Philippians 4:9

‘The things which you both learned and received and heard and saw in me, these things do, and the God of peace will be with you.'

Paul then makes a practical application by pointing them to what he and others have taught them and to his own example, something only possible because he knows that his whole life is aimed only at pleasing God. We may perhaps analyse I as follows:

· ‘The things which you have learned.' This has in mind what Paul had taught them, and what others of Paul's retinue have taught them since.

· ‘The things which you have received.' ‘Received' was a technical term for receiving sacred tradition that had been handed on. Thus the idea here is of the traditions about Jesus conveyed by Apostolic teaching (and now recorded in the Gospels).

· ‘The things which you have heard.' This would appear to have in mind what they had heard about the lives of Paul and others who had been called by God to the work of the Gospel, and especially what they had learned about Paul from his fellow-workers (and possibly from copies of his letters which had been passed around the churches).

· ‘The things which you have seen in me.' That is, the things described in chapter 3, something of which they would have seen when he was among them.

So what they must do is ‘the things that they have learned and ‘received' from him and others', based on the Scriptures and the life and teaching of Jesus (what has been ‘received and handed on' has in mind the Apostolic teaching concerning Jesus, now found in the Gospels), and what they have heard about him, and seen in him as he has carried such things into practical living. He wants them to imitate him as he imitates Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). Then, he assures them, the God of peace will be with them.