Philippians 4:8 vs. “Think About It”

Seeds Family Worship (now Seeds Kids Worship) · checked 2026-08-01

What we checked

PassagePhilippians 4:8 chapter ↗ 2 more proofs on Philippians 4 →

Translation shownBSB (Berean Standard Bible)

Presents itself asquotation

Categoryadditions / omissions

AlbumThe Power of Encouragement (Vol. 5) · 2008

Words addressed tonot addressed to God (sung about Him)

Teaching or experiencescripture set to music

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria this song presents words as scripture, so these apply

✓Text-faithful

✗Translation named

✓Context kept

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

The verse is sung complete and in order, and the chorus and bridge are built from the verse's own words rather than new ones
Seeds publishes a free chord chart for every song it has made, and that chart carries the copyright line where the real translation can be read
The reference is sung before the words begin, so a child learns the address along with the verse
Nothing in the passage is trimmed to fit the tune, and no explanation is smuggled into the quotation

⚠ Cautions

The album's product page lists the scripture version as ESV while the album's own chord charts credit the NIV. The label does not identify what is sung
Finding the actual translation means opening a chord chart PDF, which is not where anyone looks first
Verse 8 sits between a paragraph about anxiety and prayer and an instruction to practise what was taught. Sung alone it can settle into a rule about pleasant thinking rather than the close of that argument, so read 4:6-9 alongside it once

Verse Proof

Philippians 4:8

The text in BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think on these things.”

Paul, writing to the church at Philippi, near the end of the letter. The paragraph just before it asks two women in the congregation to agree, tells the church to rejoice, and then says not to be anxious but to pray, so that the peace of God guards their hearts and minds (4:2-7). Verse 8 follows straight on from that, listing what they are to think about. Verse 9 finishes the thought: put into practice what you learned and received and heard and saw in me, and the God of peace will be with you. So the list is the middle of an argument about anxiety, prayer, and imitation, not a standalone maxim about positive thinking.

What the song says, described not quoted

The verse, sung whole, for children. An intro chants the address itself, the book and chapter and verse, before any of the words arrive. Then the verse runs in order through its eight qualities and lands on its closing instruction, and that instruction becomes the chorus, repeated many times over a four-chord loop. A later bridge strips the repeated frame and calls out the eight qualities on their own, one after another, before returning to the instruction. Between sections there is a vamp of sung syllables with no words in it. Nothing of the verse is cut, and nothing inside it is reordered.

The wording is the New International Version's. Seeds prints the lyric on a free chord chart on its own site, and the chart's copyright line credits the NIV.

What the song adds is small and audible. The sung reference at the top, the wordless vamp, and a chorus and bridge assembled entirely out of words the verse already supplied. The bridge's bare list is a second pass at a sentence the song has sung in full, not a rewrite of it. The shift worth naming is not in the singing. It is in the label. Seeds' free chord charts for this song, and for the other songs on this album, credit the lyrics to the New International Version in their copyright lines. The album's own product page lists “Scripture Version: ESV”. Those two statements cannot both describe this recording, and the wording Seeds prints for this song is the NIV's. The ESV renders several of the verse's qualities with different English words, and its closing instruction reads differently too, so the difference is not a matter of punctuation.

~ Faithful & Labeled: The verse is sung complete and unaltered in the NIV's wording. But the album page names the ESV as its scripture version. So the translation a listener is pointed to is not the translation being sung.

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

A label that names a translation is only useful if it names the right one.

Why it matters

A word-for-word claim is only checkable against a stated text, and here two of the publisher's own pages state different ones. A parent who does the obvious thing, reads “Scripture Version: ESV” on the album page, opens an ESV, and plays the song, will find words that do not line up, and will not know which side is wrong. The song is not the problem. The verse is intact and honestly set. What fails is the one step that turns a claim into something a listener can confirm alone.

There is a second reason to care here. This is a memory song for children, so the wording it plants is the wording they will carry, and a family that later reads the verse in the version the label named will hear a mismatch between the page and the song in their heads. That is a small thing that erodes trust in exactly the place scripture music is trying to build it.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song moves between God and the singer.

This song's subject is the repeat test. What it plants by repetition is the verse's own list, eight qualities and one instruction, plus the reference, sung until a child can produce both. That is a filter for attention rather than a statement about God, which is why the centre of attention here reads as mixed. Verse 8 names no divine subject; the instruction is addressed to the singer, and the qualities it names are held out as standards. The God of peace arrives in the next verse, and the passage's own logic runs from praying instead of worrying, to thinking on these things, to practising what was taught. A child who has this on a loop has a ready answer to what am I allowed to dwell on, which is a useful thing to have installed early. The one thing it does not supply on its own is the reason the list is there, and that is a short read away in the verses either side.

Helpful comparison

Seeds' own catalogue makes the discrepancy easy to see. The four albums released before this one are listed on the same store with “Scripture Version: Scripture Based Kids Worship” rather than a named version. Seeds announced the decision to move all its songs to the ESV in 2011, three years after this album came out, and its later releases go further still by putting the version inside the track title, as with “Wonderful (Psalm 139:14 ESV)”, already on this site. This album's page is the one that names a version its charts do not use. Seeds' scripture reference list shows a single Philippians 4:8 song, so there is no re-recorded ESV version that the label could be describing.

Worth noting how the practice improved. The habit that eventually solved this was not a stricter policy about accuracy, because the accuracy was already there in 2008. It was moving the version name onto the label a listener actually sees.

Sources

Seeds Kids Worship — “Think About It” chord chart (PDF) · (the printed lyric, the writer credits to Jason Houser and Don Poythress, and the copyright line crediting the New International Version)
Seeds Kids Worship — The Power of Encouragement Vol. 5 · (album page, track listing, and “Age Range: 3-12 years old | Scripture Version: ESV”)
Seeds Kids Worship — free chord charts · (a chart for every Seeds song, including the other Power of Encouragement tracks whose charts also credit the NIV)
Seeds Kids Worship — Seeds of Courage · (an earlier album listed as “Scripture Version: Scripture Based Kids Worship”, with no version named)
YouTube — Philippians 4:8, Think About It (Seeds Kids Worship channel) · (the official upload; its description states that Seeds' catalogue is set “to word-for-word Scripture”)
WorshipHouse Kids — Think About It (Philippians 4:8) · (licensed video listing: “Word for Word Scripture taken from Philippians 4:8”)
PR.com — Seeds Family Worship releases its fifth album · (Nashville, October 30 2008; The Power of Encouragement as the fifth album)
The Gospel Coalition — new Seeds CD, now in ESV · (May 2011, the decision to switch all Seeds songs to the ESV)
Seeds Kids Worship — scripture reference song list · (one Philippians 4:8 song in the catalogue, on this album)

Corrections

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