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Filipenses 3

BLIVRE · Chapter 3/4

1No restante, meus irmãos, alegrai-vos no Senhor. Não me é incômodo escrever as mesmas coisas, e [isso é] para a vossa segurança.

2Cuidado com os cães! Cuidado com os que operam o mal! Cuidado com a mutilação!

3Pois a circuncisão somos nós, que servimos a Deus [pelo] Espírito, orgulhamo-nos em Cristo Jesus, e não confiamos na carne.

4Embora eu também tenho como confiar na carne. Se outro alguém pensa que pode confiar na carne, ainda mais eu:

5circuncidado ao oitavo dia, da descendência de Israel, da tribo de Benjamim, hebreu de hebreus; segundo a lei, fariseu;

6segundo o zelo, perseguidor da Igreja; segundo a justiça que há na lei, irrepreensível.

7Mas o que para mim era ganho considerei como perda, por causa de Cristo.

8E, na verdade, considero também todas as coisas como perda, por causa da superioridade de conhecer a Cristo Jesus, meu Senhor. Por ele aceitei perder todas [essas] coisas, e as considero como dejetos, a fim de que eu possa ganhar a Cristo;

9e que eu seja achado nele, não tendo a minha justiça proveniente da Lei, mas sim a que é pela fé em Cristo, a justiça da parte de Deus pela fé;

10para eu conhecer a ele, assim como o poder de sua ressurreição e a comunhão em seus sofrimentos, tornando-me conforme a ele em sua morte;

11para que, de alguma maneira, eu alcance a ressurreição dos mortos.

12Não que eu já [a] tenha obtido, ou que já seja perfeito; mas sigo a fim de alcançar aquilo para o qual eu também fui alcançado por Cristo Jesus.

13Irmãos, não considero como se já a tivesse obtido; mas uma coisa [faço] : esqueço as coisas que ficam para trás, e avanço para as que estão adiante,

14e prossigo para o alvo, ao prêmio do chamado de cima, de Deus em Cristo Jesus.

15Por isso, todos nós que somos maduros, tenhamos essa [mesma] mentalidade; e se em algo pensais de maneira diferente, Deus também vos revelará isso.

16Porém, naquilo a que já chegamos, andemos conforme a mesma regra, e tenhamos a mesma mentalidade.

17Sede meus imitadores, irmãos, e observai atentamente os que assim andam, como o exemplo que tendes em nós;

18pois, como muitas vezes eu vos disse, e agora também digo chorando, muitos andam como inimigos da cruz de Cristo.

19O fim deles é a perdição. O Deus deles é o ventre, e têm orgulho do que deviam se envergonhar. Eles se importam mais com as coisas terrenas.

20Mas nós somos cidadãos dos céus, de onde também esperamos um Salvador, o Senhor Jesus Cristo.

21Ele transformará o nosso degradante corpo, para que seja conforme o seu corpo glorioso, segundo a operação do seu poder de sujeitar para 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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