Dogs and dung. Philippians 3.

There's a certain continuity of thought in all of Paul's writings to the churches. No doubt this came both from his experience in the places he was writing to, and from his present circumstance. Reflect back for a minute on the likely reason Paul is imprisoned as he's writing this letter. He took an offering to Jerusalem and when he followed the advice of the Jerusalem church council to pacify those Jewish Christians who were unhappy with Paul's preaching to the Gentiles, he was grabbed by some Jews who made the same accusation -- Paul was preaching against Jewish practices.

So it's natural that Paul spend some time in his letter warning once again that those called Judaizers, who would have the new Gentile Christians adhere to Jewish laws including circumcision, were to be resisted. As Paul does so in verses 3:1-6, he uses powerful words, and a potent argument. Dogs is a real term of derision in the first century. Add to that term "workers of evil" and "flesh mutilators" and we see that Paul has heaped incredible scorn on the Judaizers. He goes on to say, in a powerful argument that he, Paul, knows exactly where they are coming from, knows their zeal for the law, but states that they can't even come close to Paul's own former zealousness for the Law -- following it rigorously in his behavior, and persecuting the followers of Jesus. So if anyone comes to the Philippians arguing that they know what the law demands, the rejoinder is that "we have been taught the gospel from one with more credentials than you could ever have."

As Paul uses that argument, I can almost feel the passion, the zealousness swelling up in his heart, as he shares how empty his former passion was (verses 3:7-11). Yes I had that passion. Yes I was zealous. God, how wrong I was. It's meaningless in the light of God's grace reflected in Jesus' saving actions. It's all rubbish, it's refuse, it's dung. (This is the only use of the Greek word in the New Testament, and we rely on the classical Greek meaning -- rubbish and muck of many kinds: excrement, rotten food, bits left at a meal, a rotting corpse, dung.)

Can we catch a glimpse of Paul's passion for Christ in those strong words? Do we too, measure everything against what we gain in Christ? Listen to this paraphrase from The Message:

"The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness.

I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it. " (Philippians 3:7-11 MSG)

And Paul goes on to say that he will strive alongside God to the end: "Not that I have already attained this – that is, I have not already been perfected – but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me." (v.3:12 NET). Remember Paul's earlier confident prayer in chapter 1 was that God would finish the work he began in the Philippians. Here we see that Paul too, considers the work not fully done in himself, but that he will run the race to the finish as hard as he can (pressing on).

Today, I don't want this blog to get in the way of your own contemplation of the message in Philippians 3. But I do want to challenge you to consider, to think through what Jesus is calling you to know, to be, and to do, as a partner in the working of His grace in your life. And that challenge applies equally to me.