And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
This is a promise, not a prayer: if you pray with thanksgiving, God's peace will guard you. Scripture divides the soul into mind and heart, understanding and inclination, and His peace protects both from turning back to God in wicked thought or desire. It surpasses understanding because nothing is more contrary to human nature than to hope in despair, see riches in poverty, and find strength in weakness, resting on God's word alone.
AI summary
His affection for them burned hot: they were his beloved, his longing, his joy, his crown. He calls them brethren though he was an apostle, because all renewed by one Spirit are brothers. Warm affection must go with brotherly relation. He had no joy greater than hearing of their spiritual health. This is how tenderness works: it makes exhortation cut deeper and carry farther.
AI summary
Commenting on Philippians 4:1-9
This peace is not mere knowledge or God's own self-peace, but the peace made with God by Christ's blood, published in the Gospel and preached by His cross. Or it is the peace of conscience arising from justification by His righteousness and atonement by His sacrifice. Every natural man is shut out from it; he understands nothing of this tranquility, cannot reckon how such a one should have joy when his own mind is at war with sin.
AI summary