The Greek has the word “this” before the content of Paul’s prayer (“I pray this: that…”), but normally this addition would be superfluous in translation.

Your love should not be restricted to the Philippians’ love for God, for Paul, or even to their love for one another. It is much more likely that Paul has in mind the most comprehensive Christian love. In some languages your love may seem to abstract, and this expression may be better rendered as “your loving heart.”

Furthermore, in some languages it is not possible to speak of “love growing more and more,” although one may say “I pray that you will keep on loving more and more.” Again, it may be necessary to indicate in some languages who is loved, and therefore one may need to translate “that you will love one another more and more.”

True knowledge and perfect judgment are essential elements of love. “Love” should keep on growing (present tense), that is, it should develop into and be accompanied by spiritual and moral insights. The word translated true knowledge is frequently used by Paul to convey the idea of a mental grasp of spiritual truth and especially that practical and experiential knowledge of God which is available to those who have become Christians. Perfect judgment (literally “all insight” or “all perception”) appears only here in the New Testament. It refers to a person’s ability to make moral decisions. The adjective “all” is not intensive, but extensive; that is, it signifies “every form of” perfect judgment (New English Bible “insight of every kind”).

True knowledge and perfect judgment may be viewed as the result of increased love, and so they may be indicated in some languages as result, and in other languages as purpose. On the basis of this type of interpretation, one may translate “that you may love one another more and more, and as a result have true knowledge and perfect judgment.” On the other hand, one may understand true knowledge and perfect judgment as an accompanying feature of love and accordingly translate “that you may love one another more and more, and at the same time have true knowledge and perfect judgment.”

In a number of languages it is necessary to translate knowledge and judgment as verbs, and this requires syntactic restructuring, with resulting expressions such as “that you may know what is true and judge perfectly,” or “… judge in a completely right way.”

Quoted with permission from Luo, I-Jin. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .