00:00:00:46 – 00:00:21:31
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for closing out the week with us as we start a new chapter in Philippians. Find ourself in the third chapter, going to kind of that second chapter ends and for some reason when they made the chapters and verses, sometimes things got divided kind of wonky. And this is one of them.

00:00:21:36 – 00:00:44:44
Clint Loveall
Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I’m going to make a case that that probably works better at the end of chapter two, but for some reason it’s half of the first verse of chapter three. So we’ll pick up there and then read a few verses to write the same things to you is not troublesome for me and for you it’s a safeguard.

00:00:44:49 – 00:01:09:28
Clint Loveall
Beware of the dogs. Beware of the evil workers because of those who mutilate the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I too have reason for confidence. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more circumcised.

00:01:09:28 – 00:01:39:05
Clint Loveall
On the eighth day a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews. As to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law blameless. So, as Paul introduces new chapter, A new Thought, we take a pretty hard turn here. As Paul turns his attention to those he he knows are present in the community of Philippi.

00:01:39:05 – 00:02:10:09
Clint Loveall
Not maybe in the church, but those who are present in the broader context that he believes are dangerous, who are going to teach things that are not in keeping with the gospel, that threaten to mislead the people, the church of Philippi, that he cares about and, we said this early on in this study, this letter is, on the whole, a pretty positive experience of Paul.

00:02:10:13 – 00:02:38:50
Clint Loveall
He he’s pretty there’s a lot about joy. He’s pretty soft spoken in this letter. He’s, he’s grateful. He’s emotional. He’s affectionate. I feel like here, Michael, we get a we get a little taste of the other side of of Paul where he gets kind of. He gets kind of going a little bit. And, you know, when you when you kick off with beware of the dogs, it kind of tells you what you’re in for.

00:02:38:56 – 00:02:41:42
Clint Loveall
It gives you a sign of what’s to come maybe.

00:02:41:47 – 00:03:09:34
Michael Gewecke
Well, and I do think it would be easy to think to ourself that this came out of nowhere. And I want to argue that I think that we’ve already saw this embedded earlier in our study. In the beginning of this book, Paul is alluding to those people who are doing things even to spite him. And then he, you know, makes this claim that we talked about at great length that, you know, even then, as long as the gospel is being proclaimed, you know, thanks be to God.

00:03:09:39 – 00:03:34:53
Michael Gewecke
I think what we so often, Clint, get misplaced was that this is not a settled moment for the church. And I think we look back on it and we a lot of times insert our settled this into the conversation. But anyone who’s done even a cursory reading of church history will know some of the stuff that you and I might take for granted in a confirmation class, per se.

00:03:35:06 – 00:04:12:21
Michael Gewecke
Things like the Trinity, things like the dual natures of Christ. Things like the incarnation. This stuff we can talk about as being rooted in Scripture and professed by the church. But what we have to understand is this claim that Gentiles, that the gospel was big enough to include a whole group of people that had been previously thought to be outside of the bounds, was a dramatic claim, the effects of which took years, decades, hundreds of years to really see flesh out into the real world.

00:04:12:21 – 00:04:46:13
Michael Gewecke
As people came to realize that fundamentally, this was a possible path. And so here we see Paul, as Paul tends to do, to not dance around the issue when it is time and when it’s appropriate for directness. Paul will be direct, and I would go so far as to say Paul, when the situation warranted it, believed that conflict should be entered into if if what was being defended was worth that cost.

00:04:46:13 – 00:05:07:12
Michael Gewecke
And I think here we can tease out why this particular issue maybe was that important. But yes, Paul’s tone speaking to the Philippians, which is warm, is going to be tempered by a tone speaking against opponents who Paul wants us to know without any question. Stand outside what God wants to do.

00:05:07:17 – 00:05:32:06
Clint Loveall
And I think maybe just two quick things before we dive into the content. One is it seems as this is an ongoing conversation. So Paul says to write the same things to you. In other words, he’s probably warned the church before, but he wants to make sure that he repeats that warning. And so he comes back to something that evidently there’s been prior conversation regarding.

00:05:32:11 – 00:06:01:45
Clint Loveall
And secondly, I do think, Michael, this is a good reminder for us that even in our own time, the church exists with other voices outside of it. And sometimes those voices try to speak to what is or isn’t true in the church. And the church must always, at some level, protect itself from untruth, or from bad ideas, or from bad teaching.

00:06:01:49 – 00:06:36:32
Clint Loveall
And in this case, it has to do specifically with the idea of circumcision, which isn’t really the thing in itself. It is a summary of the thing or a symbol of the thing in how Jewish do the Gentiles have to become before they can be Christian? And there were those who said that if a Gentile, an uncircumcised person, not Jewish, comes to the faith, then they have to do the things that one would have to do to become Jewish.

00:06:36:32 – 00:07:13:50
Clint Loveall
So they would have to keep the diet laws, and they would have to, if they were a male, become circumcised, because that’s what one did to be Jewish. Paul argues a very different thing, and there’s plenty of places. Galatians, Romans, if you want to dig into this, you can find it. But but Paul argues instead that because they come through Christ, they don’t need the physical markers of the Jewish faith, that they are what he calls in other places, circumcised in the heart, that that mark is not now external and physical.

00:07:13:55 – 00:07:50:34
Clint Loveall
It is internal and spiritual. And you get a sense right away of how unimpressed Paul is with this ongoing argument. The dogs, which is an insult, the workers of evil and the mutilate of the flesh. And if you were wondering about the word mutilate, that’s specifically used as, as a counter argument to what what Paul’s saying and the idea is, my footnote tells me that the Greek word mutilate and the Greek word circumcision sound similar.

00:07:50:34 – 00:08:15:52
Clint Loveall
And so what Paul is saying is because we don’t need to be circumcising Gentiles, instead they’re just mutilating flesh. They’re they’re working evil. They’re not being of the spirit, and we are of the spirit. And so we know better. So I, I never know exactly what to do with this, Michael, because it sounds like such a crazy argument in our day and time.

00:08:15:57 – 00:08:35:33
Clint Loveall
Yeah. But for Paul, it’s not about the circumcision. It’s about the question Is Christ enough for the Gentiles? And Paul is going to argue with every fiber of his being. Absolutely. It is enough. You do not need to add anything else to what Christ has done. It’s complete in itself.

00:08:35:38 – 00:09:08:07
Michael Gewecke
So I can’t agree more. I think that there’s times in Scripture where we struggle to get a foothold, and maybe one way in here, and each of us can orient ourselves to this however we want. But beware of the dogs. Dogs was an insult that Jewish people would give towards the Gentiles. And so notice how here Paul is using that insult against the people who would have cared about that physical mark as a symbol of representation.

00:09:08:07 – 00:09:34:35
Michael Gewecke
In other words, he’s turning it around. He’s flipping the argument on his head. And what he’s pointing out is that there’s an inequity, that there’s this there’s this group that is speaking over and down two others, and they’re doing so on the merit of their physical approach ment, their physical conduct that that gives them access in. And make no mistake about your use this language, Clinton.

00:09:34:35 – 00:10:04:00
Michael Gewecke
And we have to see it worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus. Paul, who lays out this theology and all of his letters that fundamentally it’s the Spirit of God that works this salvation in us. It’s a gift. It’s grace. Right? This language matters because fundamentally, what it means is this argument that Paul was constantly engaging with people about what physical rights and passages do you need to do to get in to the good news of Jesus Christ?

00:10:04:04 – 00:10:33:15
Michael Gewecke
Paul pushes back and says, that’s the wrong question. He wants it to be clear. It’s not your action that gets you access to grace. It is fundamentally God’s gift at work in you through the Spirit of God, which is a relational presence done in the spiritual work of God. It’s not something effected because of your choices, or because of your ritual, or because of some religious path that you took.

00:10:33:19 – 00:10:53:47
Michael Gewecke
And and this becomes, I think, a very helpful connecting point for us because it’ll be different for each and every one of us. Whenever you’re watching this video or joining us for the study, you live in a world in which there are people who lord that over others. There are people who look upon themselves as being higher for whatever reason.

00:10:53:47 – 00:11:19:26
Michael Gewecke
And there’s as many reasons as there are people. And fundamentally, the gospel inverts that and says, it’s not your pedigree, it’s not the pecking order that you’ve created. It’s whether or not the Spirit of God is at work in you. And if so, that’s the only thing worth boasting. And everything else is fundamentally going to disappear. Nothing else has value except the Spirit of Christ at work.

00:11:19:26 – 00:11:44:42
Clint Loveall
And that some physical marker on your body could not be determining deterministic of whether you were of the faith or not, that that that’s an internal reality. And so Paul says that we put no confidence in the flesh. And then he goes on to say, but I have reason for confidence, and this has to do with authority. And it’s unfortunate that we’re going to take a break.

00:11:44:47 – 00:12:14:24
Clint Loveall
We’re going to have to come back to this passage in a week. We’re off next week. And this is very hard to separate from what comes next. But the the argument that Paul is going to make is that authority is no longer a product of one’s position, one’s breeding, one’s status. But he says, if you want to make that argument, I could, I was circumcised on the eighth day.

00:12:14:24 – 00:12:36:43
Clint Loveall
In other words, I was born a Jew. I was a member of the people of Israel. My family are all Jews. I was of the tribe of Benjamin, which means he can trace his lineage back to the Old Testament tribal structure and has never been anything but that. In other words, he is pure, a Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee.

00:12:36:43 – 00:13:02:19
Clint Loveall
Pharisees are a sect in Judaism known to focus on and specialize in the law as to zeal, I persecuted Christians, and as to righteousness under the law blameless. Now it’s it’s important that Paul is not claiming here that he could be perfect or sinless, but he’s saying as it pertain to following the law, I followed it completely.

00:13:02:24 – 00:13:31:03
Clint Loveall
I, I was all in and now what he’s going to go on to say is that he now realizes those things don’t mean anything. And that’s the part where we’ll just have to come back and help with the connections. But but what’s important is Paul’s saying, look, if you want to talk from a place of authority, I could do that, but I’m not going to, because whatever that would mean doesn’t mean anything more compared to Jesus.

00:13:31:08 – 00:13:41:10
Clint Loveall
And that’s the turn that this text is going to take. And it’s a beautiful turn. And it’s just that this is the first step of how we’re going there.

00:13:41:15 – 00:14:10:21
Michael Gewecke
I think we read the Gospels, and we see Jesus’s debate with the Pharisees and the religious leaders and except for maybe 1 or 2 encounters, most of those get heated pretty quickly. And so I think we read Paul’s sort of pedigree here, his resume, and I think that we might naturally actually even be turned off by it a little bit.

00:14:10:31 – 00:14:34:00
Michael Gewecke
I just want to caution you when Paul says that he was under the law, blameless. That’s a lot of bull reality, that he lived out his faith and his life with such passion and rigor and care that he would see the law as God’s gift to him, and tried his very best to live it out in every area of his life.

00:14:34:04 – 00:15:23:34
Michael Gewecke
This is an amazing pedigree. I don’t think we need to take away from Paul, from our reformed, Protestant perspective. Yes, we know Jesus made it abundantly clear, right? It’s not just don’t commit adultery. It’s don’t imagine adultery. It’s not just don’t, steal. You know, Jesus takes it to the nth degree, but fundamentally, what Paul is saying here is even if you’ve given everything you have to living out the faith, as we’ve had it for thousands of years, the Old Testament Jewish tradition and God’s encounter with the people of Israel says even that the height that the very top tower of the achievement of seeking to follow that ultimately, as we’re going to

00:15:23:34 – 00:15:45:22
Michael Gewecke
see later when you compare that to the Spirit of God at work, all of that is rubbish. I actually think that what Paul’s doing here is not denigrating his experience. I think that he’s lifting that up so that when you can see how high it is, you become shocked. When you see how high it is when Christ is raised up and this goes back to that Christ him.

00:15:45:27 – 00:16:17:00
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. We can’t raise ourselves up. We can’t work hard enough. We can’t put ourselves in position. When we went through that text, Clint rightly pointed out the person doing the exalting is always God. And here, once again, Paul lived his life in a way, living at that exalted state in the in the religious tradition. And yet when one compares that to Jesus Christ, who humbled himself, and then God raised to the highest heights, then one discovers the only thing of truth is that spirit living inside you.

00:16:17:09 – 00:16:43:08
Michael Gewecke
Which is, by the way, the great good news that I think we all take for granted. But everyone pretty much listening to this study. If you’re a first spirit person, we’re likely, not a high capacity of Jewish people. And so this good news that Paul is proclaiming is the foundation upon which our faith is built, that God has not come for our people group, but God has come for the world.

00:16:43:15 – 00:16:57:19
Michael Gewecke
It’s not the physical rights that God had in the Old Testament that determine your entry to the gospel. But it’s the Spirit of God’s work in you that defines your identity in Christ. All of this is the foundation of our faith, even if it’s easy to read past it.

00:16:57:27 – 00:17:25:10
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I hope that you’ll be able to join us. After next week or a week from Monday, because what Paul’s going to go on and say, I think incredibly well is, look, I had all the ribbons, I checked all the boxes, and I came to realize that they didn’t matter, that compared to Christ, they were empty. They were meaningless.

00:17:25:15 – 00:18:04:16
Clint Loveall
And I found something far better. And so did. Don’t talk to me about circumcision. Don’t talk to me about needing the law. We have Jesus available to us. And compared to Jesus, those other things simply don’t hold up. They they don’t have weight. They don’t have bearing. We have been given something that surpasses them. And it it to hear Paul say that from this position of, yeah, you know, I, I could compare my resume with anybody, I could compare my pedigree with anybody.

00:18:04:20 – 00:18:11:28
Clint Loveall
But why would I? Because in Christ that doesn’t matter at all. It’s really, really well done.

00:18:11:33 – 00:18:27:38
Michael Gewecke
We’re certainly glad that you’ve been with us here today. Quick note if you’re joining us as we go through this study, we’re going to be off next week. We will be back the week after, and we will continue here with verse seven and everything that follows, like this video, so that others find it in their own study. Subscribe so you don’t miss that next episode the week.

00:18:27:43 – 00:18:28:17
Michael Gewecke
We’ll see y’all.

00:18:28:17 – 00:18:29:18
Clint Loveall
Soon. Thanks, everybody.