WEEK FOUR
Day Two
DAILY SCRIPTURE
Philippians 3:3
LEADER GUIDE QUESTIONS
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Know: Read Philippians 3:2-4
Note: Read slowly, carefully marking keywords.
dogs, evil workers, mutilation, the circumcision, confidence in the flesh
Observation:
Who are the dogs, evil workers?
What is circumcision?
What does confidence in the flesh mean?
Who are ‘the circumcision’?
What: Do you know what Jesus finished? In what way have you added to it? In what way has the church added to it?
“Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so:” Philippians 3:2-4
How do you know that you are not believing a false doctrine? How can we be sure we defend the gospel when there are so many ideas about God and interpretations of the Bible? YouTube is infamous for slandering and warning against certain preachers they deem as ‘false.’ Just about any preacher of influence has been scrutinized and labeled depending on their version of scripture. In these warning videos, you will find people defending a doctrinal position- usually regarding how certain Early Church fathers taught them to interpret them.
For years, I avoided certain preachers and ministry streams because I upheld the warnings of my leaders regarding them. After I had a few God encounters that were outside of my base of understanding, I began to realize that God gave me a brain, and I could hear from God myself regarding Himself. I have concluded that the baseline for judging whether a doctrine is false is Jesus.
Jesus’ finished work and the New Covenant are our baseline for interpreting scripture. If you can’t find it in Jesus, you can’t find it in you, in God’s nature, or in scripture.
In this passage, Paul shifts his tone to warn the Philippians to beware of a teaching that had already infiltrated the Galatian church. This teaching causes the believers to shift from ‘Christ alone’ to ‘Jesus plus something.’ This teaching brought with it fear and added to Jesus's simplicity.
Perhaps our English vocabulary does not adequately describe what Paul meant when he mentioned flesh. When we think of flesh, we think of ‘seduction’ or ‘skin.’ In part, Paul does mean ‘skin’ or sins of the ‘flesh.’ ‘Flesh’ is not only the physical identity and sin of our old nature but also what is corruptible. Flesh is corruptible; it gets sick, decays, falls apart, and dies. Sometimes, Paul refers to the person we once were before Christ, but in this case, Paul refers to the pride of physical descent- Judaism.
The Jews who had infiltrated the churches Paul had planted in Galatia insisted that Gentile converts were not truly saved unless they obeyed the Jewish law as well. If they did not fully obey the law, they remained Gentile outsiders- ‘dogs’ as some Jews referred to them. (Referring to wild animals, not family pets). The Jews insisted the Gentiles do the ‘good works’ of the Torah and get circumcised to prove their conversion.
Circumcision, the cutting off of the male foreskin, was a tradition the Jews upheld since the days of Abraham. What began as a sign that the Jews were different than the nations around them had turned into an ethnic, geographical, religious, and cultural hierarchical grouping. The point of circumcision was to be a mark that the Jews should be distinctive, different, and a light to the nations; a picture of what a people group loved by God looked like- different than a people who served pagan gods. The cutting off of flesh had become an obsession to the Jews, and to require Gentiles to do the same to make themselves acceptable to God was beyond shocking and completely unthinkable.
The ‘mutilation’ people are those who think of themselves as ‘the circumcision’, which Paul implies is a sort of pagan cult that insists on ritual wounds on one’s body. Paul urges the church to be alert and watch out for these ‘dogs’- he turned the tables on the Jewish idea of dogs. Where they called uncircumcised Gentiles dogs, Paul is referring to them as the dogs- those who insist on ethnic purity rather than the purity of Jesus’ blood.
The ‘evil workers’ was Paul's contemptuous name for ‘good works’ people. the ones who insist that mutilating the flesh through circumcision and keeping the law is the standard for God. Paul then claims that the believers who keep the simplicity of Jesus and His work are the true circumcision. Those under the New Covenant are in Christ and, therefore, heirs with Him. They are the true children of God, not those still living under the Covenant of Law, which was made obsolete when Jesus’ blood was shed, establishing a new and better Covenant not based on our works but purely on His work- a covenant that was enacted and sealed by God and had nothing to do with our agreement.
The ‘true circumcision’ are those who worship God in spirit, not the flesh; who look to King Jesus—not family descent; and who refuse to put trust in their flesh. Christians, no matter their background, gender, culture, or ethnic background, are the true inheritors of the title ‘true circumcision.’
Paul himself could have claimed and supported all the Jews were touting. As a Jew and former Pharisee, he could have been agreeing with the Jews, but instead, he believed that the God of Isreal had fulfilled His promise to them and also included the Gentiles. The ‘true circumcision’ no longer adhered to the old ways; they would lay down their flesh and follow where God led.
It would sound very similar if Paul were to challenge the church today. Have we added our work to Jesus’ finished work and insisted that others do as well to be made acceptable to God?
Do you know that you are the righteousness of God in Christ?
Do you feel righteous no matter what you do?