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Filipenses 3

ARC · Chapter 3/4

1Resta, irmãos meus, que vos regozijeis no Senhor. Não me é molesto escrever-vos as mesmas coisas, e é segurança para vós.

2Guardae-vos dos cães, guardae-vos dos maus obreiros, guardae-vos da circumcisão;

3Porque a circumcisão somos nós, que servimos a Deus em espirito, e que nos gloriamos em Jesus Christo, e não confiamos na carne.

4Ainda que tambem tenho de que confiar na carne; se algum outro cuida que tem de que confiar na carne, ainda mais eu:

5Circumcidado ao oitavo dia, da linhagem de Israel, da tribu de Benjamin, hebreo de hebreos, segundo a lei, phariseo,

6Segundo o zelo, perseguidor da egreja, segundo a justiça que ha na lei, irreprehensivel.

7Mas o que para mim era ganho tive-o por perda por amor de Christo.

8E, na verdade, tenho tambem por perda todas as coisas, pela excellencia do conhecimento de Christo Jesus, meu Senhor, por amor do qual contei por perda todas estas coisas, e as considero como esterco, para que possa ganhar a Christo,

9E seja achado n'elle, não tendo a minha justiça que vem de lei, mas a que vem da fé em Christo, a saber, a justiça que vem de Deus pela fé;

10Para conhecel-o, e á virtude da sua resurreição, e á communicação de suas afflicções, sendo feito conforme a sua morte;

11Para ver se de alguma maneira posso chegar á resurreição dos mortos.

12Não que já a tenha alcançado, ou que seja perfeito, mas prosigo para alcançar aquillo para o que fui tambem preso por Christo Jesus.

13Irmãos, quanto a mim, não julgo que o haja alcançado;

14Porém uma coisa faço, e é que, esquecendo-me das coisas que atraz ficam, e avançando para as que estão diante de mim, prosigo para o alvo, ao premio da soberana vocação de Deus em Christo Jesus.

15Pelo que todos quantos já somos perfeitos, sintamos isto mesmo; e, se sentis alguma coisa d'outra maneira, tambem Deus vol-o revelará.

16Porém, n'aquillo a que já chegámos, andemos segundo a mesma regra, e sintamos o mesmo.

17Sêde tambem meus imitadores, irmãos, e tende cuidado, segundo o exemplo que tendes em nós, pelos que assim andam.

18Porque muitos andam, dos quaes muitas vezes vos disse, e agora tambem digo, chorando, que são inimigos da cruz de Christo.

19Cujo fim é a perdição; cujo Deus é o ventre; e cuja gloria é para confusão d'elles, que só pensam nas coisas terrenas.

20Mas a nossa cidade está nos céus, d'onde tambem esperamos o Salvador, o Senhor Jesus Christo.

21O qual transformará o nosso corpo abatido, para ser conforme o seu corpo glorioso, segundo o seu efficaz poder de sujeitar tambem a si todas as coisas.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Paul warns against false teachers who insisted on circumcision, and tells how he gave up his own religious and ethnic privileges, considering them “rubbish” compared to the value of knowing Christ. He describes his ongoing pursuit of spiritual maturity as a race toward the goal, without considering himself already perfect.

Explanation

Paul lists his impressive religious credentials — circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a zealous Pharisee — only to declare that he considers all of it loss, or even “rubbish” (a softened translation of a much stronger Greek word), compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ personally. He makes clear that the righteousness that matters does not come from keeping the law, but from faith in Christ. The image of the athletic race, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,” describes the Christian life as an ongoing process of growth, without stagnation or pride in having already reached perfection. The practical application today is to continually reevaluate what truly has eternal value, and to maintain a personal, active commitment to spiritual growth, even after years of faith.

Fun facts

  • The tribe of Benjamin, mentioned with pride by Paul (v.5), was known in Israel’s history for producing the nation’s first king, Saul, and for being one of the few tribes that remained faithfully attached to Judah after the kingdom divided.
  • The Greek word translated as “rubbish” or “garbage” (v.8, “skybala”) was a crude, strong term in colloquial Greek, sometimes used to refer to excrement or discarded waste — Paul deliberately chooses shocking language to express how thoroughly he devalued his former privileges.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Filipenses 3:1Paul makes the transition into the chapter with a repeated call to rejoice in the Lord, explaining that repeating important warnings isn’t tiresome, it’s protection for the Philippians.
  2. Filipenses 3:2Paul is warning against a group of Jewish-Christian preachers who traveled behind him insisting that converted Gentiles needed to be circumcised and follow Jewish law to be saved. Calling someone a “dog” was a heavy insult at the time — Jews used that word for unclean Gentiles, and Paul throws it back at those he considers to be perverting the gospel.
  3. Filipenses 3:3Paul redefines what true “circumcision” really is: not the physical cut, but serving God in the spirit, boasting in Christ, and putting no confidence in human credentials.
  4. Filipenses 3:4Paul anticipates a possible objection: if anyone wants to compete on human religious credentials, he has more reason than anyone to do so, as he lists next.
  5. Filipenses 3:5Paul lists his religious credentials to show that, if anyone has reason to trust their own origin and observance of the law, it is him: circumcised the eighth day, exactly as Jewish law required, of pure Israelite stock, and a Pharisee, the strictest group in practicing the law in his time. He builds this list only to throw it away in the next verse.
  6. Filipenses 3:6Paul continues the list of credentials from the previous verse, including his extreme zeal, shown precisely in the persecution he carried out against the church before he believed, and his blameless observance of the law.
  7. Filipenses 3:7Paul makes the decisive turn of the chapter: everything that used to count as a religious advantage, he now considers loss, because of the value he found in Christ.
  8. Filipenses 3:8After listing everything he once took pride in religiously, Paul uses a strong, deliberately shocking word to describe its worth compared to knowing Christ: dung, discarded garbage. It’s a deliberate exaggeration to make clear how much his scale of values has changed.
  9. Filipenses 3:9Paul describes what he really seeks: to be found in Christ, with a righteousness that does not come from keeping the law, but that comes from God through faith.
  10. Filipenses 3:10Paul details what he wants to know of Christ: not just theory, but the power of His resurrection and the experience of sharing in His sufferings, a deep identification.
  11. Filipenses 3:11Paul expresses hope that, through this path of sharing in Christ’s death and suffering, he will also attain the resurrection of the dead.
  12. Filipenses 3:12Paul hurries to correct any impression of arrogance: he has not yet reached perfection, but keeps pressing on to lay hold of the purpose for which Christ laid hold of him.
  13. Filipenses 3:13Paul repeats, with humility, that he still does not consider himself to have arrived, setting up the image of a race he uses in the next verse.
  14. Filipenses 3:14Paul uses the image of a runner: forgetting what is behind and pressing on with total focus toward the goal, the prize of God’s calling in Christ.
  15. Filipenses 3:15Paul invites the more mature believers to share this same mindset of pressing forward, and trusts that God will correct anyone who thinks otherwise.
  16. Filipenses 3:16Paul simply asks that they keep following the standard they have already reached, without falling back, holding to the same course.
  17. Filipenses 3:17Paul asks the Philippians to imitate him, along with others who follow the same example of life that he demonstrated, as a practical model to follow.
  18. Filipenses 3:18Paul mentions, with genuine sorrow (“weeping”), that there are many who live as enemies of the cross of Christ, a warning he had already given before in person.
  19. Filipenses 3:19Paul describes these enemies of the cross: their end is destruction, their god is their own appetite, and their pride is in things that should be a source of shame, bound only to what is earthly.
  20. Filipenses 3:20Philippi was a Roman colony, which gave its residents the rare privilege of Roman citizenship even while living far from Rome — a real, concrete point of pride for them. Paul draws on that same idea when he says our “conversation” — that is, our citizenship — is in heaven, tied not to Rome but to a place we have yet to fully inhabit.
  21. Filipenses 3:21Paul ends the chapter looking to the future: the human body, subject to sickness, weakness, and death, will be transformed to be like Christ’s glorious body after the resurrection. It isn’t a promise about the soul escaping the body, but about the body itself being renewed.

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