Some thoughts on Philippians, chapter 3

 


     “I deem everything to be a loss on account of the excellence…of knowing Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and communion in his sufferings…not that I have already been perfected, but…I press onward to the mark, for the prize of God’s call upward in Christ Jesus” (3.8, 10, 12, 14).  Paul made it his life’s goal to “become like Jesus”.  In Philippians 2, Paul shared the hymn which described Jesus’ self-emptying and humiliation through his incarnation and death on the cross (2.6-11).  In chapter 3, as he warns the Christians of Philippi against Judaizers (who insisted that circumcision was necessary in order to become a Christian), Paul describes the “confidence in the flesh” that he had previously as a Pharisee (3.4-6).  Paul tells the Philippians that he has gone through an emptying process similar to that of Jesus – indeed, he “has lost all things on Christ’s account” (3.8).  Moreover, he considers all the things that had previously given him confidence and status to be “excrement” and a liability.  He has found the “pearl of great price” (cf. Mt. 13.45-46).  Paul turned his back on each and every prerogative that his religious pedigree had given him.  Paul has done this because he had discovered, in Jesus, the path to true glory.  The way up is the way down.  Just as Christ descended to the lowest depth of shame and pain, only to be exalted to the highest place (2.9), so Paul is “striving towards the mark for the prize of God’s call upward” (3.14).  For Paul, Jesus is the standard of perfection, the one member of the human race who has been exalted to share in the very glory of God (cf. Rom. 3.23; 2 Cor. 4.6).  The way to glory, i.e. resurrection (3.20-21), is the way of the cross (Phil. 3.8-11; cf. Gal. 6.14; Mk. 10.35-45).

     Paul’s single-minded goal was to become like Jesus, and he called upon the Philippians to imitate him (3.17; cf. 1 Cor. 11.1).  As their apostle/pastor, Paul was “Jesus” for the Philippians, and he calls them to be “Jesus” for each other (2.1-5).  Christians are called to “carry the cross” in both their communal life and in their public witness, all in the hope of experiencing resurrection glory when Christ returns to establish God’s new world (cf. Rom. 8.18-25).  This is the pattern of reality – indeed, all attempts to experience “glory” in the Present Age are doomed to end in disaster (3.18-19).  The only way to salvation is the way of voluntary suffering now, i.e. participation in the work of Jesus (cf. Col. 1.24, 27), in the hope of everlasting glory in the Age to Come.  The cross comes before the crown.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Protestant Reformation - good news?

Image
  The study of Reformation Europe makes many Christians wish that they had lived in the 16th century. Name 1) Some good reasons for not living in the sixteenth century and 2) Some ways in which we can live more deliberately as Christians today because of the events of that century. How should it and how should it not make a difference?    Some good reasons for not living in the 16th century include the climate of religious intolerance and violence.   Religious affiliation and observance were compulsory and imposed on the people by the state, especially it seems, in Protestant countries.   There was no freedom of conscience, except perhaps in England during the reign of Elizabeth, where the windows to people’s souls remained shut to the state, so long as they publicly conformed to the monarch’s religion (as enforced by parliament).   One may have thought that Luther’s appeal to conscience at the Diet of Worms would have inspired a broader and more sensit...
Read more

“Walking the tightrope” (St. Luke’s: Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018: Ez. 34.1-11; Ps. 23; St. Mt. 20.1-16)

Image
Ancient relevance.   Any conscientious catholic who has the habit of watching the news cannot help but notice a direct link between today’s first reading and what is going on in the Church these days.   Last week, a grand jury released a report detailing the results of their 2-year long investigation into dozens of clergymen who had abused upwards of 1,000 children in various dioceses in the state of Pennsylvania.   Every time cases of the abuse of children by priests and religious come to light, we are reminded that we live in a world – and are part of a Church – deeply infected by evil .   And of course, let’s not forget that the line between good and evil runs through each one of us (cf. Solzhenitsyn).   In today’s first reading, the prophet Ezekiel proclaims an oracle of judgment against the false “shepherds” of God’s “flock”.   Instead of caring for, protecting and nurturing God’s people , Israel’s leaders had exploited the people for their...
Read more

The Bible, western culture & the idea of “truth”

Image
      No one reads the Bible in a vacuum .  Also, the Bible is not self-explanatory.  Reading the Bible, like reading any text, involves the reader in the process of interpretation – what does this text mean?   Everyone who reads the Bible does so within a certain culture at a particular moment of history, perhaps as a member of a religious community who holds certain official beliefs about Scripture (inspiration, revelation, etc.).  All of these factors contribute to how we understand the Bible and how we seek to live in light of what Scripture says.  As westerners, or as members of peoples who were colonized by western nations, we are members of a culture/civilization which has been reading the Bible for almost 2,000 years.  When we open the Bible, we join a 2,000-year-long conversation – a conversation which has often resembled a heated debate.  No text has had a greater influence on western culture than the Bible.   The Bib...
Read more