Philippians 1:9-10
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.

Here, we see Paul encouraging the Philippian church to keep growing their love as one family of God, to keep strengthening the bonds of Christian fellowship and abiding by the Scriptures, so that they will be “pure and blameless” until the day of Judgment comes.

This seems pretty basic and understandable…until you start digging into what exactly “pure and blameless” means. Does it mean “without sin?” Well, yes. Does it mean “righteous living?” Yes, that too. But does it mean “going around telling others how perfect and sinless your life is, then telling them how wrong and sinful they are?”

In a word: NOPE.

Paul’s words here are not meant to encourage the Philippians to become SELF-righteous, i.e. conceited and haughty about their faith. True, Paul would love for the Philippians to never have a “bad day” in faith, to always be able to “discern what is best” and “be pure and blameless.” But he also encourages them to make their love “abound more and more”–to keep getting better at it every day, in other words. What he’s describing is a Christian life lived in love–lived with the understanding that sin happens to the best of us, and that we can bounce back from sin to serve God better by expending faith-based effort.

These two verses speak of a perfection of faith and love which we will never reach here on Earth–and Paul knows that all too well. But when the “day of Christ” comes, this faith-filled vision will be fulfilled in totality. While we wait for the day of Christ, however, we as Christians must strive to get as close as we can to that ideal, to love as God loves, to behave more like Jesus every day. And that doesn’t mean condemning others–it means demonstrating Christ’s love to others.