It is not guaranteed to us, I think, that we shall certainly be brought here on earth to perfect intellectual agreement by a realized union with Christ all round. Such agreement will certainly be promoted by such a realization; we all know how powerfully, in almost all matters outside number and figure, feeling can influence reasoning; and to have feeling rightly adjusted, "in Him that is true," must be a great aid to just reasoning, and so a great contribution to mental agreement. Thomas Scott, in his _Force of Truth_, (a memorable record of experience,) maintains that vastly more doctrinal concord would be attained in Christendom if all true Christians unreservedly and with a perfect will sought for "God's heart" (and mind) "in God's words."[2] But it is a law of our present state, even in Christ, that "we know in part"; and while this is so, certain discrepancies of inference would seem to be necessary, where many minds work each with its partial knowledge. It is otherwise with "_the spirit_ of our mind," the attitude of will and affection in which we think. In the Lord Jesus Christ _this_ is meant to be, and can be, rectified indeed, as "every thought is brought into captivity" to Him. If so, to "stand firm in Him" is the way of escape out of all such miseries of dissension (whether between two friends, or two Churches, or two enterprises) as are due not to reasoning but to feeling. "In Him" there is _really_ no room for envy, and retaliation, and "the unhappy desire of becoming great," and the eager combat for our own opinion _as such_. "Standing firm in Him" the Euodias and Syntyches of all times and places _must tend_ to be of one mind, one attitude of mind (_phronein_). So far as they are, in a sinful sense, not so "minded," it is because they are half out of Him.
But now St Paul comes to them, name by name. What must the tender weight of the words have been as they were first read aloud at Philippi!
Ver. 2. +To Euodia I appeal+ (_parakalo_),[3] +and to Syntyche I appeal, to be of the same mind, in the Lord+; to lay aside differences of feeling, born of self, in the power of their common union in Christ.[5] +Aye+ (read
Ver. 3. _nai_, not _kai_), +and I beg thee also+, thee in _thy_ place, as I seek to do in mine, +thou genuine yoke-fellow,[5] help them+ (_autais_)--these sisters of ours thus at variance, +women who+ (_aitines_) +wrestled along with me+, as devoted and courageous workers, +in the+ cause of the +Gospel+, when the first conflicts with the powers of evil were fought at Philippi; yes, do this loving service, +with Clement[6] too, and my other fellow-workers, whose names are in the Book of Life+; the Lord's own, "written in heaven," His for ever.[7]
Wonderful is the great use of small occasions everywhere in Scripture. Minor incidents in a biography are texts for sentences which afford oracles of truth and hope for ever. Local and transitory errors, like that of the Thessalonians about their departed friends, give opportunity for a prophecy on which bereaved hearts are to rest and rejoice till the last trumpet sounds. The unhappy disagreement of two pious women at Philippi is dealt with in words which lead up to the thought of the eternal love of God for His chosen; as if the very unworthiness of the matter in hand, by a sort of repulsion, drove the inspired thought to the utmost height, without for one moment diverting it from its purpose of peace and blessing. And now, in the passage which is to follow, the thought still keeps its high and holy level. It says no more indeed of the Book of Life. But it unfolds in one sentence after another the manifestation here below of the eternal life in all its holy loveliness. It invites Euodia, and Syntyche, and us with them, to the sight of what the believer is called to be, and may be, day by day, as he rejoices in the Lord, and recollects His presence, and tells Him everything as it comes, and so lives "in rest and quietness," deep in His peace; and finds his happy thoughts occupied not with the miseries of self-esteem and self-assertion, but with all that is pure and good, in the smile of the God of peace.