Philippians 4:8b – Things That Are Noble

…whatever is noble…think about such things. 

Summary: Diving into Paul’s list of things to think about, he begins with the word “noble.” Looking closer, we discover that it has been a long time since we thought about this word.   

What kinds of things do you think about?

In our modern culture, we are bombarded with “things to think about” all day long. Ads on television and the internet scream for our attention. Vendors vie for our business by trying to get us to think about how much we need or want their products. 

Politicians want us to think about sending them money and voting for them. There are entire industries connected to politics that seek to influence what we think, say, and do. 

From the time we wake up in the morning until we finally fall asleep at night, someone is trying to tell us what to think. 

The pressure on us to influence or control our thinking is intense these days. Technology is like a direct injection of foreign ideas into our brains. It is, no doubt, a different world than Paul’s world of two thousand years ago. 

But not entirely different. 

People still had to choose what they were going to think about. 

In Paul’s list of “things to think about,” he includes the topic of “Things That Are Noble.” This strikes me as a most unusual idea. Who thinks about being “noble” these days? 

In years past, perhaps a century or more, acting nobly was a core value that almost everyone understood. Before the 1870’s, the word “noble” was used in literature more often than “food.” Today, “food” has replaced “noble” in the charts. Almost nobody uses the word “noble” anymore.†

So what does “noble” mean? 

The primary definition of the word as we would use it today is to describe a person “possessing outstanding qualities (as of dignity or decency).”* 

It is not hard to understand why this word has fallen out of favor lately. We live in a culture that prioritizes self-gratification. A list of antonyms for the word “noble” is easier to attribute to modern culture. Words like “common, mean, ordinary, and unimportant” describe how many of us have been led to feel about ourselves and our world. 

The Greek word Paul used, “semnós,” describes things that are honorable. Honor, of course, is not something the self-centered usually consider when making decisions. But for the Christian, the true believer in Jesus Christ, there is no higher calling than bringing honor to our Lord. 

In Paul’s list of words that describe the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), he uses words like “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” He doesn’t use the word “noble,” but he could have, because all these things are things that are noble. 

Application: Thinking about Jesus is … noble. 

Food for Thought: How does what we think about impact what we do? 

†Source: “https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=noble%2Cfood&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3” November 20, 2025

*Merriam-Webster online dictionary.