Alastair's Adversaria - Redeeming Attention

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

The following was first published on the Anchored Argosy: https://argosy.substack.com/i/192768186/redeeming-attention Follow my Substack, the Anchored Argosy at https://argosy.substack.com/. See my latest podcasts at https://adversariapodcast.com/. If you have enjoyed my videos and podcasts, please tell your friends. If you are interested in supporting my videos and podcasts and my research more generally, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?business=4WX77P4F8S7WL), or by buying books for my research on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/3…3O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035.

The following reflection is entitled Redeeming Attention. It was first published on the Anchored Argosy. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving,

let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians chapter 4 verses 4 to 9 I have recently been reflecting upon one of the most valuable commodities in the world today it is something that some of the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world spend countless billions each year to obtain yet which each one of us has probably given thoughtlessly in the past week alone it is one of the most important things that we have yet something for which we could probably give only a limited account This commodity, of course, is attention.

Few things are more powerful than capturing and directing people's attention, as attention is at the root of so much else. Capture people's attention, and you can teach them what matters, what to value, what to desire and pursue, what is worthy of their time and efforts, whose favour to seek, who should be imitated, and so much more. Money and power flow from attention. If people's eyes are on you, or on your personal,

products, you can direct their actions and open their wallets. Especially in the current age of online media, we inhabit vast algorithms designed to grasp and retain our attention, to distract our attention, to consume our attention. If you show interest in a particular subject on social media, the algorithm will feed you ever more material like it. If there is any fear that your attention might be directed elsewhere, for instance that you might leave a site and go elsewhere, the algorithms are increasingly designed to distract you with something shiny, ensuring that you just keep scrolling. By capturing and directing our attention,

social media can also shape our perceptions of the world. In order to keep our attention, social media can consistently feed us stories, images and videos that confirm and reinforce some of our existing beliefs and impressions of the world in our society. The result can be a twisting and distorting of our perspectives. It can repeatedly show us the worst of our political opponents until we find it hard to believe that any decent and reasonable person could hold different political positions to our own. It can show us videos of crime to the point that we believe that our society is much more crime-ridden than it actually is. It can shape our impression of whole groups of people, the other sex, or people of different nationalities,

ethnicities or religions, leading us to think that they are fundamentally evil or untrustworthy. By now we are also all aware of how much disinformation spreads on social media and how artificial intelligence has amplified the problem. None of these problems of distorted attention are new, however. The direction of our attention has always been a cause of distorted perception. Perhaps we have had the experience of noticing something annoying about a family member, someone we work with or another acquaintance. It might be some weakness in their character, some unaddressed fault,

or even just some small mannerism or quirk. Having noticed it once, we start noticing it again and again until we start to pay attention to it. Maybe we noticed a way in which someone slightly wronged us. Then we noticed another. Then we started building up a record of such things in our minds. And as we start to pay attention to it, we start to become embittered. That first impulse of annoyance about something we noticed can come to increase in its gravity

until all sorts of other things are drawn into the orbit of it as a consuming preoccupation. The direction of attention, from the first act of noticing to a preoccupation and obsession, can be the most powerful sources of our loves and our hates. If we have ever fallen in love with someone, it probably took the form of the movement from noticing, to paying attention, to being besotted with, an entire. focused upon them. The modern shepherds of our attention can shepherd our loves and our hates in similar ways. Of course, our attention is not always captured in order to be directed and focused. Often it is captured in order to prevent us from being directed away from something unworthy of it.

Living with personal mobile devices, we increasingly experience the power of distraction. We are not being led to love or hate, but being repeatedly desensitized to persistent boredom in a which prevent us from practicing the sort of focus and devotion for which true love calls. Constantly distracted by our devices, we are never fully present. We are both hurried and listless, unable to tarry, to focus our minds, to give our undivided attention, to persevere through the boredom to engagement with the world and others. As a result, we love only weekly. The Apostle Paul knew that the battle for attention lay behind so much else,

Christian virtue is in large measure a shepherding of our attention, setting our mind upon the things that are worthy of it. Philippians chapter four warns of disorders of attention, enjoins positive practices to avoid these, and presents us with those things that merit our attention. The first disorder which Paul tackles is discouragement, depression, discontentment and despair. This disorder of attention is seen as we become fixated upon our misfortunes, what other us have but we lack and the injustices we have experienced. Before long, such a disordered practice of attention can produce a sense of cosmic grievance of the way that God or the universe has wronged us. On several occasions in his letter, Paul calls the Philippians to rejoice, as he does in chapter 4 verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice.

Lest we forget, the person writing this epistle is doing so from a Roman prison cell. His exortation to rejoice cannot be dismissed merely as a response to favorable conditions, or as the expression of a naturally buoyant personality. Earlier, he described his response to his own circumstances of imprisonment, then in chapter 3 verse 1, called the Philippians to join him in rejoicing in the Lord. The practice of rejoicing, of disciplined attention to and thanksgiving for the Lord's goodness in all situations, inoculates Christians against discouragement, despair, discontentment and envy. Again, bear in mind that Paul is writing this from a Roman prison cell.

If there is one thing that Paul has an abundance in his situation, it's time to ruminate upon things. Paul could easily have spent his days in prison, mulling over all the things that had gone wrong in his life and all the people who had wronged him. And yet, he gives himself to rejoicing. Paul is devoting himself to this practice of attention, rejoicing in a situation where all pushes against it, and yet where it is no more important,

as it protects his heart against the discouragement and the bitterness that might otherwise creep in. The second disorder Paul addresses is anger and hostility with our neighbours. In verse 5, he calls the Philippians to let their reasonableness or gentleness be known to everyone, appending the claim that the Lord is at hand. Christians should be known for their meekness. everyone around should see their kindness and forbearance with others. Reasonableness is something that, like rejoicing, arises from disciplined practices of attention, and it is the reality of the nearness of the Lord that grounds it.

The Lord is near, both near to those who call upon him, and near in the sense of the imminence of his judgment. As we cultivate awareness of this, it can transmute what might otherwise mutate into bitterness concerning and antagonisms with others, interpatient endurance with and gracious treatment of them. The third disorder of attention addressed in verse 6 is that which produces worry and anxiety. The Philippians should not be marked by anxiety,

but should bring their concerns to the Lord in prayer. Just as their gentleness should be made known to everyone, their needs should be made known to God. Rather than fretting over their concerns, the Philippians are to process them, by presenting them to God, placing their worries in the hands of a loving father. The worries and anxieties will not merely dissipate. We will always have real matters of concern, but by bringing them to God, we will not so

easily be overwhelmed by them. Paul describes the result of this reordering of our practices of attention as a state of peace, which comes from God himself and cannot be accounted for by any merely human explanation. Such a peace will guard our hearts and minds. minds in Christ Jesus. Christ can still the stormy waters of our hearts and minds. When others around us are stirred up by anger, resentment, antagonisms, fear, anxiety or caught in depression, discontentment and despair, we can know the calm that enables us to think clearly and act wisely. Paul is very clear about where such peace comes from. It comes from turning our attention to God

in prayer and thanksgiving, learning to rejoice and practicing gentleness with our neighbours, aware that God is near. The resulting peace guards our hearts and minds in situations of conflict. When there is conflict without, if this peace reigns within, our hearts and minds will be protected from being caught up in it. We will be able to think and act with wisdom and grace when others are losing their composure, their wits or their clarity of mind. In verses 8 to 9, Paul's attention turns to virtues that were more generally recognized,

among the pagans as commentators such as Gordon Fee and Mornah Hooker note. He takes the language of Hellnistic moralism, but situates it within a very different frame, when established by the Christian gospel. The expressions that he uses here are common in Greco-Roman moral thought, but unusual in Paul. Paul has earlier revealed the stark contrast between a Greco-Roman moral vision and the gospel, but now he shows the way that the gospel allows us to appropriate some of the riches of the Greeks and Romans. Think about these things would be better translated as

take into account these things. Paul's point is not so much to think on higher things, but as those who are living in two worlds and as those who have counted as lost things that formerly gave them a sense of their worthiness and which they highly valued, to carefully assess their heritage. Rather than completely writing off their Greco-Roman heritage, they ought to evaluate it more closely according to the Gospel,

and the criteria that Paul here enumerates, each of which must be considered in light of the gospel itself. In the radical reassessment to which he has called them, they should not jettison everything. Paul's criteria are as follows. Whatever is true, Christians should consider those things, which can be conformed to the truth of the gospel

and are not shrouded in lies. In societies that so often live in a miasma of lies, Christians should delight in and pursue the clean essence. air of the truth. They should be known for their gracious candor and integrity, for their practice of healthful, sound, garless and trustworthy speech, for their delight in speaking about things that are elevating and dependable. Whatever is honourable or noble, our society is one of levity and uns seriousness. Christians by contrast should consider those things that are worthy of respect, irrespective of their origin. They should prioritise things that are weighty dignified and worthy of

reverence. Whatever is just. Seeing justice and righteousness and human affairs can be a source of delight and encouragement, and Christians should hunger for and feed on this when they find it. We should attend to, encourage, and give thanks for righteous men and women and for deeds of justice. What we can certainly experience anger at the injustices and evils of the world, we should not allow this to curdle into bitterness, but should trust God and look for that which is in concordance with His righteousness and justice wherever we can find them. Whatever is pure, the Old Testament scriptures frequently enjoin the people of God to be holy as God is holy.

Seeing the theophanic glory of the Lord in Isaiah chapter 6, the prophet declared in despair that he was a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips. Like Isaiah, we are surrounded with so much that is perverse, unseemly, blasphemous and impure. and it is so easy to develop a taste for these things, to speak in ways that are profane, to delight in obscenity, and to keep corrupting company. Christians should be marked by a holy desire for and delight in that which is pure and wholesome, and an unself-righteous aversion to those things which might corrupt us. Whatever is lovely. This is perhaps the most surprising of Paul's criteria, probably having to do with those things that properly excite our love, and admiration, things that are beautiful, delightful, and admirable. This is not an essentially

moral criterion, suggesting that it is good and appropriate for us to find things in God's world pleasing. A sort of faith that would abandon such things is not healthy. Christians should enjoy good music, not just for some moral end, but simply because it is good music. Christians should be people who appreciate beauty, not merely in nature but also in human creations. While we are not atheists who elevates such beauty over all other things, we should be people who freely enjoy the rich and manifold beauty of the world, attentive to and appreciative of all that is lovely. Whatever is commendable. We should attend to whatever rightly wins people's praise and admiration, being people who recognise and celebrate those actions and persons that are admirable.

However, Paul's point here may be less about considering such commendable persons and actions, as focusing upon those who are distinguished as bearers of good report. Where we might delight in gossip, rumour and slander, or focus upon negative news, Paul wants us to attend the encouragers, those who spread edifying news, who strengthen the church in its unity, rather than circulating speech that breeds discouragement,

division and dissatisfaction. Paul elaborates these criteria a little by speaking of things that have excellence or are worthy of praise. Paul had not just taught the Philippians in such matters. He had also presented them with a worked example in his own life. Virtuous attention to that which is edifying and the disciplines that overcome disorders of attention is made easier when we have worked examples in godly men and women in our communities and beyond. Besides being given ethical teaching and moral disciplines to observe,

Christians are encouraged to look for examples to imitate. As the Philippians practice these things, the God of peace will be with them. A few verses earlier in verse 7, Paul spoke of the peace of God. Now he speaks of the God of peace. God gives our minds and hearts peace, and in this peace he himself is present with us. The ordering of our attention by which God preserves our minds and hearts from tension, bitterness, discontentment, discouragement and despair are ultimately practices of God's presence. thanksgiving and rejoicing mindfulness of god's nearness and prayer as we practice these we can find god himself in the peace that he gives through them this section of philippians concerned with rejoicing prayer and thanksgiving focuses upon key elements of worship

the world wants our attention it wants to be the object of our preoccupation of our loves lusts fears and anxieties our hatred our joy If it cannot excite strong desires in us, it will satisfy itself with distracting our minds from anything higher. Worship is the gracious reordering of our attention, so that we might know God's peace, and in it God himself. There may be no question more important than the question of that to which we are giving our attention. How are we shepherding our attention in a day where some of the most powerful forces in the world are vying for it? Paul gives us the guidance that we need. Rejoicing, focusing on God's presence, and viewing all else in light of that, the practice of prayer, learning to focus on those things that are worthy of our love in every area of our lives,

paying attention to good examples. Where our society is marked by anxiety, tension, unrest and conflict, and by its corraling of our attention draws us into these things, the practices that Paul enjoins can offer, peace and nothing less than the enjoyment of the presence of God. If you'd like to read this and other reflections like it, you can do so on the anchored Argosy. The link for that is below, along with links to my Patreon and PayPal accounts, by which you can support the work that I do here, there and elsewhere. God bless,

and thank you very much for listening.