The Attitude of Joy

Philippians 1:21 is a beautiful verse, and one that many Christians commit to memory. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” In addition to the beautiful grammatical parallelism in that verse, and in addition to its brevity, the profundity of that verse also makes it an oft-quoted verse in churches around the world. But do we realize what that verse is really saying? Do we think about its meaning? Do we meditate on its truth and internalize it? In writing a commentary on Philippians 1:18-26, I could not devote a disproportionate section to this one verse, and so I include it here, in an excursus. Philippians 1:21 teaches us believers to have the attitude of joy.