Philippians 1:6
“being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
Where this sits
From the opening thanksgiving of the letter, written to a church Paul had founded about ten years earlier and had watched grow from a distance.
Reflection
Notice who is doing the work in this sentence. He began it. He will complete it. There is no clause in which you are the subject.
That is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly, because most of what we are told about spiritual growth puts us in the driving seat. Here the confidence Paul reports has nothing to do with the Philippians' consistency. It rests on the observation that the one who started something is the kind of person who finishes.
The verb behind complete is worth knowing. It means to bring to the intended end, to carry through to what it was for. Not to stop, not to tidy up. To finish according to the original design.
And there is a timescale attached that most of us would find uncomfortable: until the day of Jesus Christ. That is the end of history, not the end of the year. Paul is not promising the Philippians they will be sorted out by Easter. He is telling them the project has a deadline, and the deadline is not one they will live to see.
Which is a mercy if you are honest about the pace of your own change. The verse allows for something slow. It does not allow for something abandoned. A good work in progress and a good work going slowly are the same thing here, and neither is evidence of failure.
- Theme:
- Future
- Book:
- Philippians