To Live Is Christ, To Die Is Gain

Love is the foundation of the Christian life: as Moses and Jesus both taught – Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.

But this love is not a random love – it must abound with knowledge and discernment – it is love that is informed by knowledge and directed by wisdom. And the direction is the trajectory of holiness, as our lives are aimed eschatologically at the day of Christ.

And one piece of knowledge that is very useful in this trajectory is the progress of the gospel – both throughout the world, and in our own lives.

Indeed this idea of the “progress of the gospel” bookends our passage today.

Paul uses the same word in verse 12 (advance) as in verse 25 (progress). The progress of the gospel throughout the world (v12) is intimately connected to “your progress and joy in the faith” (v25) because it is the same Lord, Jesus Christ, who is at the center of all things.