The Things We Can Never Get Tired of Telling
I didn’t make it very far into Philippians 3 before finding the verse I wanted to write about this week. Verse 1 says:
“Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord! For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.”
Though I love memorizing in NKJV, I think this one makes more sense in some other versions. CSB says:
“To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.”
NLT even says, “I never get tired of telling you these things.”
I’m not sure what the “things” are that Paul is repeating - the command to rejoice in the Lord, or the warnings about Judaizers that come in the next few verses. But I deeply resonate with the sentiment that there are things you never get tired of telling.
I am finding that creativity is less about finding something new to say and more about finding a new way to say the same thing once again.
Sometimes I feel like I keep writing the same things over and over again. But as they say, repetition is the mother of learning.
And as Paul says, it’s a safeguard. Better to say the same thing over and over than to not say it enough.
They say people have to see an ad an average of seven times before they consider buying a product. That if you’re trying to sell or promote something, you should always share about it more often than you think you should - it feels more repetitive to you than to the people seeing your content.
How much more does that apply to biblical truths? If I share about a brand I’m trying to promote so often that you get sick of hearing about it, that’s my problem.
But if I tell you to rejoice in the Lord that often? Every time you hear it is another opportunity for it to sink into your heart.
That’s why Paul says it once here, twice in 4:4, and multiple times in other epistles. Sometimes we don’t want to hear “rejoice in the Lord,” and those are usually the times we need to hear it the most. Other times we just get caught up in life and forget.
Joy in the Lord can be a fragile thing; certainly a thing the enemy loves to attack, and we need reminders to fight for it at every turn.
Or maybe Paul meant that he was about to repeat himself with the warnings in the next verses; to beware of the legalistic Jews who tried to tack on religious works to the saving work of Christ. This, too, is a repetitive theme in Paul’s epistles.
We no longer have those same arguments about circumcision, we’ve just replaced them with our own pet principles about what you have to do to follow Christ. More than ever, we need repetitive reminders to have no confidence in the flesh or our own works.
In fact, those Old Testament rituals that some Jews wanted to carry into the New Testament? Their very purpose was remembrance. They were meant to make the Jews stop dozens of times every day to remember that they were a people set apart, that they were chosen by God, that their nation was built by his works, not their own.
Now, though, we have the Holy Spirit to help us remember. The requirements of daily rituals of remembrance are wiped clean.
Still, we are human and forget who we are all too easily, and that is why repetitive practices of remembrance can be so, so helpful.
I have all kinds of reminders scattered in notebooks, notes on my phone, and sticky notes around the house - words, phrases and verses about who God is and who I am in him.
Because there is safety and security in surrounding yourself with the truth your life is built on. Like the house built on the rock, your faith will stand through any storm.
When rituals become requirement, they are tedious and tiresome. But when things are repeated for remembrance, they give life.
So tomorrow I will open my Bible and a notebook again and remind myself again to rejoice in the Lord. To love him with all my heart. To be still and know that he is God. That he is with me and for me and he is good.
If you do that tomorrow, too, that’s great. If not, I will be here again next week to tell you the same things over again.