“Philippians 3”

Monday, May 15, 2017

One of the most common problems in the first century church was the question of circumcision, an Old Testament sign of purity. Judaizing teachers (those who wanted to keep parts of the old law) kept trying to bind it, while the apostles insisted that it was not essential.

Paul reminds his readers that, if anyone had a right to trust in his fleshly heritage, he did. After describing his Jewish credentials, Paul tells them that he had not only abandoned these things to follow Christ, he counted them as rubbish, totally unimportant compared to eternity (verses 1-11).

All of Paul’s life could now be described by the phrase, “one thing I do.” Forgetting all else, he pressed forward in pursuit of his goal, heaven. In verses 12-14, Paul uses the illustration of a runner in a race who has not yet reached the finish line. He would not look back. He would not quit short of the goal. He would press on, reaching forward to win the prize.

His goal, and ours, is the “prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Beginning in verse 15, Paul reminds us that we are all at different stages of spiritual maturity. Wherever we are, there we ought to do all we can, using our abilities and taking advantage of our opportunities. (By next year, we should have grown enough to do more.)

Enemies of the cross, the worldly minded, will do all they can to oppose our efforts to serve the Lord. Paul makes it very clear that their “end is destruction.” We must not love the world (1 John 2:15) and must not allow ourselves to be caught up in the sinful pleasures that the world offers. Any pleasure in wickedness is temporary and not only will it not last, it will cause our souls to be lost throughout eternity.

In contrast, as Christians, we are to set our minds on things above. We face daily choices about right and wrong. Our citizenship is in heaven, not on this temporary world. Realizing that “this word is not our home,” we must love God and the things of the Spirit, not of the flesh. As we eagerly anticipate the return of Christ, let us submit to the Lord in all things.

--Roger Hillis

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