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Ordinary Time · Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time · Year A

Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20

Thanks for Their Gifts

Das Tischgebet (The Mealtime Prayer), Fritz von Uhde
Das Tischgebet (The Mealtime Prayer), Fritz von Uhde, 1885Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
A German painter who put Christ into contemporary peasant kitchens. Here a family says grace at a plain table in daylight, and the guest at the end is unmistakable.I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry. And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours.Fritz von UhdeA German painter and former cavalry officer who set the gospel in contemporary peasant homes, and was attacked for it.Alte Nationalgalerie, BerlinOn Museum Island, holding nineteenth-century art, and the single best place to see Caspar David Friedrich.Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Overview & Insights

“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

Paul’s Sufficiency Paul now comes to one of his main reasons for writing. If this note (4:10–20) was an integral part of the main letter, he has reserved it to the end to give it prominence—his expression of thanks for the gift that Epaphroditus had brought him from the Philippian church.

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Take it further: Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20

Commentary

Background & Word Study

The Church Fathers

Questions preachers ask

What is Paul’s secret of contentment?

Paul has learned to be content in plenty or in want, doing all things through Christ who strengthens him, and trusts that “my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory” (Philippians 4:12–19).

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