Jesus Is Better - June 16 Readings: Philippians 3

Today’s Readings

Context

If you spoke Greek, you might be a little surprised at Philippians 3:8. Paul was a Jew and had lived his life to be a good one. He was up and coming in the religious and scholarly circles of Judaism and was a leader in the efforts to squash that troublesome sect that followed Jesus. Then, one day, he met that Jesus on the road to Damascus. Here, Paul describes how he gave up everything for Christ. Everything. 

And in verse 8 he says he considers these things "rubbish." That's the word the English translations use because the most accurate translation wouldn't really look very nice. It's kind of vulgar. Paul uses a word for manure - human waste. But it's a fairly "colorful" word. Dr. Daniel Wallace, one of the greatest experts on Greek alive, says the word's best translation lies somewhere between our word "crap" and another word I'm not allowed to say!

Are you offended? That is Paul's point! He is saying that everything that mattered to him - his religion, his culture, his heritage, his upbringing, his ambitions and passions, it all became a stinky pile of...well...um...rubbish...when he came to Christ!

When you come to Christ, truly come to Christ, the "vain things that charmed you most" become stinky, disgusting, horrible things. 

Paul wasn't being needlessly vulgar, he was making a point. Compared to Jesus, everything else is skubala (that's the Greek word - you translate it how you wish). 

Devotional - Jesus Is Better 

"I like myself just the way I am."
"Don't try to change me."
"I am who I am and you shouldn't judge me."
"This is the way I was raised - my heritage."

In America's self-centered and self-affirming culture, we place a greater value on being ourselves than on becoming what God wants us to be.

Paul had no such issue. In Philippians 3:4-6 Paul catalogs his identity before Christ appeared to him on the Damascus Road.

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 

Paul was a loyal Hebrew, a Pharisee and one who closely observed the law. He attempted to follow the law as carefully as he could and was so passionate about his faith that he even persecuted the church.

But when Paul came to Christ, he did not cherish his culture, prize his heritage, hold on to traditions or insist on affirming himself the way he was. Instead, he turned his back on all of these things that once made him so proud and considered them loss, even garbage. They no longer meant anything to him because of his passion for Jesus Christ.

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. 

Nothing that was part of Paul's past, his culture, his heritage, his former life was of great value to him anymore because of the exceedingly wonderful value of knowing Jesus Christ. 

He had a new goal. It was not to seek his own way or to "be all he can be." No, his new purpose, in verses 9 and 10, was:

…in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

Now it was all about knowing Christ, experiencing the power of his resurrection and serving him sacrificially in both his life and if necessary, by his death. 

Father, may I be like Paul, who left behind everything to pursue the knowledge of Christ. 

Think and Pray

Are you willing to give up everything you are and have and value to gain Christ? Are you willing to press on, leaving everything else behind?