along with their responsibilities as Christians. Paul recognized the mal ice which prompted these “evil work ers.” He called them “dogs” partly be cause from time immemorial that had been a term of contempt among the Jews and partly because it was so de scriptive of the way they worked, snarling and snapping at his heels or attacking his converts whenever his back was turned. The translators have made a fairly successful effort to bring over Paul’s play on words by the use of “concision.” So intent were these Judaizers on this knifing busi ness that they mutilated entirely the meaning which lay in the Jewish rite of circumcision. The church at Phi lippi apparently had suffered less than others from these enemies of Paul, but the threat was ever present, and they would do well to heed his cau tion. Vine, “in striking contrast to these false teachers, Paul asserts his own position. He includes the Philippians with himself in the use of the pro noun Sve,’ which stands for empha sis at the beginning of the sentence (v. 3). ‘We are the (true) circumci sion who serve in God’s spirit and make our boast in Christ Jesus and have no reliance on flesh—though for my part I could beat them at their own game even there!’ All that is fine and true in Judaism — or any other religion for that matter — is found in its noblest form in the gos pel of Jesus. The fact is that Paul fulfilled his noblest heritage as a Jew by becoming a Christian if his adver saries could only have seen it. “But they were blind to spiritual values. They wanted to make a good showing before others so that they could boast in appearance and numbers. Paul’s words of caution should put us on guard against those whose glorying in the flesh in flates the ego. We must remember that glorying is directional (Rom. 4:2). The direction in w h ic h it points will reveal whether it stems from the flesh or from the Spirit. Paul’s sharp caution is needed today
that our boasting may be such as to point men to Jesus and not to our selves.” REVISED ESTIMATES OF WORTH (w . 5-16) The finest protection which life af fords is a true sense of values. Real izing that caution against certain dangers amounts to little unless one is equipped to meet them, Paul pro ceeds in the paragraph before us to present Christ as the criterion by which all values are to be deter mined. In sacred intimacy he opens up his own heart-life to let us see the delicate processes of discernment whereby supreme worth becomes his motivation in the quest of life. The key word, occurring three times in verses 7 and 8, is the word “count.” The picture in the Greek verb so translated is that of some thing standing foremost after a con sidered estimate has been made. Our English word “count,” close kin to “compute,” serves admirably to bring this idea into the workaday world with which we are familiar. After all, the success of any business is de termined by the values which are ex changed across the “counter,” and to this principle, Paul says, the business of living is no exception. Jesus gives to life a higher meaning than can be found elsewhere. Every experience yields surpassing value when inter preted by him as the standard. Paul’s own life had been immeasur ably enriched by this discovery which he longs to share with others. THINGS IN THE PAST (vv. 5-7 Paul had this advantage over the Judaizers. He could meet them on their own footing and prove from his own experience as a Jew the supe riority of a life that recognized Jesus as the Messiah and grace as the fulfil ment of the law. He set down in cal culated order the values held supreme by their standards: the values which were his by right of birth (“circum cised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a (continued t>n page 34)' 19
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