As I helped my son with his math homework it began apparent he was less then enthusiastic about doing multiple problems related to the same concept. “I’ve got it, Dad!,” he insisted, hoping I would let him out doing all the problems. I then gently explained to him that a concept is just a concept until we learn how to work it out in practice.

At the end of Paul’s letter to his friends in Philippi, he wrote about practice. “Practice these things: whatever you learned, received, heard, or saw in us” (Philippians 4:9). Here are five things he mentions: reconciliation—as…