Saturday, January 19, 2013

Whatever is ... (8)

How long is the worm in the cocoon?
How long is needed for an ugly duckling to become a swan?
My mother is still one of the best cooks ever. Often she cooks s-l-o-w.
Fellow American's, speed is not everything. The best things can not be rushed.

Paul's efforts to create a metamorphosis of the mind does not happen immediately. He decelerated, caught his breath, and carefully chose the best verb possible to motivate his brothers at Philippi to search out honorable ideas, truth and truthful people, pure, lovely, or of good repute. He longs for them to be completely changed, so he included anything excellent and anything worthy of praise.
He chose 'DWELL'.
Jack McKinney, the same Greek teacher from Harding previously mentioned, explained the word as meaning to take up residence, to live somewhere long enough to 'put down roots'. 
But the word Paul selected was a different Greek work, but with some of same flavor. Logizomai means to reckon, count, compute, calculate, count over; to take into account; weigh the reasons, infer, meditate on, suppose, judge, determine, purpose, or decide.
Strong's Dictionary of Greek words added this footnote. “This word deals with reality. If I 'logizomai' that my bank book has in it, it has in it. Otherwise, I am deceiving myself. This word refers to facts not suppositions.” So DWELL deals with facts, not with anyone's opinion.
Paul wants to properly re-train their minds. He calls on them to spend time thinking about each item in his powerful list. He knows it will take time to develop these mind-correcting qualities. Each one must be factually, thoughtfully considered.
“Thought control is clearly the practice Paul enjoined here.” (Burton Coffman Commentary)
This one strong verb, dwell, requires calculation and computation. The benefits of each quality will provide reasons why it should be adopted.
Our success at properly re-training our minds will be directly proportional to our success at weighing reasons. We must infer results and meditate on the benefits of every quality. If we properly determine the outcomes, we then can plan, purpose, and decide to implement these wonderful traits.
“We are responsible for our thoughts and can hold them to high and holy ideals.” (Robertson's Word Picture of the New Testament).
Yes, Paul could have simply made the list and told them to become such. He also knew the likelihood of failure. Developing these qualities in their minds would subsequently cause a metamorphosis of their lives.
How beautiful the butterfly is. How great mom's soup is. How elegant a swan is.
Slow down, re-think, and become true, honorable, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent and worthy of praise.
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”



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