Philippians 3:1-11
Notes
Transcript
Philippians 3:1-11
Philippians 3:1-11
Philippians 3:1–11 “Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! To write this again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials —though mine, too, are significant. If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, I have more: I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee. In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless. But these assets I have come to regard as liabilities because of Christ. More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things—indeed, I rega…”
INTRODUCTION:
Turning point in the letter. Recap: Paul has been talking about unity, he’s been building up the church, he’s been talking about being in prison. All in all, the letter’s tone is extremely positive. He’s building them up. He uses the word Joy, or rejoice, over and over.
Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! To write this again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.
Here in verse 1, we see the continuation of this joy theme.
Let’s see what paul has to say as we get into chapter 3
Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!
woah. Have you ever fallen asleep during a movie, and then the movie ends and the next one comes on. and you wake up right in the middle of a big fight scene or something.
It’s Jarring. That’s the kind of Jarring that we get here in Philippians
It’s so jarring in fact that there are some scholars who think that Philippians is actually two different letters that somehow got merged together.
Right off the bat, I don’t think there’s enough evidence for that. That’s a position that a lot of people hold, frankly with nothing else to back it up.
There’s other people who will try to explain this massive change by saying well maybe paul was writing his letter, and then he got busy, and came back two or three days later and finished it.
Maybe. I don’t buy that either. But it is odd, isn’t it
Full disclosure, this passage of scripture is what I’m writing my thesis on for school. Like a dissertation. So we’ll probably re-visit this passage of scripture in a year or so, and I’ll be able to share with you some more information about it after I’ve written my thesis on it.
But I want to give a disclosure because a lot of the research I’m doing and the ideas that I’m working through are works in progress. I’m doing original research that other people haven’t really done before, so If this were a science experiment, right now I’m in the phase of seeing “OK what happens when I mix this green chemical with this blue chemical” and trying to understand the Bible better.
So just take a lot of this with a grain of salt. Becuase it might end up making a cure for cancer, or it could explode in my face. We’ll just see.
But part of what I’m doing in my research is slowing down, and looking at what the text actually says.
So let’s get some data points about this passage
In verse 1. Paul says
Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! To write this again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.
So from this we can see that whatever Paul is about to write, he’s telling it to them for a second time. This is material that they’ve already heard.
And he says “it’s no trouble to me”
And if you look at a study bible or a commentary they’re going to say something like “Paul say this because he is justifying repeating himself” they read it with an apologetic tone. Like Paul is saying, look I know I’ve already told you this, but this is important, it’s not troublesome, so, forgive me but I’m telling you this again.
The biggest problem with that that I see is that when you read through Paul’s letters, when he references something he’s said previously, he never apologizes for it. Usually he’ll just straight up says “what I passed on to you, I also received” and then tells them again. Paul doesn’t ever have a problem with repeating himself.
Third data point, and I’ll point some of these things out as we get into the text, is that this passage has the hallmarks of an ancient sermon. When you look at ancient sermons, the book of Hebrews for example was originally preached as a sermon and then turned into a letter, there’s certain flairs, certain word-smithing that you don’t find in a normal letter.
Things like alliteration, where you repeat the same sound over again. Sally sells seashells by the seashore.
Things like repetition of words and phrases three times in a row. Things that make sense when it’s an oral presentation, becuase when you write a speech you pay close attention to how it sounds, more so than how it looks on the page.
A lot of the research that I’m doing—and just like all the other scholars, theories are just theories—but my theory that I’m studying is that chapter 3 is a sermon that Paul preached in philippi. And when Epaphroditus showed up the conversation went something like “hey paul, remember that sermon you preached that one time, the one about the dogs and the evil workers? yeah that one. We’d kind of like to have a copy of that. Would it be too much trouble for you to write that out for us?
Which is why Paul says “to write the same things to you is not trouble. In fact it’s a safeguard for you”
He’s not apologizing for repeating himself, he’s letting the church no that they don’t need to apologize for asking.
This also explains why it’s so jarring. Because he’s quoting something he spoke to them several years earlier.
My other theory, and I think this makes a lot of sense, I think that this sermon was preached on paul’s very first visit to Philippi.
Way back now when we studied the book of acts, Paul’s missionary journey that lead him to Macedonia came right on the heels of the Jerusalem council. Where certain men from Judea wanted the gentiles to be circumcized.
This was fresh on Paul’s mind during his stay in philippi. And so he probably preached this to them as a warning. Hey, you people who are just now hearing about the gospel, be forewarned there’s some people back in judea who are trying to get all the gentiles to be circumcized. Watch out, because they’re coming.
I think here in the letter of philippians epaphroditus was like “hey those circumcizers showed up just like you said. Can we have a copy of that sermon you preached? it would be really helpful to have right about now.
So if we understand it this way, Paul’s sermon begins.
Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!
In the original language this has that alliteration like I was talking about. The word for dogs, evil workers, and mutilators of the flesh all start with a K.
And this verse alone is extremely clever.
First off, he calls them dogs. Dogs were unclean animals. it was an insult that a Jewish person would use to insult a gentile, for being unclean. And here paul is using that same term against “righteous pharisee” types, who considered themselves to be the most clean.
Beware of the evil workers. Again, the opponents of paul loved to proclaim their “good works” like circumcision and keeping a proper jewish diet. Paul turns it around and callsthem “evil workers”
Beware of those who mutilate the flesh. The mutilators. or the “mutilation”
This is a really tough one to get across into english, because the word he uses here is a play on the word “circumcision”
in english we can kind of see the root of the word circumcision. Circum, think about a circumference, circum means “around”
and cicion, like an “incision” means to cut. It literally means to cut around.
which is a very medical sterile definition of the procedure of circumcsion.
The word mutilation, has the same root “to cut” but instead of “around” it has the prefix for “off” to cut off.
you can kind of put the pieces together on Paul’s wordplay here. instead of calling them the cut-arounders, he’s calling them the “cutter offers”
he’s making a mockery of their infatuation with this procedure and them wanting to do this procedure on a bunch of gentiles.
he’s basically describing them as a group of people who just enjoy going around mutilating people.
and verse three plays into that theme
For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials
There’s a dichotomy that Paul is setting up here.
“rely on human credentials” your bible probably says “confidence in the flesh”
Paul’s setting up a dichotomy here.
If you remember when we looked at the song or poem about Christ in chapter 2, there was the bit about every knee will bow “in heaven, and on earth, and below the earth” in
Philippians 2:10 “so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow —in heaven and on earth and under the earth—”
that’s that “roman” worldview of things. Everything is divided into three realms.
The jewish perspective, and I would say the Christian perspective, the perspective we get from the bible is that the world exists in duality. In two realms.
There’s good and evil. Heaven and earth. light and darkness. Spirit and flesh.
Psalm 1 talks about
Certainly the Lord guards the way of the godly, but the way of the wicked ends in destruction.
This duality, this worldview that says the entire universe is either for god or against God, and there is no third option is all throughout scripture.
God separates good from evil light from darkness.
“Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other.
When Paul uses this dichotomy, between those who worship By the spirit, and those who trust in human credentials, in “the flesh”
what exactly is it that is the dividing line between the two?
I think this is something that we sometimes can breeze over.
the subject at hand, the thing Paul is talking about, are the people who want to circumzise the gentiles. but circumcizion itself is not the dividing line. It’s a symptom.
It’s a symptom of putting your trust in yourself.
Your actions matter, your obedience matters — and circumcizion was an act of obedience to the Law of Moses—but your hearts matters most.
If you are obedient simply because you’re checking the boxes. you’re doing what you need to do in order to work your way up the ladder to God, God is not pleased. God is pleased with obedience. He’s just not pleased with obedience that comes from a place of self-serving. earning your keep with god. As if you have something to offer God that he doesn’t already have.
Look at how Paul describes his former way of life. His acts of obedience.
—though mine, too, are significant. If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, I have more:
Paul says “you want to play this obedience game?” you want to play this game where we compare who has the most human credentials? who has the best obedience record, let me tell you about how obedient I was.
I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee.
You can’t get much more obedient than that.
In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless.
blameless. and I don’t think Paul is exaggerating that much. I think Paul really was an extremely devout pharisee who did an impecable job at keeping the law. Not perfectly of course, but he was up there.
You don’t get to become a Pharisee of pharisees without having a stellar track record of keeping the law and being obedient to back it up.
You know what paul thinks about all of those credentials?
But these assets I have come to regard as liabilities because of Christ.
The things I have gained, I’ve regarde as loss. I think the NET translation does a good job here of bringing out the fact that he’s using terms that would have been used in a financial setting.
Paul’s basically saying he’s been trading in the wrong currency all this time.
You guys are familiar with how the stock market works. You invest your money into a company, in the hopes that the value of that company will increase. And it’s only in hindsight that you look back and realize whether or not you made a good investment.
All that stock you bought in K-Mart. That was the wrong investment.
Blockbuster? hope you didn’t have all of your retirement fund in blockbuster.
Paul was trading in the currency of self-righteous obedience. And after having an experience with the resurected Jesus Christ he realized he had invested all of his chips in the wrong thing.
What was the right thing?
More than that, I now regard all things as liabilities compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things—indeed, I regard them as dung!—that I may gain Christ,
“Far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”
Not knowing “of” Christ. Truly Knowing Christ.
Making Jesus Christ Lord of your life, and submitting to HIM and giving your life to HIM, and trusting in HIM, is more valuable than anything else you’ll ever do.
And that includes by the way, our acts of obedience as Christians.
You can come to church every single week. But if you don’t know Christ, you’re trading in the wrong currency.
You can feed the homeless, you can hand out blankets, but if your heart isn’t doing it from a position of relationship with Jesus Christ, you are trading in the wrong currency.
You can be baptized. Obedient to the Bible. But if you’re ding it from a position of earning your way up the ladder. If you’re baptized and get to the point where you think God “owes” you salvation, because you did your part, you were obedient, now God owes you this.
You’re going to find out just how worthless that currency is.
Paul gave up all of it.
You know what paul thinks about rote obedience without a relationship with Jesus.
Indeed I regard them as “dung” that I may gain Christ.
That’s a very interesting word that paul uses there. The NET bible here, as well as the old King James says “dung” most modern bibles will say either “garbage” or “refuse”
and I’m just going to come straight through the front door with it, the word in greek is “skubala” and in their context, it was a four letter word. like the “S” word.
and I know that causes all sorts of problems when you’re trying to translate a Bible because you come to this word Paul uses to describe what he thinks about being a “pharisee of pharisees” and I’m sure that the bible translators are scratching their heads.
On the one hand they want to use the word that most accurately fits what paul says. and on the other hand they know that if they use that word literally nobody will ever buy their bible, so they have to tone down Paul’s language here.
And the only reason I bring this up, is because I want you to understand just how serious Paul thinks this is. It’s everything to Paul.
If you’re trading in the currency of checking obedience boxes, and you don’t truly know Christ, Paul’s willing to use a dirty word to wake you up and get your attention because better that then you end up in hell.
The only thing that matters to Paul is a life that is marked by putting full trust and confidence as Jesus Christ, and placing him as King over your life.
Our obedience springs forth from our trust in Christ, not the other way around.
All the rest of it is dung, that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not because I have my own righteousness derived from the law, but because I have the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness—a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness.
now I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that in the text of your Bible it reads something like
a righteousness that comes through “faith in Christ”
and I’m also willing to bet that you have a little astericks and a footnote, and down at the bottom of your page it says
OR faithfulness of Christ.
If your Bible doesn’t have those little footnotes at the bottom I highly recommend you get one that does. because those little footnotes are actually really helpful when you have a verse like this
The phrase, grammatically can mean either Faith “IN” christ, as in we are putting our faith in Christ…which is true, that is how we are saved.
Or it can mean we are saved by Christ’s faith, and Christ’s obedience to the father and his willingness to go to the cross, as opposed to our own acts of Righteousness.
Which is also true, we are saved not because anything we have done but because of everything Christ has done.
What’s critical about that, and the reason I think it’s so important to bring this up, is because even our “faith” in christ can be skubala, it can be dung if it’s coming from a place of “checking the boxes”
not even our belief “merits” us salvation.
Paul’s problem with these “certain men from judea” it wasn’t about circumcision per se.
in fact if you would have went up to paul as a gentile and said “Paul I really want to be circumcized. Not because I think it saves me, but because I just love God so much and I want to do this thing in order to be obedient to him out of my love, and to give him glory.
Paul would have had no problem with that.
He would have made sure you knew, hey, this doesn’t get you into heaven. You don’t have to. But sure, if that’s how you want to give glory to God, go ahead.
in Galatians paul says
For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that matters is a new creation!
in other words the “uncircumcized” gentiles aren’t any more righteous by way of choosing NOT to be circumcized.
either way you go, it doesn’t matter.
the problem he had was their view that they are doing it so that God owes them something.
I think we can get caught up in that. Especially in our circles, because we preach what the Bible says, we preach that the gospel requires a response. The Bible plainly tells us that faith comes along with obedience. That’s what Dave Parish spoke about last week. And that’s gospel truth.
but when we get to a point where we start to think our obedience supersedes our faith, we’re in trouble.
when we start to think that our Baptism is the initiation rather than the response, we’re in trouble.
When we start to think that our confession is a box we check so that God owes us salvation, we’re treading into false doctrine.
All of it is dung, compared to the far greater value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord.
My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death,
United with Jesus. Sharing in the sufferings of Jesus.
Our love for Jesus should be one where we are so enamored with him, and his Lordship, that all we can think about is wanting to immitate him.
Not asking for anything in return, not demanding that God save us, not expecting him to give us anything.
Just a pure love where we truly know Jesus.
and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
And somehow, and Paul has made it extremely clear that this “somehow” is not dependent on us at all.
somehow, to attain to the resurrection of the dead.
the currency we trade in matters. We want to be in a right standing relationship with God. And we’re trading in currency that’s backed by our own efforts it’s going to crash every single time.
We should trading in a currency that’s backed by the gold standard. Not our efforts. Not our faithfulness, Christ’s faithfulness. Christ’s obedience, Christ’s effort.
Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name bring honor, for the sake of your loyal love and faithfulness.