What to Think About

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things’’ (Phil. iv. 8).

Here is a man who, after a life full of menace and turbulence, every road heavy and bristling with hostilities, has kept his spirit perfectly wholesome and unembittered. His eyes are still expert watchers for the sweet and beautiful. This passage rests upon the background of the Apostle’s life like a brilliant jewel on dark plush. He is now an old man, with body bowed and broken, and he is waiting his trial at the judgment seat of hard and unsympathetic Rome. And the counsel which I have quoted

is a counsel born of his old age. “Whatsoever things are lovely, think on these things.” I do not think it is an invariable tendency for people when they are growing old to concentrate more and more on the lovely, to find an expanding delight in optimistic tokens, and to feel the air sweeter and softer as the day declines. Old age too frequently shrivels in mind as well as in body, in hopefulness as well as in endeavour. But here is the Apostle, a man who up to the days of manhood had been a jealous Pharisee and had acquired habits of severe and rigid exclusiveness, and lo, by the grace of God, he has broken his prison house, and now he is growing old cheerfully, uninjured by the treachery and antagonisms of the way, roaming in the wonderful meadows of life’s delights, and rejoicing in “the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

“Think on these things.” “These things” constitute the prescribed liberty of Christian manhood. They are a kind of inventory of the mental furnishings of the Christian life. And I think everybody will readily grant that the furnishings are not cheap and stingy, not bare and monotonous, but liberal and varied, graceful and refined.

Now let me review these glorious possibilities, this authorised dominion in Christian freedom of thought.

“Whatsoever things are true” True, not simply veracious. The word “true” is not used by the Apostle as we use it in a court of law, when we enjoin a witness to “speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The things described in a police court as true are usually ugly and repulsive; truth is always beautiful. Truth in a police court is correspondence with fact. Truth as used in the New Testament is correspondence with God. An unclean story may be accurate; an unclean story can never be true. A story is true when in very substance it shares the likeness of Him who is the truth. Veracity accurately describes a happening, truth describes a particular happening. We are therefore enjoined not to think about merely accurate things, but about accurate things which unveil the face of God.

“Whatsoever things are honourable.” Things that are worthy of honour, worthy of reverence, the august and the venerable. The Authorised Version uses the old English word “honest,” which is suggestive of gravity, seemliness, dignity. There is a certain fine stateliness in the word, recalling the impressive grandeur of a cathedral pile. Whatsoever things make the character of men and women to resemble the imposing proportions of a cathedral “think on these things.”

“Whatsoever things are just.” And yet our word “just” does not convey the Apostle’s mind and meaning. Justice can be very cold and steely, like the justice of a Shylock. It may mean only superficial exactitude as between man and man. But to be really just is to be right with God. No man is really just until he is adjusted to his Maker. Whatsoever things satisfy the standards of the Almighty, “think on these things.”

“Whatsoever things are pure.” But to be pure is to be more than just. It is to be stainless, blameless, and unblemished.

“Whatsoever things are lovely.” We are to bring the amiable and the lovable within the circle of our regard. John Calvin gives the meaning as “morally agreeable and pleasant.” I am glad that juicy word came from the lips of that austere prophet. There are many people who think that religion is synonymous with the disagreeable, and that only when things are unpalatable may we regard ourselves as safe. Dr. Matheson tells of a young woman who came to him in great distress over her failure to fulfil the religious duties of life. He was aware that at this very time she was living a life of sacrificial devotion to a blind father. “I asked if this service of hers was not a religious duty. She answered, ‘ Oh no, it cannot be, because that brings me such joy, and it is the delight of my heart to serve my father.’” It is a most common and perilous mistake. There are tens of thousands of duties and liberties which are juicy and delicious, and they are the portion of those who sit down at the Lord’s feast.

“Whatsoever things are of good report.”

Not merely things that are well reported of, but things which themselves have a fine voice, things that are fair speaking, and therefore gracious, winsome, winning, and attractive. And then, as though he were afraid that the vast enclosure was not yet wide enough, and that some fair and beautiful thing might still be outside its comprehensive pale, the Apostle adds still more inclusive terms, and says, “If there he any virtue,” whatever is merely excellent; “and if there he any praise,” whatever is in any degree commendable, — take account of them, bring them within the circle of your commendation and delight, “think on these things.” Fasten your eyes upon the lovely wheresoever the lovely may be found. Such is the vast and authorised circle of our mental hospitality. Let us therefore go about on journeys of exploration. Let us seek for these lovely things in humanity, in nature, and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everywhere our eyes will be surprised by gracious discoveries, and in the brightness of our possessions we shall be “children of light.”