Philippians 3: Seven Credentials and the Word Paul Chose for Them

A boy came to Tuesday's fall ball practice for the first time and introduced himself to the whole infield by reading out his record. All-stars two years running, a .430 average last spring, a father who pitched in college. Nobody had asked him. Caleb said "cool" and went back to retying his cleat, and the boy stood there a second holding all those numbers, and then somebody hit him a grounder and he was fine.

He came back to me this morning in Philippians 3, verses 4 through 6, where Paul does the same thing with a better list and a lot more reason to. It's a short passage and I want most of this post spent on it, because everything after it reads differently once you believe the list is real.

What is Paul actually listing in Philippians 3:4-6?

Verse 3 says "have no confidence in the flesh," and verse 4 opens with "Though I might also have confidence in the flesh," and goes straight on to "If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more." So he isn't waving credentials away from the position of a man who hasn't got any. He's claiming to outrank the people he's arguing with, and then he shows his work.

There are seven entries across verses 5 and 6, and the first four he was born into or raised in: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, "an Hebrew of the Hebrews." Somebody else did those for him. The last three are his own doing, a Pharisee as touching the law, zeal, and a righteousness that held up under inspection.

Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

Philippians 3:6

The zeal entry is the one I keep stopping on, because "Concerning zeal, persecuting the church" puts the worst thing he ever did on the résumé, filed under a virtue. In 1 Corinthians 15:9 he says he is "not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." Same man and same fact, entered in two different columns depending on which book he's looking at. In Philippians 3 it sits in the old column with the rest.

And "blameless" has a limit built into it. He's blameless "touching the righteousness which is in the law," meaning by that one measure.

He never claims it for himself in general.

Why does "counted" in verse 7 turn into "count" in verse 8?

In verse 7 it's "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." Past tense, and the things are the ones he just listed. Verse 8 begins "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss," which is present tense and wider, since it's now all things and not only the list. A couple of clauses later he's back in the past with "for whom I have suffered the loss of all things," and then present again, "do count them but dung."

Three tenses in two verses doesn't read like a man who did the sum once on a road outside Damascus and filed it. He's doing the sum again while he writes, and he's writing in custody, as he tells them in Philippians 1 when he mentions his bonds. Some of that "loss of all things" may not have been a choice. The verse lumps the chosen and the handed-over together and doesn't sort them, so I won't either.

The King James word is dung.

Newer translations say rubbish or garbage, and the Greek is a coarse word by any account I've seen, which means he meant it to be crude. He took four lines to lay his credentials out carefully and then reached for the rudest noun available. I don't think that's an accident. Gain, loss, count and win are bookkeeping verbs, and he's finishing an entry here and not venting.

What he's after in exchange is a different kind of entry altogether, and verse 9 says he wants to "be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Ephesians 2 makes a similar turn with the grace placed first and the work after, and I spent a post on the half of that chapter that comes after verse 10. Ephesians 2:9 gives the reason as "lest any man should boast," and a résumé is a boast with footnotes.

What does "apprehended" mean in verse 12, and what can't "forgetting" mean?

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13-14

One verse back, verse 12 says "I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." In modern English apprehend means to arrest or to understand. Here it means to take hold of. So the order is that he was taken hold of first, and the following after is what he does in answer. He's chasing something that already caught him. That changes how the running sounds to me, because a man running to earn a place is straining differently from a man running because he's been handed one.

As for "forgetting those things which are behind," a few verses earlier he recited everything behind him in order, down to the tribe, so he plainly hasn't forgotten any of it. Forgetting has to mean something nearer to refusing to figure from it. The list stays accurate and he stops standing on it. I wouldn't use the verse as a reason to skip a hard conversation you owe somebody, either. Verse 6 is still in the chapter, and it still says what it says.

Perfect in verse 12, perfect again in verse 15

Verse 12 says he is not "already perfect" and verse 15 says "as many as be perfect, be thus minded," with "let us" putting him in the group. Same English word three verses apart, once denying it and once counting himself in. Reading it as complete or mature settles it, and the mature turn out to be the ones saying they aren't finished.

The end of verse 15 is a patient sentence: "if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." That comes from a man who opened the chapter with "Beware of dogs." I'd guess those are two different groups, the first pressing circumcision on Gentile converts and the second believers who see something differently. The gap in tone is still there.

What does "our conversation is in heaven" have to do with Philippi?

Acts 16:12 describes Philippi as "the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony." A Roman colony was proud of being Roman. Paul knew the value of that in this very town, because when the magistrates tried to send him and Silas off quietly after a beating, Acts 16:37 has him saying "They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans," and the serjeants, verse 38 says, "feared, when they heard that they were Romans." The Philippians had watched citizenship work. So when verse 20 says "For our conversation is in heaven," they didn't need a footnote on what kind of word it was. In Philippians 1:27 the same English word is about how they live, "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ." Here most newer translations say citizenship. I think the King James word is carrying both, a standing and the manner of life that goes with it.

Just before that, in the parenthesis of verses 18 and 19, he stops to say he's weeping over people whose "God is their belly" and who "mind earthly things." Then the chapter ends with a verse that has no command in it. Christ "shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." The last thing Paul says is what will be done to us and not what to do, and that's a promise about a body, which is how we read the resurrection anyway.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the "dogs" in verse 2?

Verse 2 follows "beware of dogs" with "beware of the concision," and verse 3 answers with "we are the circumcision." So it looks like people pushing circumcision on Gentile converts. Concision is Paul's sour little pun on the word, as far as I can tell. It's the harshest language in the letter and it's over by verse 3.

Does Paul really call his credentials dung?

He says it in verse 8, "do count them but dung," and the word is meant to be rude. The target is leaning on them, though. He leaves the facts standing, since he's just spent two verses listing them with care and he never says one of them was false.

Is this the chapter that says works don't matter?

No. In verse 9 he settles where he's standing, on a righteousness "through the faith of Christ" and not his own. Then verses 12 through 16 are all verbs of effort: follow after, reach forth, press, walk. I don't think he saw a conflict between the two, and I don't think we need to invent one for him.

Which verse in this chapter does nobody memorize?

Verse 16 says "Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing," and it tells you to walk on what you've already got and not hold off until you've got more. On a Wednesday I'd take it over verse 14.

Sometime before Sunday I'm going to read Philippians 4 straight through, starting at verse 10, where Paul says he's "learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." I want to hear whether the man who priced his credentials in chapter 3 sounds the same when he's talking about what he's been given.

— D.