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Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable\u2014if anything is excellent or praiseworthy\u2014think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me\u2014put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:8-9)

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The whole of this letter to the Philippians has two concerns in its background\u2014forms of persecution that Paul and the Philippians are suffering from the outside, and, under that stress, forms of conflict that threaten to tear this church apart from the inside (like the conflict between Euodia and Syntyche).\xa0

Similar dynamics have played out in every era of the church.\xa0 Even today.\xa0 In our day, the church is shrinking\u2014by roughly 14% in the last decade by the latest census numbers.\xa0 We feel this and are tempted to believe that our decline is the result of facing persecution from a secularizing society on the outside that is peeling away our members.\xa0 Under this stress, we much more easily fall into forms of conflict that threaten to tear the church apart from the inside.\xa0

As the writer of Ecclesiastes says: \u201cthere is nothing new under the sun.\u201d\xa0

In the face of these pressures from outside and inside, Paul has invited us to seek joy and conversation in the Lord\u2019s presence that we might find the peace of Christ.\xa0\xa0And now, finally, he invites us to simply contemplate better things.\xa0 Rather than letting our minds mull endlessly over the problems, pressures, and sins that threaten us from without and within, Paul invites us to feed our minds with virtuous things that are excellent and praiseworthy instead.\xa0

\u201cYou are what you eat\u201d the saying goes.\xa0 If you feed your mind a constant stream of junk\u2014ruminations on sin, fear of wildfires and climate disasters, loathing of the government, contemplation of persecution and secularization, mistrust of fellow church members, despair about the future, and whatever else is wrong with this world\u2014well, if that\u2019s all your mind chews over in a day, you\u2019re going to get indigestion.\xa0 And you may very well descend into becoming more and more these things that occupy your mind the most: thinking too much about sin may inadvertently tempt you into it; mistrusting others, you may become less trustworthy; loathing the government, you may increasingly become loathsome; despairing about the future, the clouds of despair may begin to haunt your present, too.\xa0

And so Paul invites us to feed our mind with better things.\xa0 \u201cWhatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable\u2014if anything is excellent or praiseworthy\u2014think about such things.\u201d\xa0 That is, chew them over, ponder them carefully, let your mind run wild for a while on the best of what virtue has to offer.\xa0 The vegetables of virtue are far better fare with which to feed your mind than the empty, sugar-rush calories of bad news.\xa0 And indeed, as you ponder these things you may just find that you become more and more what you ingest: thinking of what is true, you align your life to it.\xa0 Pondering what is lovely or beautiful, you may seek to become more lovely in character.\xa0 Pondering the right, you become more righteous.\xa0 \xa0\xa0

Interestingly enough, this list of virtues that Paul offers are not explicitly\xa0Christian virtues.\xa0 Some of them don\u2019t show up anywhere else in the Bible.\xa0 It is actually a virtue list that Paul has drawn from the work of the pagan philosophers of the day.\xa0 The subtle point appears to be this: all that is good and true in this world belongs to God and is a gift of God\u2014no matter who came up with it.\xa0 And so, as you chew over these virtues, your capacity to see God and His Spirit abundantly at work as the Sovereign King over all Creation and Creatures is expanded.\xa0

Slowly it may just dawn: the God whose Spirit is everywhere present and at work, even in a secular world and in the atheist philosopher, is also here with me\u2014and how much more so through Jesus!\xa0 May that notion give you peace.

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