surpasses all human understanding as a means of bringing tranquility to the heart. (We prefer the first meaning.)

8.

Gods peace guards our hearts and thoughts. The Biblical heart includes such inward qualities as the intellect, the will, the conscience, and the emotions.

By thoughts Paul refers to the mental perceptions, the things that proceed from the heart.

When the heart and the thoughts are protected, a mans whole beingeven to a great degree his physical beingis safe. Pro. 17:22 : A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

Christians should be able to live above emotional tension, nervous breakdowns, mental illness, and anxiety symptoms. The reason that many do not is simply that they do not pray. They seem to feel, Why pray when you can worry?

9.

Notice that the protection is in Christ Jesus. This promise is not extended to everyone, but only to those in Christ.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(6) Be careful for nothing.An exact repetition of our Lords command, Take no thought (in Mat. 6:25; Mat. 6:34). The prohibition is of that painful anxiety which is inevitable in all who feel themselves alone in mere self-dependence amidst the difficulties and dangers of life. It is possible to sink below this anxiety in mere levity and thoughtlessness; it is possible to rise above it by casting our care on Him who careth for us, and knowing that we are simply fellow-workers with Him (1Pe. 5:7; 2Co. 6:1). Hence the Apostle passes on at once to speak of the trustfulness of prayer.

Prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.By prayer is meant worship generally, so called (as in common parlance now) because in this state of imperfection prayer must be its leading element, as praise will be in the perfection of the future. (See Act. 2:42, where the prayers are among the essential marks of church membership.) To this general word is subjoined the distinction of the two great elements of worship, supplication with thanksgiving. The very expression, however, shows that, though distinct, they are inseparable. (See Eph. 6:18, and Note there.) Both words prayer and supplication have the article in the original, and may probably refer to the recognised worship of the Church.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

6. Careful Unduly solicitous: yet apathy and indifference are as widely removed from the proper Christian spirit as the anxious, disquieting solicitude which divides the heart and disturbs its joy, while it leaves but half for God. Note on Mat 6:25. The true antidote is that constant prayer, which carries every thing, great and small, with no exception, to God. We need him always, as well as in the season of difficulty. Supplication presents the specific petition. The thanksgiving which should accompany prayer is general, and covers all past mercies. Prayer, moreover, asks, making known our desires to God, just as specifically and earnestly as if he were ignorant of them. Thus all anxieties and burdens may be laid on his hands.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘In nothing be anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.’

The third exhortation is that they should not be filled with anxiety about anything. That too would go with rejoicing in the Lord, and with the recognition that He was coming. Note the contrast, ‘in nothing be anxious — in everything by prayer’. Thus freedom from anxiety was to be on the basis of dependence ‘God’, that is on their Heavenly Father Who had promised to supply all their real needs (see Mat 6:25; Mat 6:31; Mat 6:34). Notice also the threefold combination of ‘prayer (general prayer and worship), supplication (asking in respect, especially, of spiritual needs) and thanksgiving’. Worship and gratitude were not to be forgotten or sidelined, and would aid their supplication and increase their rejoicing. And the implication was that as they made their requests known to God, and worshipped and expressed their gratitude, they could be sure that He would hear them and respond. Furthermore, if we take Matthew 6 as our guide the emphasis is on supplication in respect of spiritual things (as in the Lord’s prayer), for in Mat 6:8; Mat 6:31-34 Jesus made clear that, if our minds are set on His Kingly Rule, we can leave our need for physical things in the hands of our Heavenly Father without needing to ask because He is fully aware of what we really need (Mat 6:31-32). Our great concern is rather to be one of asking for God’s Name to be hallowed, for God’s Kingly Rule over men’s hearts to come, and for God’s will to be done on earth as in Heaven, then everything else would be added to them.

Thus the emphasis here is on the fact that we do not have to be anxious about anything, because we know that having committed everything to Him, we can leave it all in the hands of our heavenly Father.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Php 4:6. With thanksgiving, When St. Paul directs them to join thanksgiving with prayer and supplication, in their suffering condition, he appears to have the same design before noticed; namely, to divert them from the frightful view of persecution, and to put them in mind, as he does ch. Php 1:29-30 that their being called hereunto was a gracious gift, for which they ought to be thankful. Instead of, be careful for nothing, it would be more proper to read, with Dr. Heylin, be solicitous for nothing; “Whatever your danger or wants may be, do not distract yourselves with an anxious care about them.”

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Phi 4:6 . The is not to be limited in an arbitrary way (as by Grotius, Flatt, Weiss, and others, to anxious care); about nothing (neither want, nor persecution, nor a threatening future, etc.) are they at all to give themselves concern, but on the contrary, etc.; , which is emphatically prefixed, is the accusative of the object (1Co 7:32 ff; 1Co 12:25 ; Phi 2:20 ). Comp. Xen. Cyrop . viii. 7. 12: . Caring is here, as in Mat 6 , the contrast to full confidence in God. Comp. 1Pe 5:7 . “Curare et orare plus inter se pugnant quam aqua et ignis,” Bengel.

] opposed to the ; hence: in every case or affair (comp. Eph 5:24 ; 2Co 4:8 ; 1Th 5:18 ; Plat. Euthyd . p. 301 A), not: at all times (Syriac, Grotius, Bos, Flatt, Rheinwald).

. ] by prayer and supplication . On the distinction between the two (the former being general , the latter supplicating prayer), see on Eph 6:18 . The article indicates the prayer, which ye make; and the repetition of the article, otherwise not required, puts forward the two elements the more emphatically (Khner, II. 1, p. 529).

.] belongs to . . . ., which, excluding all solicitude in the prayer, should never take place (comp. 1Th 5:18 ; Col 3:17 ) without thanksgiving for the proofs of divine love already received and continually being experienced, of which the Christian is conscious under all circumstances (Rom 8:28 ). In the thanksgiving of the suppliant there is expressed entire surrender to God’s will, the very opposite of solicitude.

.] what ye desire (Plat. Rep . viii. p. 566 B; Dionys. Hal. Antt . vi. 74; Luk 23:24 ), that is, in accordance with the context: your petitions (1Jn 5:15 ; Dan 6:7 ; Dan 6:13 ; Psa 19:6 ; Psa 36:4 , et al.; Schleusner, Thes . I. p. 100).

. ] must be made known towards God; , versus; it is the coram of the direction. Comp. Bernhardy, p. 265; Schoem. ad Is . iii. 25. The expression is more graphic than the mere dative would be; and the conception itself ( .) is popularly anthropopathic; Mat 6:8 . Bengel, moreover, aptly remarks on the subject-matter: “qui desideria sua praepostero pudore ac diffidenti modestia velant, suffocant ac retinent, curis anguntur; qui filiali et liberali fiducia erga Deum expromunt, expediuntur. Confessionibus ejusmodi scatent Psalmi.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2160
A DISSUASIVE FROM CAREFULNESS

Php 4:6-7. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

MAN is a prospective creature: he is able to look into futurity; and to give, as it were, a present existence to future things. Indeed, it is from anticipation that his greatest joys and sorrows flow. This faculty of foresight is that which eminently distinguishes him above the rest of the creation. Other creatures equal him in actual enjoyment; but he alone can overleap thousands of intervening years, and derive pleasure or pain from the contemplation of distant events. It is to this faculty that the Scriptures are principally addressed. They set before us the final issue of present things; and declare, that our conduct in this life shall meet with a suitable recompence in the eternal world. Thus, by the hope of good and the fear of evil, they stimulate us to flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold on eternal life.
But though this power is capable of being turned to such advantage, yet, through the corruption of our hearts, it is too generally abused. Men look only at things visible and temporal, instead of looking also at things invisible and eternal. Moreover, their expectations of future good are generally too sanguine; and their apprehensions of future evil weigh more upon their spirits than the occasion requires. Hence arises in their minds an excessive carefulness, which it is the design of Christianity to counteract.
In the words which we have just read, we have,

I.

A dissuasive from carefulness

By carefulness we are not to understand, attention; for that is absolutely necessary to the discharge of our duties in the world: but we are to understand, anxiety; which, as far as it prevails, argues a state of mind that is injurious to ourselves, and displeasing to God.

The great occasions of anxiety may be reduced to three;

1.

Some good desired

[Men, in different situations of life, have their hearts set upon such things, as may possibly be attained by them, and such as they imagine will conduce greatly to their happiness. Some are eagerly pressing forward to the attainment of honour: others are insatiable in their thirst for gain. Some are altogether wrapped up in an idolatrous attachment to a fellow-creature; others are disquieted, like Rachel [Note: Gen 30:1.], and Hannah [Note: 1Sa 1:5-10.], because they are disappointed in the hopes of a family.

But all such anxieties are sinful. We may desire the good things of this life: but our desire must be subordinated to the will of God: and, while we use the proper means of attaining our wishes, we must use them with an entire submission to the disposals of his Providence.]

2.

Some evil dreaded

[Evils foreboded, are often more painful than when actually endured. They not unfrequently press with such a weight upon the mind, as to incapacitate men for the exertions, which would serve at least to mitigate their trials, if not altogether to avert them. For instance, men are sometimes so overcome with the apprehensions of a heavy loss, that they are unable to prosecute with attention their proper business, whereby the loss, if sustained, might be in time retrieved. And it is no uncommon thing, to find men sacrificing their honour, their conscience, yea, their very hopes of salvation, in order to avert some impending calamity.
But it would not be thus, if we considered every thing, even the falling of a sparrow, as regulated by an all-wise God. We might endeavour with propriety to prevent an evil; but we should never be so intimidated by its approach, as to be driven from our dependence on God, or induced to violate our duty to him.]

3.

Some trouble felt

[When trouble is heavy or accumulated, whether it be from disease in our persons, or embarrassment in our circumstances, or the loss of some dear relative, how ready are we to give ourselves up to sorrow, as if our wound were incurable, and our misery irremediable! The instances are not few, wherein men are so overwhelmed by their afflictions, as to have their intellects impaired, and to be reduced to a state of mental derangement. Yea, even worse effects than these are sometimes produced by trouble: for the unhappy sufferers take refuge in suicide; and plunge their souls into hell, to rid themselves of their temporal distresses.
We are not forbidden to give way to grief. The Saviour himself wept at the tomb of his friend. But are there to be no bounds to grief? Should not our sorrow be moderated by the consideration, that the cup is put into our hands by a gracious Father, and that, if drunk in submission to his will, it shall be sanctified to our eternal good? Such excessive sorrow is prohibited in the text; and well it may be; since nothing can warrant it, and its operation is so injurious.]

While the Apostle thus dissuades us from carefulness, he prescribes,

II.

An antidote against it

Prayer is no less our privilege than it is our duty
[God is ever ready to hear the prayers of his people; and he expects that we should by prayer and supplication make our requests known to him. Not that he needs to be informed by us; for he knoweth our necessities before we ask [Note: Mat 6:8.]: but we ought to specify our wants, in order the more deeply to impress a consciousness of them on our own minds, and to make us duly sensible of our dependence on him, and of our obligation to him when our prayers are answered. On all occasions we should have recourse to prayer: In every thing we should make our requests to God; in doubt, for direction, (for he will direct our paths [Note: Psa 25:9. Isa 30:21.]); in difficulties, for succour, (for he will give grace sufficient for us [Note: Jam 4:6. 2Co 9:8; 2Co 12:9.]); and in wants, for supply, (for he has engaged that we shall want no manner of thing that is good [Note: Psa 34:9-10. Mat 6:33.]). Nothing is so great but that he is ready to bestow it; nothing is so small, but that we need to ask it at his hands.

But, together with our prayers, we should always offer also thanksgivings. Our troubles are always mixed with mercies, for which we should pay unto our God a tribute of praise. A living man can have no cause to complain [Note: Lam 3:39.]. While we are out of hell, our troubles must be infinitely less than our deserts. We should therefore approach our God with gratitude for mercies received, and with a dependence on him for those we stand in need of,]

This would be an effectual antidote for excessive carefulness
[If we commune only with a fellow-creature, we find some relief: but if we go to our God, he will enable us to leave ourselves to his gracious disposal, and to cast our burthen upon him. Our desires will be weakened by a submission to his will; our fears be allayed by a view of his providence; and our troubles be mitigated by the consolations of his Spirit.]
This part of our subject is more fully opened by,

III.

A special commendation of this antidote

By carefulness our heart and mind is overwhelmed
[We have before noticed the depression of spirit which results from excessive carefulness: and there is but too much reason to believe, that many really die of a broken heart. But where the effect produced by troubles is not so great, yet the mind is dissipated by them; and the thoughts are distracted, so that we cannot exercise them upon other objects, or even fix them in prayer before God.]
But by means of prayer, our hearts and minds shall be kept in peace
[None but those who have experienced it, can conceive what peace flows into the soul, when we are enabled to commit our ways to God. The heart that was agitated, becomes serene; and the thoughts that were distracted, become composed: yea, an inexpressible sweetness pervades the whole man, and turns his sorrows into an occasion of joy [Note: 2Co 12:7-10.]. The peace of God, thus infused into the soul, keeps, as in a garrison [Note: .], both the heart and mind; so that if trouble seek to invade us, it can make no impression: not all the good that can be desired, nor all the evil that can be dreaded, nor all the trouble that can be felt, will be able to turn us from our God, or to retard our progress towards heaven.

This blessing comes to us through Christ Jesus. It is for his sake that our prayers are accepted: it is through him that peace is communicated to us in answer to them: and it is through his agency upon our souls, that this peace becomes a defence against the incursions of care. In short, from Christ Jesus this antidote derives its efficacy; and through him it shall be effectual for the ends for which it is recommended in the text.]

We cannot conclude without observing,
1.

How does religion contribute to mens present happiness!

[Perhaps carefulness is a source of more trouble than all other things together. Yet this is taken away, in proportion as we devote ourselves to God. It is true, religion brings with it, if we may so speak, its peculiar sorrows: (not that they spring from religion, but from sin: yet in our fallen state, they certainly are attendant on the exercise of religion.) But godly sorrow is salutary, while the sorrow of the world worketh death [Note: 2Co 7:10.]. And, it we live nigh to God in prayer and praise, we shall be freed from the disquietudes which harass and distress the whole world beside; and shall dwell as in a haven of peace, while others are tossed to and fro, and are at their wits end, upon tempestuous billows. Commit thy works unto the Lord, says Solomon, and thy thoughts (not thy ways only, but thy thoughts, the most fluctuating and ungovernable of all things) shall be established [Note: Pro 16:3.].]

2.

What enemies to themselves are they, who live in the neglect of prayer!

[If men desired no more than present happiness, they ought to be constant at a throne of grace; since it is there alone that they can get rid of their burthens, or obtain peace unto their souls. But the joys and sorrows of men are not confined to this life: they follow us into the eternal world, and abide with us for ever: and that which is the appointed mean of present blessings, is also the only possible mean of everlasting happiness. The burthen of guilt which lies upon us, can never be removed, but by prayer. Peace with God can never be obtained, but by prayer. And they who will not pray, voluntarily bind their own sins upon them, and reject the proffered mercies of their God, Think, ye prayerless people, how your conduct will appear to you at the day of judgment: Had I prayed, my sins had been forgiven: had I prayed, I had now been happy beyond all the powers of language to express: but the time is past: prayer will not avail me now: my weeping will be fruitless; my wailing irremediable; my gnashing of teeth eternal.
O that we might all awake from our slumbers! O that we might arise, and call upon our God! Then should we understand the efficacy of prayer, and experience its benefits both in time and in eternity.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

Ver. 6. In nothing be careful ] Or care for nothing, viz. with a care of diffidence and distrust. See Trapp on “ Mat 6:25 “ See Trapp on “ Mat 6:26 “ &c.

But in everything by prayer ] This is the best cure of care. “Cast thy burden” (or thy request) “upon the Lord,” said David, Psa 55:22 ; “and he shall sustain thee.” Remove thy trouble from thyself to God by virtue of that writ or warrant, and then all shall be well. “They looked unto God, and were lightened,” Psa 34:5 . Luther in a certain epistle of his to Melancthon complaineth thus: Ego certe ore pro te, et doleo te pertinacissimam curarum hirudinem meas preces sic irritas facere: I pray for thee, but to no purpose so long as thou givest so much way to carking cares.

Supplication with thanksgiving ] We should come to pray with our thanks in our hands, standing ready with it, as Joseph’s brethren stood with their present, Gen 43:25 . In the old law, what special request soever they had to make, or what sacrifice soever to offer, they were commanded still to come with their peace offerings. Prayer goes up without incense when without thankfulness. The Church ascends daily to her beloved Christ in these pillars of smoke, Son 3:6 , for she knows that unthankfulness hindereth much the restful success of prayer. And the apostle seemeth here to hint that God taketh no notice of their prayers that do not in addition give thanks.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

6 .] has the emphasis. It is the accusative of the object, as , Xen. Cyr. viii. 7. 12.

] in every thing : see ref. 1 Thess. and note. Meyer remarks that the literally correct rendering of the Vulg. ‘ in omni (neut.) oratione ’ led Ambrose wrong, who gives it ‘ per omnem orationem .’

] by your prayer and your supplication : or better, by the prayer and the supplication appropriate to each thing. On the difference between and , see on Eph 6:18 , 1Ti 2:1 .

Not , because the matters themselves may not be recognized as grounds of , but it should accompany every request. Ellic., who doubts this explanation, thinks it “more simple to say that , ‘thanksgiving for past blessings,’ is in its nature more general and comprehensive, . and . almost necessarily more limited and specific. Hence, though . occurs 12 times in St. Paul’s Epistles, it is only twice used with the article, 1Co 14:26 , 2Co 4:15 .” But I much prefer the other view.

] = , 1Jn 5:15 . Plato, Rep. viii. p. 566, speaks of .

] unto , ‘before,’ ‘ coram :’ see Act 8:24 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Phi 4:6 . . . “In nothing be anxious.” . is not common in earlier prose. It is used repeatedly in LXX of anxiety ( a ) approaching dread as Psa 37:19 , ( b ) producing displeasure as Eze 16:42 , ( c ) of a general kind as 1Ch 17:9 . For the thought Cf. 4 Ezr 2:27 : Noli satagere, cum venerit enim dies pressurae et angustiae tu autem hilaris et copiosa eris . See the note on chap. Phi 2:20 supr. . . . . emphasises prayer as an act of worship or devotion; is the cry of personal need. See on chap. Phi 1:4 supr. Curare et orare plus inter se pugnant quam aqua et ignis (Beng.). . The word is rarely found in secular Greek ( e.g. , Hippocr., Polyb., Diod.; see Rutherford, New Phrynichus , p. 69), or LXX. Paul uses it twelve times, but only twice with the article. Does not this imply that he takes for granted that thanksgiving is the background, the predominant tone of the Christian life? To pray in any other spirit is to clip the wings of prayer. is found three times in N.T. It emphasises the object asked for (see an important discussion by Ezra Abbot in N. Amer. Review , 1872, p. 171 ff.). “Prayer is a wish referred to God, and the possibility of such reference, save in matters of mere indifference, is the test of the purity of the wish” (Green, Two Sermons , p. 44). . . “In the presence of God.” A delicate and suggestive way of hinting that God’s presence is always there, that it is the atmosphere surrounding them. Anxious foreboding is out of place in a Father’s presence. Requests are always in place with Him. With this phrase Cf. Rom 16:26 .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Philippians

HOW TO OBEY AN IMPOSSIBLE INJUNCTION

Php 4:6 .

It is easy for prosperous people, who have nothing to trouble them, to give good advices to suffering hearts; and these are generally as futile as they are easy. But who was he who here said to the Church at Philippi, ‘Be careful for nothing?’ A prisoner in a Roman prison; and when Rome fixed its claws it did not usually let go without drawing blood. He was expecting his trial, which might, so far as he knew, very probably end in death. Everything in the future was entirely dark and uncertain. It was this man, with all the pressure of personal sorrows weighing upon him, who, in the very crisis of his life, turned to his brethren in Philippi, who had far fewer causes of anxiety than he had, and cheerfully bade them ‘be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make their requests known unto God.’ Had not that bird learned to sing when his cage was darkened? And do you not think that advice of that sort, coming not from some one perched up on a safe hillock to the strugglers in the field below, but from a man in the thick of the fight, would be like a trumpet-call to them who heard it?

Now, here are two things. There is an apparently perfectly impossible advice, and there is the only course that will make it possible.

I. An apparently impossible advice.

‘Be careful for nothing.’ I do not need to remind you–for I suppose that we all know it–that that word ‘careful,’ in a great many places in the New Testament, does not mean what, by the slow progress of change in the significance of words, it has come to mean to-day; but it means what it should still mean, ‘full of care,’ and ‘care’ meant, not prudent provision, forethought, the occupation of a man’s common-sense with his duty and his work and his circumstances, but it meant the thing which of all others unfits a man most for such prudent provision, and that is, the nervous irritation of a gnawing anxiety which, as the word in the original means, tears the heart apart and makes a man quite incapable of doing the wise thing, or seeing the wise thing to do, in the circumstances. We all know that; so that I do not need to dwell upon it. ‘Careful’ here means neither more nor less than ‘anxious.’

But I may just remind you how harm has been done, and good has been lost and missed, by people reading that modern meaning into the word. It is the same word which Christ employed in the exhortation ‘Take no thought for to-morrow.’ It is a great pity that Christian people sometimes get it into their heads that Christ prohibited what common-sense demands, and what everybody practises. ‘Taking thought for the morrow’ is not only our duty, but it is one of the distinctions which make us ‘much better than’ the fowls of the air, that have no barns in which to store against a day of need. But when our Lord said, ‘Take no thought for the morrow,’ he did not mean ‘Do not lay yourselves out to provide for common necessities and duties,’ but ‘Do not fling yourselves into a fever of anxiety, nor be too anxious to anticipate the “fashion of uncertain evils.”‘

But even with that explanation, is it not like an unreachable ideal that Paul puts forward here? ‘Be anxious about nothing’–how can a man who has to face the possibilities that we all have to face, and who knows himself to be as weak to deal with them as we all are: how can he help being anxious? There is no more complete waste of breath than those sage and reverend advices which people give us, not to do the things, nor to feel the emotions, which our position make absolutely inevitable and almost involuntary. Here, for instance, is a man surrounded by all manner of calamity and misfortune; and some well-meaning but foolish friend comes to him, and, without giving him a single reason for the advice, says, ‘Cheer up! my friend.’ Why should he cheer up? What is there in his circumstances to induce him to fall into any other mood? Or some unquestionable peril is staring him full in the face, coming nearer and nearer to him, and some well-meaning, loose-tongued friend, says to him, ‘Do not be afraid!’–but he ought to be afraid. That is about all that worldly wisdom and morality have to say to us, when we are in trouble and anxiety. ‘Shut your eyes very hard, and make believe very much, and you will not fear.’ An impossible exhortation! Just as well bid a ship in the Bay of Biscay not to rise and fall upon the wave, but to keep an even keel. Just as well tell the willows in the river-bed that they are not to bend when the wind blows, as come to me, and say to me, ‘Be careful about nothing.’ Unless you have a great deal more than that to say, I must be, and I ought to be, anxious, about a great many things. Instead of anxiety being folly, it will be wisdom; and the folly will consist in not opening our eyes to facts, and in not feeling emotions that are appropriate to the facts which force themselves against our eyeballs. Threadbare maxims, stale, musty old commonplaces of unavailing consolation and impotent encouragement say to us, ‘Do not be anxious.’ We try to stiffen our nerves and muscles in order to bear the blow; or some of us, more basely still, get into a habit of feather-headed levity, making no forecasts, nor seeing even what is plainest before our eyes. But all that is of no use when once the hot pincers of real trouble, impending or arrived, lay hold of our hearts. Then of all idle expenditures of breath in the world there is none to the wrung heart more idle and more painful than the one that says, Be anxious about nothing.

II. So we turn to the only course that makes the apparent impossibility possible.

Paul goes on to direct to the mode of feeling and action which will give exemption from the else inevitable gnawing of anxious forethought. He introduces his positive counsel with an eloquent ‘But,’ which implies that what follows is the sure preservative against the temper which he deprecates; ‘But in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.’

There are, then, these alternatives. If you do not like to take the one, you are sure to have to take the other. There is only one way out of the wood, and it is this which Paul expands in these last words of my text. If a man does not pray about everything, he will be worried about most things. If he does pray about everything, he will not be troubled beyond what is good for him, about anything. So there are these alternatives; and we have to make up our minds which of the two we are going to take. The heart is never empty. If not full of God, it will be full of the world, and of worldly care. Luther says somewhere that a man’s heart is like a couple of millstones; if you don’t put something between them to grind, they will grind each other. It is because God is not in our hearts that the two stones rub the surface off one another. So the victorious antagonist of anxiety is trust, and the only way to turn gnawing care out of my heart and life is to usher God into it, and to keep him resolutely in it.

‘In everything.’ If a thing is great enough to threaten to make me anxious, it is great enough for me to talk to God about. If He and I are on a friendly footing, the instinct of friendship will make me speak. If so, how irrelevant and superficial seem to be discussions whether we ought to pray about worldly things, or confine our prayers entirely to spiritual and religious matters. Why! if God and I are on terms of friendship and intimacy of communication, there will be no question as to what I am to talk about to Him; I shall not be able to keep silent as to anything that interests me. And we are not right with God unless we have come to the point that entire openness of speech marks our communications with Him, and that, as naturally as men, when they come home from business, like to tell their wives and children what has happened to them since they left home in the morning, so naturally we talk to our Friend about everything that concerns us. ‘In everything let your requests be made known unto God.’ That is the wise course, because a multitude of little pimples may be quite as painful and dangerous as a large ulcer. A cloud of gnats may put as much poison into a man with their many stings as will a snake with its one bite. And if we are not to get help from God by telling Him about little things, there will be very little of our lives that we shall tell Him about at all. For life is a mountain made up of minute flakes. The years are only a collection of seconds. Every man’s life is an aggregate of trifles. ‘In everything make your requests known.’

‘By prayer’–that does not mean, as a superficial experience of religion is apt to suppose it to mean, actual petition that follows. For a great many of us, the only notion that we have of prayer is asking God to give us something that we want. But there is a far higher region of communion than that, in which the soul seeks and finds, and sits and gazes, and aspiring possesses, and possessing aspires. Where there is no spoken petition for anything affecting outward life, there may be the prayer of contemplation such as the burning seraphs before the Throne do ever glow with. The prayer of silent submission, in which the will bows itself before God; the prayer of quiet trust, in which we do not so much seek as cleave; the prayer of still fruition–these, in Paul’s conception of the true order, precede ‘supplication.’ And if we have such union with God, by realising His presence, by aspiration after Himself, by trusting Him and submission to Him, then we have the victorious antagonist of all our anxieties, and the ‘cares that infest the day shall fold their tents’ and ‘silently steal away.’ For if a man has that union with God which is effected by such prayer as I have been speaking about, it gives him a fixed point on which to rest amidst all perturbations. It is like bringing a light into a chamber when thunder is growling outside, which prevents the flashing of the lightning from being seen.

Years ago an ingenious inventor tried to build a vessel in such a fashion as that the saloon for passengers should remain upon one level, howsoever the hull might be tossed by waves. It was a failure, if I remember rightly. But if we are thus joined to God, He will do for our inmost hearts what the inventor tried to do with the chamber within his ship. The hull may be buffeted, but the inmost chamber where the true self sits will be kept level and unmoved. Brethren! prayer in the highest sense, by which I mean the exercise of aspiration, trust, submission–prayer will fight against and overcome all anxieties.

‘By prayer and supplication.’ Actual petition for the supply of present wants is meant by ‘supplication.’ To ask for that supply will very often be to get it. To tell God what I think I need goes a long way always to bringing me the gift that I do need. If I have an anxiety which I am ashamed to speak to Him, that silence is a sign that I ought not to have it; and if I have a desire that I do not feel I can put into a prayer, that feeling is a warning to me not to cherish such a desire.

There are many vague and oppressive anxieties that come and cast a shadow over our hearts, that if we could once define, and put into plain words, we should find that we vaguely fancied them a great deal larger than they were, and that the shadow they flung was immensely longer than the thing that flung it. Put your anxieties into definite speech. It will reduce their proportions to your own apprehension very often. Speaking them, even to a man who may be able to do little to help, eases them wonderfully. Put them into definite speech to God; and there are very few of them that will survive.

‘By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.’ That thanksgiving is always in place. If one only considers what he has from God, and realises that whatever he has he has received from the hands of divine love, thanksgiving is appropriate in any circumstances. Do you remember when Paul was in gaol at the very city to which this letter went, with his back bloody with the rod, and his feet fast in the stocks, how then he and Silas ‘prayed and sang praises to God.’ Therefore the obedient earthquake came and set them loose. Perhaps it was some reminiscence of that night which moved him to say to the Church that knew the story–of which perhaps the gaoler was still a member–’By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your requests known unto God.’

One aching nerve can monopolise our attention and make us unconscious of the health of all the rest of the body. So, a single sorrow or loss obscures many mercies. We are like men who live in a narrow alley in some city, with great buildings on either side, towering high above their heads, and only a strip of sky visible. If we see up in that strip a cloud, we complain and behave as if the whole heavens, right away round the three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon, were black with tempest. But we see only a little strip, and there is a great deal of blue in the sky; however, there may be a cloud in the patch that we see above our heads, from the alley where we live. Everything, rightly understood, that God sends to men is a cause of thanksgiving; therefore, ‘in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.’

‘Casting all your anxieties upon him,’ says Peter, ‘for He’–not is anxious ; that dark cloud does not rise much above the earth–but, ‘He careth for you.’ And that loving guardianship and tender care is the one shield, armed with which we can smile at the poisoned darts of anxiety which would else fester in our hearts and, perhaps, kill. ‘Be careful for nothing’–an impossibility unless ‘in everything’ we make ‘our requests known unto God.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

careful = anxious. First occurance: Mat 6:25,

nothing. Greek. medeis

prayer. supplication. App-134.:3

requests. App-134.

made known. Greek. gnorizo, See Php 1:22.

unto. App-104.

God. App-98.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

6.] has the emphasis. It is the accusative of the object, as , Xen. Cyr. viii. 7. 12.

] in every thing: see ref. 1 Thess. and note. Meyer remarks that the literally correct rendering of the Vulg. in omni (neut.) oratione led Ambrose wrong, who gives it per omnem orationem.

] by your prayer and your supplication: or better, by the prayer and the supplication appropriate to each thing. On the difference between and , see on Eph 6:18, 1Ti 2:1.

Not , because the matters themselves may not be recognized as grounds of , but it should accompany every request. Ellic., who doubts this explanation, thinks it more simple to say that , thanksgiving for past blessings, is in its nature more general and comprehensive, . and . almost necessarily more limited and specific. Hence, though . occurs 12 times in St. Pauls Epistles, it is only twice used with the article, 1Co 14:26, 2Co 4:15. But I much prefer the other view.

] = , 1Jn 5:15. Plato, Rep. viii. p. 566, speaks of .

] unto, before, coram: see Act 8:24.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Php 4:6. , be careful for nothing) When others do not treat you with kindliness, when different things are pressing upon you, be not over-careful, rather pray. Care and prayer, [and likewise care and joy.-V. g.] are more opposed to one another than fire and water.- ) in every thing.- , with thanksgiving) This is the best characteristic of a soul freed from cares, and of prayer joined with resignation of the human will. Accordingly peace follows, Php 4:7; and thanksgiving and peace are united together also in Col 3:15. All things are thereby safe and tranquil.- , requests) A thing sought, the subject , of supplication.-, be made known) Those who veil, stifle, and restrain their desires, with preposterous shame and distrusting modesty, as if they were too small or too great, are tortured with cares. Those who lay them before God with a generous and filial confidence, are freed from difficulties. The Psalms abound in confessions of that sort.- , to God) Even though often men should be ignorant of them, and you should modestly conceal them from your fellowmen. Paul had not even asked aught from the Philippians. [But the exercise of unaffected candour towards men, Php 4:5, and here towards GOD, is perfectly consistent.-V. g.]

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Php 4:6

Php 4:6

In nothing be anxious;-Do not look with fear and dread or with anxiety to the future. [The prohibition is of that painful anxiety which is inevitable in all who feel themselves alone in mere self-dependence amidst the difficulties and dangers of life. It is possible to sink below this anxiety in mere levity and thoughtlessness; it is possible to rise above it by casting care on him who careth for us, and knowing that we are but fellow workers with him. (1Pe 5:7; 2Co 6:1).]

but in everything-[Everything in respect to affliction, embarrassment, and trials; everything relating to their spiritual condition. There is nothing which pertains to body and mind which they could not go and spread it all out before the Lord.]

by prayer-The Scriptures teach plainly that God is pleased with prayer from his children and that he is more ready to hear and bless them than the kindest of earthly parents are to give good things to their children; yet the prayers of Christians are not answered as they are taught to expect, and the question arises in their minds: Does God hear and answer prayer in this age? Certainly we live in the age when prayer should be offered; and if it should be offered, it will be answered. When God ceases to answer prayer, he will not expect man to pray. But there are conditions of prayer needful to its acceptance with God. One important and essential condition is that the prayer must be in earnest and from the heart. When the heart earnestly desires a thing, it bends all the energies of the soul and body to the accomplishment of the end desired. Then when the heart prays for a thing the body is brought into active service to obtain it. The earnestness of the service in seeking the obedience is the measure of the desire of the heart. The thing needed to gain acceptance and favor for our prayers is earnest, self-sacrificing labor, and devotion on our part to gain that tor which we pray. Then God will hear and grant our petitions. What is needed for our own good and for the good of the world is to realize that our service to God should be more earnest and devoted. We can make our prayers prevailing prayers if we will; but we cannot do it without earnest self-sacrifice, like that made by those who did prevail with God and whose examples are given for our encouragement-and imitation.

and supplication-Supplications seem to be prayer continued in strong and incessant pleadings, till the evil is averted, or the good communicated. Especially was this needful when they were enduring persecution for the sake of Jesus Christ.

with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.-All this must be done in connection with thanksgiving for all the blessings received. When persecuted they should think they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name, and thank God for it.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The Antidote to Anxiety

In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.Php 4:6.

1. Who was he who here said to the Church at Philippi, In nothing be anxious? A prisoner in a Roman prison; and when Rome fixed its claws it did not usually let go without drawing blood. He was expecting his trial, which would probably end in death. Everything in the future was absolutely dark and uncertain. It was this man, with all the pressure of personal sorrows weighing upon him, who, in the very crisis of his life, turned to his brethren in Philippi, who had far fewer causes of anxiety than he had, and cheerfully bade them, In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Had not that bird learned to sing when his cage was darkened?

We are like men that live in a narrow alley in some city, with great buildings on either side towering high about their heads, and only a strip of sky visible. If we see up in that strip a cloud, we complain and behave as if the whole heavens, right away round the three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon, were black with tempest. But we see only a strip, and there is a great deal of blue in the sky; however, there may be a cloud in the patch that we see above our heads from the alley where we live. Everything, rightly understood, that God sends to men is a cause of thanksgiving; therefore, in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.1 [Note: A. Maclaren, Leaves from the Tree of Life, 284.]

2. This is a double precept or exhortationit forbids us to indulge in a certain habit which is evil and pernicious, and then it enjoins upon us a certain other habit, which is not only good in itself, but is also the effectual cure of the former evil one.

I

A Prohibition

In nothing be anxious.

In nothing be anxious. How exacting is the ideal! Harassing care is to play no part in the believers life. Worry is an alloy which always debases the fine metal of the Christian character. It mars and spoils it. And so the counsel is unconditional, and covers every period and sphere in human life. Anxiety is to be banished from everything. It is not to be permitted the smallest foothold in the Kingdom of our Lord.

The root idea of the Greek word which is here translated anxious is a divided mind. The mind is looking two ways, is vibrating between two attractions; and it has found no place as yet where it can settle down and be at rest. Hence the sense of weariness caused by anxiety. The root idea of the English word anxious, like that of anger, is choking. It is obstruction, distress, pain, carried over from the bodily conception of it into the sphere of the mind. Under the pressure of this anxiety one becomes apprehensive, solicitous, confused; and every cloud becomes a darker cloud, and every weight becomes a heavier weight, and every outlook more ominous and dreadful. To yield to anxiety is to turn evil conjurer and play all kinds of alarming tricks on ones own heart. It is to be a prophet of night rather than sunshine, of tears rather than songs.

The text does not mean that we are not to be industrious and economical and prudent and forethoughtful. Rational exertion to gain suitable ends is not denied to one, but urged and encouraged. The man who quotes, In nothing be anxious, in justification of laziness, or a supine folding of the hands in presence of services to be rendered and duties to be done, must not forget that the author of these words is likewise author of the words diligent in business. Neither the indifference of the fatalist nor that of the sensualist has any warrant in the Word of God. If any will not work neither let him eat. But the thing which is condemned, and which ought to be condemned, and from which the great Apostle and our Lord before him sought to deliver us, is the over-solicitude which burdens and benumbs the heart, and saps energy from brain and hand, and makes men forget that God is over them, and will provide for all the exigencies of their lives.

The word careful, used in the Authorized Version, Be careful for nothing, has somewhat changed its meaning since that translation was made over three hundred years ago. We use the word to describe that wise prudence and thoughtfulness which is the plain duty of man, a being possessed of a reasonable soul looking before and after. But originally careful had a different meaning. It meant to be burdened and fretted with care. It had much the same meaning as we express now by the word careworn.1 [Note: J. C. Lambert, The Omnipotent Cross, 142.]

1. The prevalence of anxiety.There can be little doubt that we belong to an anxious and careworn generation. Never was the world so rich in material things, never did it possess so many mechanical appliances for lightening human tasks and toils. But as the world grows richer, it seems to grow more and more anxious. And while steam and electricity, and all that extraordinary development of machinery and locomotion and means of communication to which they have led, have multiplied our powers enormously, they seem also to have multiplied our cares. They increase the speed at which we have to move, the high pressure at which we have to live, the dangerous complexity of the social organism of which we form a part. It reminds one of the old tale of Frankensteins monster. Doctor Frankenstein, through his wonderful knowledge of chemistry and biology, was able to put together the figure of a monstrous man, and to galvanize it into life. And then this dreadful creature of which he was the author became the haunting terror of his own life, almost driving him mad by its tyranny, and at last tragically cutting short his days. And sometimes it almost appears as if the tremendous powers of nature which man has summoned to his aid, and infused into the great fabric of modern civilization which he has gradually built up, were threatening to become our masters and our tyrants, instead of our willing servants. Certain it is that life is not so plain and simple as it used to be. The burdens of existence and duty seem to grow heavier and heavier; and at the same time the men and women of to-day seem to be getting more nervous and highly strung than those of other generations, and less able to bear their burdens calmly and silently and patiently. Thus, on every hand, we are told that nervousness and worry are amongst the chief banes of modern life; and that it is worry, and not work, that wears out so many people before their time.

The things that never happen are often as much realities to us in their effects as those that are accomplished.1 [Note: Charles Dickens.]

The heart which boldly faces death

Upon the battle-field, and dares

Cannon and bayonet, faints beneath

The needle-points of frets and cares.

The stoutest spirits they dismay

The tiny stings of every day.

And even saints of holy fame,

Whose souls by faith have overcome,

Who wore amid the cruel flame

The molten crown of martyrdom,

Bore not without complaint alway

The petty pains of every day.

Ah! more than martyrs aureole,

And more than heros heart of fire,

We need the humble strength of soul

Which daily toils and ills require.

Sweet Patience, grant us, if you may,

An added grace for every day.

2. The folly of anxiety.It accomplishes nothing and it weakens us and wears us out.

(1) It accomplishes nothing.There would be some justification for anxiety were there any good in it, but there is not. Nothing is accomplished by it. The train does not arrive a single minute earlier because one goes to the station an hour before it is due; and the long waiting is only tenfold longer and more dreary if we fancy that our expected friend is surely sick or that some accident has occurred. If there is an encouraging word to be spoken, or a helpful deed to be done, let us speak or do; but to sit still, and paint pictures of disaster, and forecast ruin to friends and enterprises, does not help forward anything.

I have learned, as days have passed me,

Fretting never lifts the load;

And that worry, much or little,

Never smooths an irksome road;

For you know that somehow, always,

Doors are opened, ways are made;

When we work and live in patience

Under all the cross thats laid.

He who waters meadow lilies

With the dew from out the sky,

He who feeds the flitting sparrows,

When in need for food they cry,

Never fails to help His children

In all things, both great and small;

For His ear is ever open

To our faintest far-off call.

(2) It weakens and wears one out.Charles Kingsley well says: Do to-days duty, fight to-days temptation, and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them. Under a habit of anxiety the body loses its vigour, the mind loses its tone, the will loses its force, and the heart loses its resiliency and sweetness. The innocent old farmer who wound up his alarm clock and fixed it to go off at six in the morning, and then sat up all night so as to be sure to hear it when it struck, but who was so exhausted by his tedious vigil that when the morning came he could not start on his projected journey, is a fair illustration of the mischief done to one by extreme anxiousness. Generals fight better; business men handle their business more successfully; teachers get more into and more out of their pupils; mothers conduct their households with greater ease and satisfaction, if they do not let any of their energies run to waste in anxiety.

Anxiety has no place in the life of one of Gods children. Christs serenity was one of the most unmistakable signs of His filial trust. He was tired and hungry and thirsty and in pain; but we cannot imagine Him anxious or fretful. His mind was kept in perfect peace because it was stayed on God. The life lived by the faith of the Son of God will find His word kept: My peace I give unto you.1 [Note: M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 7.]

I desire to submit myself entirely to the will of God, and moreover that He would sanctify this trial both to me and mine. On coming to Brechin, I was led, through my youngest boys behaviour, to see what a blessed thing it is to receive the kingdom of God as a little child. My little fellow, about four years old, whom I brought with me, gave himself no trouble amid the boats, omnibuses, and railway coaches, on sea, land, and in dark tunnels: his father was at his side, and never a care, or fear, or doubt, or anxiety had he. May we have grace to be led by the hand, and trust to the care and kindness of a reconciled God and Father!1 [Note: Thomas Guthrie.]

3. The cause of anxiety.The cause of anxiety is distrust of God. Faith in God and a soul overwhelmed with misgivings come pretty near being mutually exclusive. At any rate a heart filled with the worry which narrows our spiritual horizons, and turns the sweet light of the stars into horrible darkness, has small place in it for any living and sustaining confidence in Him who notes the fall of a sparrow, and who has assured us that He is ready to take upon His own heart all our burdens of care. God has not promised to do everything for us; there are some things we must do for ourselves. But He has promised never to leave or forsake His own. He has promised to save unto the uttermost all who come to Him through Jesus Christ. He has promised that all things shall work together for good to them that love Him. Our necessities, our straitnesses, our wants, our natural burdens, are not surprises to God. He understands them all, feels them all. But in the midst of them all, and with reference to them all, He wishes us to trust Him.

Froudes religion, so far as it depended upon his conception of God, was a religion of almost unmixed fear. So far as it was of something better, it was purified, first, by a love and admiration for the holy men of old, such as the founders of the Oxford Colleges, in whose steps, after his election to his Fellowship, he aspired to tread; secondly, by his affection for Keble, for whom, in the prayer written at the same time, he thanks God, as one who had convinced him of the error of his ways, and in whose presence he tasted happiness; but above all, by his devotion to his mother, in whose recollection he found a consciousness of that blessedness which he had been taught to look for in the presence of Saints and Angels. These were feelings which were better than his religion, and which, if they could have developed and grown with the latter, might have delivered it from fears, and have converted it into a source of peace as well as of activity: but whether from the irremediable taint of the past, or owing to influence that proved too strong for Kebles, this growth did not go on.1 [Note: E. A. Abbott, Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman.]

Missing the Infinite, man grasps the finite good, clings passionately to it, and struggles with a melancholy earnestness to become his own Providence. But with faith in Godthe belief that He has not launched a world into existence from which thereafter He sits remote, merely watching it, or now and then interfering to help a stumbling creature when it calls; the belief that He remains within His own creation, as its inmost and essential life; the great Sustainer, in whom it lives and moves, and has its beingwith this faith, I say, the heart of the creature who is also a child, may well disburden itself of care. It is careful for nothing, simply because it believes that God is careful for everything; that His tender mercies are over all His works; and that the laws by which He governs the world are but the expressions of His living will, the signs of His immediate agency; not the handiwork of a retired Artificer, but the manifestation of an ever present God.2 [Note: W. Knight, Things New and Old, 101.]

The crosses which we make for ourselves by over-anxiety as to the future are not heaven-sent crosses. We tempt God by our false wisdom, seeking to forestall His arrangements, and struggling to supplement His Providence by our own provisions. The fruit of our wisdom is always bitter. God suffers it to be so, that we may be discomfited when we forsake His Fatherly guidance. The future is not ours: we may never have a future; or, if it comes, it may be wholly different from all we foresaw. Let us shut our eyes to that which God hides from us in the hidden depths of His wisdom. Let us worship without seeing; let us be silent, and lie still. The crosses actually laid upon us always bring their own special grace and consequent comfort with them; we see the hand of God when it is laid upon us. But the crosses wrought by anxious forebodings are altogether beyond Gods dispensations; we meet them without the special grace adapted to the neednay, rather in a faithless spirit, which precludes grace; and so everything seems hard and unendurable. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, our Lord has said; and the evil of each day becomes good if we leave it to God.3 [Note: Fnelon, Letters to Women.]

II

A Precept

Let your requests be made known unto God.

Relief can never be obtained, and the Divine command of the text obeyed, by a mere effort of will. No man can shake off care simply by trying to do so. Neither can it be done by arguing with ourselves as to its uselessness and hurtfulness; nor yet can it be done, nor should it be attempted, by hardening ourselves into an unfeeling stoical indifference. Here is the better way, the only legitimate and effectual way of getting free from care. It is to cast our care on Him who cares for us. It is to bring the burden which we can neither bear nor shake off and leave it at the Lords feet in prayer. Prayer is the only real and thorough cure for care. To be full of faith is the only effectual way to be empty of all fear. To flee with it within the veil, and to fall with it at the feet of God, is the only mode of being truly eased of the burden of anxiety and gloom. So In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

A lady reports that, after the solemnities of a communion season, she and a friend were walking along Union Terrace, Aberdeen, behind Dr. Kidd and several of his brethren who had been assisting, when they heard him sayCan you tell me how it is that, though I can bear great troubles as well as most men, the petty annoyances of life irritate me so that I say things which cause me much grief and shame afterwards, bring discredit on my Saviours cause, and give the enemy cause to blaspheme? The answer came from Mr. Rose, of NiggYes, brother; you carry your great trials to God, but the little ones you try to manage for yourself, and so fail. Aye, aye; that is the true cause, I believe.1 [Note: J. Stark, Dr. Kidd of Aberdeen, 259.]

1. The means by which God would have us lay bare our hearts to Himby prayer and supplication.

(1) Prayer.The word which is here translated prayer refers not to the petitions, but to the mood of the petitioner. It describes a frame of mind. The soul can be in a prayerful attitude, even though it refrains from making requests. All real prayer begins, not in words, but in moods. The great mystics have ever been experts in the knowledge of this secret. They have disciplined their souls to a reverent and receptive pose, until, at all times, their souls have been frankly open to the Divine. They have bowed in silence before the Lord, rejecting, in the first place, the clumsy expedient of words, and they have quietly drawn in breath in the fear of the Lord. It is here that we find the explanation of Pauls counsel to pray without ceasing. If essential prayer be a matter of words, the counsel is impossible; but if essential prayer be a spiritual posture, it is possible to obey the counsel throughout all the changing hours and moments of the years.

Prayer is the great lever of the spiritual life: nayto speak in various figuresit is the lung by which it breathes, it is the atmosphere in which it floats, the wing by which it speeds its flight, and the language by which it daily communes with its own Original.1 [Note: W. Knight, Things New and Old, 114.]

Years ago an ingenious inventor tried to build a vessel in such a fashion that the saloon for passengers should remain upon one level, howsoever the hull might be tossed by waves. It was a failure, if I remember rightly. But if we are thus joined to God, He will do for our inmost hearts what the inventor tried to do with the chamber within his ship. The hull may be buffeted, but the inmost chamber where the true self sits will be kept level and unmoved. Prayer in the highest sense, by which I mean the exercise of aspiration, trust, submissionprayer will fight against and overcome all anxieties.2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

(2) Supplication.Actual petition for the supply of present wants is meant by supplication. To ask for that supply will very often be to get it. To tell God what I think I need goes a long way always to bringing me the gift that I do need. If I have an anxiety which I am ashamed to speak to Him, that silence is a sign that I ought not to have it; and if I have a desire that I do not feel I can put into a prayer, that feeling is a warning to me not to cherish such a desire. There are many vague and oppressive anxieties that come and cast a shadow over our hearts, but if we could once define them, and put them into plain words, we should find that we vaguely fancied them a great deal larger than they were, and that the shadow they flung was immensely longer than the thing that flung it. Put your anxieties into definite speech. It will very often reduce their proportions to your own apprehension. Speaking of them, even to a man who may be able to do little to help, eases them wonderfully. Put them into definite speech to God; and there are very few of them that will survive.

Some weavers were working diligently in an Eastern palace. The men and women wondered to see a little child amongst them, whose work always went smoothly on, without a break or even a snarl in the thread. They asked her how it happened that they could not succeed so well; their silk constantly got frayed and broken, and the beautiful pattern was worn and soiled by their mistakes and tears. The child answered: I only go and tell the King. They declared that they did the same, going to Him once a week. But, she softly answered,

I go and get the knot untied

At the first little tangle.

That is the secret of perpetual peace. If we were only careful always to take our little anxieties to our Kingand to leave them therewe should form habits strong enough to carry us triumphantly through every great crisis.1 [Note: Dora Farncomb, The Vision of His Face, 142.]

We tell Thee of our care,

Of the sore burden pressing day by day;

And in the light and pity of Thy face

The burden melts away.

We breathe our secret wish,

The importunate longing which no man may see;

We ask it humbly, or, more restful still,

We leave it all to Thee.

The thorns are turned to flowers;

All dark perplexities seem light and fair;

A mist is lifted from the heavy hours,

And Thou art everywhere.2 [Note: Susan Coolidge.]

(3) Thanksgiving.With thanksgiving. This may be taken to indicate both the general spirit in which suppliants should approach the Throne of Grace, and also an important and indispensable part of their worship. It may teach on the one hand that when we go into Gods presence, however distressful our circumstances may be, we should not be moody, morose, doubtful; but rather, in respect to Him and His help, full of hope, and full of gratitude. It may teach on the other hand that while engaged in asking new blessings and fresh supplies of grace, we should not fail to call to mind and to record with thanks those that have been already received.

With thanksgivingPaul would never omit that element from his receipt when giving his cure for care. Half our worries would immediately melt away if we began to sing a psalm of praise. Some anxieties can resist everything except thanksgiving. When that begins, they melt away like icebergs in tropical seas. The life that is ungrateful is very cold, and icebergs abound in its atmosphere. Let us raise the temperature and we shall be amazed at the results. A really thankful heart is so crowded with the sense of Gods mercies that it can offer no hospitality to worry and care.

Thanklessness is a parching wind, drying up the fountain of pity, the dew of mercy, the streams of grace. It is a destructive thing, an enemy of grace, hostile to salvation. As far as I have any insight, most dear brethren, nothing so displeases God in the sons of grace, the converted, as ingratitude. For it blocks up the way against grace, and where it is, thenceforth grace finds no access, no place. Thinkest thou that to such an one greater grace shall be given, and not rather what he seemeth to have be taken from him? For doth not that rightly seem to be lost which is given to one ungrateful? or may not God repent to have given what seemeth to be lost? Grateful then and devout must a man be, who longeth that the gift of grace which he hath received should not only abide with him, but be multiplied.1 [Note: St. Bernard.]

The circulations of the ocean constitute a plain and permanent picture of the relations between a human soul and a redeeming God. The sea is always drawing what it needs down to itself, and also always sending up of its abundance into the heavens. It is always getting, and always giving. So, when in the covenant the true relation has been constituted, the redeemed one gets and gives, gives and gets; draws from God a stream of benefits, sends up to God the incense of praise.2 [Note: W. Arnot, The Anchor of the Soul, 90.]

I myself am exceedingly variable in spirits, and I always find nothing is near so delightful and inspiriting when I am in low spirits as praising and thanking God in the midst of His works. Often and often at the farm have I stood between the cottage and garden door and thanked God for making the world so fair and myself so susceptible of its beauty. I am generally quite happy after that.1 [Note: Bishop Walsham How.]

2. The scope of our intercourse with God.In everything. There is absolutely no restriction as to the kind of business that is to bring us to the Throne of Grace; and correspondingly there is no excuse for keeping any kind of burden to ourselves. It is not about what we call religious matters only, or even about great and important matters, whether sacred or secular, that we are permitted to go to God. It is about all matters whatsoever that concern us. Whatever touches our interests, whatever raises a care within our bosoms, whatever is worth an anxiety or thought, may be made, and should be made, the subject of prayer. He to whom we go is indeed the Infinite Jehovah; but He is also our Father, deeply interested in all that affects our welfare and comfort; and as there is nothing too great for His power to accomplish, so there is nothing too small for His condescension to notice.

He is not a man of little faith who puts little things into his prayer. That very thing shows him to be a man of great faith. A feeble pulsation in the heart may keep the life-blood circulating for a while near the centre and in the vitals; but it requires a great strong life in the heart to send the blood down into the tips of the fingers, and make it circulate through the outmost, smallest branches of the veins. In like manner, it is the strongest spiritual life that animates the whole course, even to the minutest transactions, and brings to God the smallest matters of our personal history as well as the great concern of pardon and eternal life.

A multitude of little pimples may be quite as painful and dangerous as a large ulcer. A cloud of gnats may put as much poison into a man with their many stings as will a snake with its one bite. And if we are not to get help from God by telling Him about little things, there will be very little of our lives that we shall tell Him about at all. For life is a mountain made up of minute flakes. The years are only a collection of seconds. Every mans life is an aggregate of trifles.2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

The Antidote to Anxiety

Literature

Allon (H.), The Indwelling Christ, 107.

Barry (A.), Sermons Preached at Westminster Abbey, 313.

Dewhurst (E. M.), The King and His Servants, 160.

Gordon (S. D.), Quiet Talks on Service, 193.

Hare (A. W.), The Alton Sermons, 384.

Hickey (F. F.), Short Sermons, 2nd Ser., 9.

Jowett (J. H.), The High Calling, 180.

Knight (W.), Things New and Old, 109.

Maclaren (A.), Leaves from the Tree of Life, 219.

McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, iii. 375.

Martin (C. H.), Plain Bible Addresses, 199.

Pierson (A. T.), The Heart of the Gospel, 177.

Purves (P. C.), The Divine Cure for Heart-Trouble, 16.

Roberts (D.), A Letter from Heaven, and other Sermons, 211.

Roberts (W. Page), Our Prayer-Book, Conformity and Conscience, 253.

Yorke (H. L.), The Law of the Spirit, 269.

Christian World Pulpit, viii. 110 (Lamson); xii. 143 (Fleming); xvi. 205 (Goadby); xliv. 403 (Jefferis).

Literary Churchman, xxiv. (1878) 509.

Preachers Magazine, ix. (1898) 81.

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

careful: Dan 3:16, Mat 6:25-33, Mat 10:19, Mat 13:22, Luk 10:41, Luk 12:29, 1Co 7:21, 1Co 7:32, 1Pe 5:7

in: Gen 32:7-12, 1Sa 1:15, 1Sa 30:6, 2Ch 32:20, 2Ch 33:12, 2Ch 33:13, Psa 34:5-7, Psa 51:15, Psa 55:17, Psa 55:22, Psa 62:8, Pro 3:5, Pro 3:6, Pro 16:3, Jer 33:3, Mat 7:7, Mat 7:8, Luk 18:1, Luk 18:7, Luk 12:22, Eph 6:18, Col 4:2, 1Th 5:17, 1Th 5:18, 1Pe 4:7, Jud 1:20, Jud 1:21

thanksgiving: 1Sa 7:12, 2Co 1:11, Eph 5:20, Col 3:15, Col 3:17

known: Pro 15:8, Son 2:14, Mat 6:8

Reciprocal: Gen 20:17 – General Gen 24:12 – I pray Gen 32:9 – Jacob Lev 25:20 – General 1Sa 1:18 – went her 1Sa 2:1 – prayed 1Sa 8:6 – prayed 1Ki 8:38 – the plague Neh 2:4 – So I prayed Neh 11:17 – thanksgiving Psa 18:3 – I will Psa 30:8 – unto Psa 37:5 – Commit Psa 61:1 – Hear Psa 116:2 – therefore Psa 142:2 – I showed Ecc 2:22 – and of the Isa 32:17 – the work Isa 37:15 – General Jer 11:20 – revealed Jer 32:16 – I Prayed Eze 36:37 – I will yet Dan 6:10 – gave Joe 1:19 – to thee Mat 20:32 – What Mar 4:19 – the cares Mar 10:51 – What Luk 18:41 – What Luk 21:34 – cares Joh 2:3 – They have Joh 11:41 – Father Act 10:4 – thy Act 12:6 – the same Act 20:36 – he kneeled Rom 1:10 – request Rom 7:25 – thank God Rom 12:12 – continuing Eph 5:4 – but Col 1:3 – give Heb 4:16 – obtain

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A DIVINE PRESCRIPTION

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests he made known unto God.

Php 4:6

What a simple prescription it isprayer, supplication, thanksgiving; just those three ingredients and nothing more.

I. There is the first ingredient, prayer.We have often heard the advice given to the anxious and careworn: You must forget yourself; you must not think of your affairs, but occupy your mind with something that will divert it from its worries. How can a man do this more effectually than in prayer? Prayer draws our eyes away from self and fixes them upon God. Prayer weans our thoughts from our own weakness and leads them to rest upon His power. Instead of dwelling upon the worries of our lot or the difficulties of our position, we contemplate in prayer His faithfulness, His promises, and His love.

II. The second ingredient is supplication.A distinction may be drawn between the two words. Prayer is the more general term; supplication is petition brought to a focus and carried into detail. You stand at a parting of the ways, and must follow one path or the other. Dont make up your mind first and then ask Gods blessing when the step has been definitely taken. Consult Him from the very beginning and seek your earliest directions from heaven. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. And that burden of yours, whatever it may be, cast it upon the Lord. Tell Him point by point and item by item all the difficulty and all your need. Roll it upon Himthat is the force of the originalroll it upon Him wholly and completely, and when you have done so do not attempt by want of faith to fix it upon your own shoulders again.

III. The third ingredient is thanksgiving.One of the most powerful spiritual tonics we can use in moments of depression is to think of the mercies we have received at the hands of our Heavenly Father. For thinking soon leads to thanking.

Illustration

When General Gordon desired to commune with God he would drop his handkerchief at the door of his tent, and no one would disturb him then. Each soldier knew by the handkerchief lying on the ground that the General was at prayer, and none dare cross the threshold until he came forth again refreshed by his intercourse with God. And what was the result of this habit? Prayerful in everything, he was careful in nothing. When he was appointed to govern the Soudan, a post of manifold difficulty and peril, he wrote: No man ever had a harder task than I have before me; but it is all as a feather to me. My work is great, but it does not weigh me down. I feel my own weakness, and look to Him Who is mighty, and I leave the issue, without inordinate care, to Him.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

GODS CARE

The mind of any one of us would be soon broken down if we had to bear our own troubles and to work our own works without the thought of an overruling Providencea loving and merciful Fathercaring for us. And thus, looking at the question on the human sidefrom the needs of our own naturewe see how good and how necessary it is that by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving we should let our requests be made known unto God.

I. These words show us how, and in what spirit, we should do this.We should do it with full and childlike trust. We should attempt no concealments from God; that is, we should be frank and open in our prayers. The danger generally is that we should conceal our wishes and our cares from God; should, perhaps, think that they are too trifling, or that there is no help for them. And if we act thus, the burden of them remains upon us; we receive no comfort nor relief. If we desire Gods help and Gods support under our cares, we must take those cares to Him and tell them to Him.

II. The text describes what ought to be the habit of our lives.Most persons bring their burdens to God sometimes, at some periods of their lives; at times of special trouble or grief, when it seems as though their trouble was too heavy to bear alone. Most persons do this. But this is a very different thing from living habitually in openness of mind and confidence with God. That is what the Christian must aim at.

III. How different must be the feeling of him who has no such loving trust in Godwho keeps his own counselbears his own burdensand thinks it somewhat weak to trust his purposes and his troubles to God! He thinks himself wise enough and strong enough to guide and protect himself and his belongings. Such a claim may be sustained, though imperfectly, in the time of health and strength; but what becomes of it in the time of age and of sickness, when the strong arm becomes weak as an infants, and the clear brain and the resolute will are utterly useless and powerless?

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

(Php 4:6.) -Be careful for nothing. The accusative , emphatic from position, is that of object. The verb is followed sometimes by the dative, expressing that on account of which anxiety is felt, though and are also used, as well as in Mat 6:34. There is no occasion with Wahl to supply , nor with Hoelemann to suppose the accusative used adverbially. Chrysostom connects this with the previous verse,-If their enemies opposed them, and they saw the wicked live in luxury, they were not to be distressed. But the apostle has passed away from that previous thought, and speaks now of another subject. The solicitude guarded against is that state of mind in which one frets himself to know more than he is able, or reach something too far beyond him, or is anxious to make provision for contingencies, to guard against suspected evils, and nerve himself against apprehended failures and disasters. The spirit is thrown into a fever by such troubles, so that joy in the Lord is abridged, and this forbearance would be seriously endangered. Not that the apostle counsels utter indifference, for indifference would preclude prayer; but his meaning is, that no one of them should tease and torment himself about anything, when he may get what he wants by prayer. There is nothing any one would be the better of having, which he may not hopefully ask from God. Why then should he be anxious?- why, especially, should any one prolong such anxiety, or nurse it into a chronic distemper? Mat 6:25; 1Pe 5:7. The apostle does not counsel an unnatural stoicism. He was a true friend of humanity, and taught it not how to despise, but how to lighten its burdens. If it could not bear them itself, he showed it how to cast them on God. For thus he counsels-

-but in everything by prayer and supplication, along with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. The noun means literally a thing asked. Luk 23:24; 1Jn 5:15. By a natural process it also signifies, as here, a thing desired and therefore to be asked. Hence the phrase . Psa 37:4. Let the things you seek be made known- . The construction is peculiar. This preposition is often used after verbs of similar meaning, and seems to signify, as Ast gives it-apud, coram. Lex. Platon., sub voce. It points out destination or direction-Let your requests be made known toward God-disclosed before Him, that they may reach him. The simple dative would have merely implied direct information to Him; but points to the hearer of prayer as One in whose august presence petitions are to be made known. Act 8:24. See under Php 2:19.

The form which the presentation of such requests was to assume was -by prayer and supplication. The datives express the manner or means, for the one involves the other, by which the action enjoined in was to be performed. Bernhardy, p. 100. The two nouns are not synonymous, and mean something more than Storr’s sociis precibus. See under Eph 6:18 for the peculiar distinction. The repetition of the article gives each of the nouns a special independence. Winer, 19, 5, (a). By the use of the first noun they are bidden tell their wants to God in religious feeling and form; and by the second they are counselled to make them known in earnest and direct petition, in every case as the circumstances might require. But to this exercise of prayer and supplication is added thanksgiving – – accompanied with thanksgiving. This noun has not the article, and, as Ellicott says, only twice has it the article in the writings of the apostle- 1Co 14:16; 2Co 4:15. Alford’s idea is, that the article is omitted because the matters themselves may not be recognized as grounds of , but it should accompany every request. Ellicott thinks that , thanksgiving for past blessings, is in its nature more general and comprehensive. Both notions, though true in themselves, are rather limited in the grounds assigned for them. For not only are there many reasons for thanksgiving to God, who has already conferred on us so much, while we are asking for more, but thankfulness is also due to Him for the very privilege of making known our requests to Him; for the promises He has given us, and of which we put Him in remembrance when we pray to Him; for the confidence He has created in us that such solicitations shall not be in vain; and for the hope that He will do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. That He is on a throne of grace, and is ever accessible-that He is never weary with our asking-and that His gifts are never exhausted and never lose their adaptation, is surely matter of thankfulness to be ever expressed before Him by all suppliants. 1Th 5:18; 1Ti 2:1. See under Col 4:2.

The apostle advises such a practice universally-

-in everything. The Syriac version renders the phrase -in all time, and this rendering is adopted by Grotius and Rheinwald. The phrase, however, stands in direct contrast to -care for nothing, but in everything pray. 1Co 1:5; 2Co 4:8; 2Co 6:4; 2Co 7:5; 2Co 9:11; 1Th 5:18. Chrysostom thus explains- , , . Matthies proposes to connect both meanings-that of time and place, but this would mar the directness of antithesis. The apostle makes no exception. Nothing should disturb their equanimity, and whatever threatened to do it should be made matter of prayer-that God would order it otherwise, or give grace to bear it; or deepen reliance on Himself; or give them that elevation and quiet which spring from the assurance that the Lord is at hand. Such prayer and supplication with thanksgiving relieves the spirit, evinces its confidence in God, deepens its earnestness, and prepares it for the expected answer.

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Php 4:6. Careful is from MERIMNAO which has a variety of meanings. Thayer defines it at this place, “to be anxious; to be troubled with cares.” Paul does not mean that Christians should be indifferent about the responsibilities of life, but they should not permit such things to absorb their minds so that it will detract them from useful activities. Instead, they should trust in the Lord and make their troubles a matter of prayer. (See 1Pe 5:7.)

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Php 4:6. Be over-anxious in nothing. Careful has lost its sense of full of care, and we have no good word to take its place. The feeling which the apostle wishes to check is that undue care for the things of this life which puts this world and its concerns before the service of the Lord. It is the Martha-like anxiety which becomes troubled about many things, so as to forget the one thing needful.

but in everything by prayer and supplication. He is not content with exhorting, but he adds the means whereby his advice may be followed. In all things come to God, not merely in those which may be called strictly religious concerns, but whenever the over-anxiety is in danger of becoming too great. In prayer and supplication the former applies rather to the outpouring of the soul, the casting off the load of care upon God; the latter to the requests which we feel prompted to make unto Him.

with thanksgiving. This must always be the Christians tone towards God. If troubles come, he must be thankful for the Fathers discipline, and strive to find out why they are sent; in joy, thanksgiving will surely come unbidden.

let your requests be made known unto God. The Christians forbearance is to be known unto all men, not published or paraded, but so visible in the life that it cannot fail to be recognised. The requests unto God are to be made known by open declaration. God knows mens needs, but willeth that they should call upon Him.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. The duty exhorted to, namely, to be anxiously and solicitously careful for nothing; it is not care, but carefulness, that is, inordinate care, heart-cutting, distracting, and soul-rending care, and solicitude, which is here forbidden: there is a prudent, provident care for the things of this life, which is an unquestionable duty.

Observe, 2. The remedy prescribed for the prevention of solicitous care; and that is, fervent prayer: In every thing by prayer, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known. The people of God may and ought to have recourse to him in every thing.

Observe, 3. The apostle directs to thanksgiving in every thing, as well as to prayer: In every thing by prayer, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known. When afflicted, we are to be thankful for the expected benefit of afflictions; when tempted, to be thankful that God will not leave us to be tempted above what we are able; when we fall into sin, there is cause for thankfulness that we are not left to run into all sin, that we were not cut off in the very act of sin, and did not die in our sins: thus are we in everything to give thanks.

Observe, 4. The benefit and advantage which St. Paul assures them would redound unto them, by the practice of the fore-mentioned duties, namely, sweet peace which passeth all understanding; that is, which none can conceive that have not felt it, and none can express that have experienced it. This peace, he tells them, will keep and guard their hearts and minds; a sound peace is the soul’s guard against all inward terrors and outward troubles: as the persons of princes are secured by guards of armed and valiant men, who watch while they sleep; so are christians guarded and secured by the peace of God, better than any prince ever was by a guard of forty thousand men. The peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus; that is, through the assistance of Christ Jesus.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

4:6 {6} Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with {f} thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

(6) The third is, that we are not too anxious for anything, but with sure confidence give God thanks, and desire from him whatever we have need of, that with a quiet conscience we may wholly and with all our hearts submit ourselves to him.

(f) So David began very often with tears, but ended with thanksgiving.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Earlier Paul commended Timothy for being anxious over the welfare of the Philippians (Php 2:20). Here he said we should not be anxious about anything. The same Greek word (a present imperative, merimnate) appears in both places. The resolution of this problem probably lies in viewing anxiety as concern that may become fretful and inappropriate if taken too far. Paul’s point here was that rather than becoming distraught over a particular situation we should take it to the Lord in prayer (cf. Mat 6:25-34). We should pray about everything that concerns us. Someone has said, "Why worry when you can pray?" Prayer needs to replace worry in the Christian’s life.

Paul used several different words for prayer in this verse. "Prayer" (proseuche) is the most general term for our communications to God. "Supplication" (NASB) or "petition" (NIV, deesis) refers to requests for particular benefits. "Thanksgiving" (eucharistias) is grateful acknowledgment of past mercies. "Requests" (aitemata) looks at individual requests of God that form part of the whole prayer. [Note: See Trench, pp. 176-80; and Bryan Gordon Burtch, "The Greek Words for Prayer in the New Testament" (Th.M. thesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1951).] Paul offered strong encouragement to seek release from anxiety in prayer and more prayer. [Note: Hawthorne, p. 183.]

"Lack of gratitude is the first step to idolatry (Rom 1:21)." [Note: Fee, Paul’s Letter . . ., p. 409.]

Howard Hendricks called Php 4:2-6 "a five-part recipe for conflict resolution: (1) ’Rejoice in the Lord,’ that is, get beyond yourselves and look to the Lord. (2) ’Let your gentleness be evident to all.’ In other words speak with kindness to each other. (3) ’Do not be anxious.’ Relax, and give it all to God. (4) ’Be thankful.’ The simple act of expressing gratitude for our blessings takes the heat out of infection. (5) Present your requests to God. Prayer realigns us and restores peace . . ." [Note: Howard G. Hendricks, Color Outside the Lines: A Revolutionary Approach to Creative Leadership, p. 96.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)