True Worth Found in Christ
3 1 Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.
2 Watch out for the dogs, watch out for the evil workers, watch out for those who mutilate the flesh. a a v2 Paul mocks those who insist on circumcision by calling them 'the mutilation' — a deliberate flip of the word for circumcision. 3 For we are the circumcision — we who worship by the Spirit of our Father, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh. 4 though I myself have grounds for confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 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; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
7 But whatever was gain to me, I now count as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count everything as loss because of the incomparable worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish, so that I may gain Christ b b v8 The word translated 'rubbish' is blunt and raw in the original — Paul is making the sharpest possible contrast with knowing Christ. 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ — the righteousness from our Father that depends on faith. 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have taken hold of it yet. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of our Father's heavenward call in Christ Jesus. 15 Let all of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think differently, our Father will reveal this also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have already attained.
17 Brothers, join together in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. 18 For many walk — of whom I have often told you, and now tell you with tears — as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they boast in their shame, with their minds set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we eagerly await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that brings everything under his rule.