{"id":4828,"date":"2022-07-05T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=4828"},"modified":"2022-06-25T09:17:25","modified_gmt":"2022-06-25T15:17:25","slug":"approving-what-is-excellent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=4828","title":{"rendered":"Approving what is excellent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As we move into Philippians in our <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/11_bp84PjJK4vaGjUQdsHVq12ESqWnZkI\/view?usp=sharing\" target=\"_blank\">New Testament reading plan<\/a>, we come upon another fine prayer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>And it is my prayer that&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>your love may abound more and more,\u00a0<\/em><ul><li><em>with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may\u00a0<\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><em>approve what is excellent, and so be\u00a0<\/em><\/li><li><em>pure and blameless for the day of Christ,\u00a0<\/em><\/li><li><em>filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1.9 &#8211; 11, ESV, bulleted for clarity)<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The challenge is always to \u201capprove what is excellent.\u201d To discriminate between good and excellent. For example, I probably waste too much time on word and math problems! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some excellent things Paul wants the Philippians to approve are found later on in this letter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>standing firm in one spirit, <\/em><\/li><li><em>with one mind <\/em><\/li><li><em>striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. (Philippians 1.27, ESV, bulleted for clarity)<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Stand united, singular in vision, contending for people&#8217;s trust in the Message, the good news.<\/em> (The end of the same verse from the Message)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe we need to care more about the good news than the bad news that floods our media these days!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we move into Philippians in our New Testament reading plan, we come upon another fine prayer: And it is my prayer that&nbsp; your love may abound more and more,\u00a0 with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may\u00a0 approve what is excellent, and so be\u00a0 pure and blameless for the day of Christ,\u00a0 filled &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=4828\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Approving what is excellent<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-1fS","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4830,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828\/revisions\/4830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}