Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary
The Second NT reading for this date, Philippians 3:4b-14, has often been interpreted as Paul’s blunt repudiation of his Jewish faith in exchange for Christian beliefs. After a quick review of his credentials as a pure-blooded, law-keeping and former zealous Pharisee, Paul seems to sweep it all off the table. “Rubbish!” Perhaps the best service we can do our listeners will be to rethink and dismantle this deeply flawed understanding of this text. We need to acquaint ourselves with the historical religious context that forms the backdrop of these verses and share it with our listeners.
For far too long, this text has been used to justify deadly anti-Semitic convictions and practices.
First, Judaism in Paul’s day was very diverse (as indeed it is today). His own sect, the Pharisees, promoted a distinctive interpretation of Jewish faith and practice, existing alongside others. The Sadducees and Essenes represented other distinct variations. In fact, the beliefs and practices of early Jesus-followers were themselves regarded as the marks of an emergent variation among other interpretations of what was essential Jewish identity in the first century. Christianity was not recognized as a separate religion until decades later.
The presence of many sectarian variants is further evidenced in the text itself. Paul’s purpose is to warn the Philippian church not to be seduced by yet another sectarian movement he calls the “mutilators” (see Phil 3.3). They insist that Gentiles must be circumcised to become Christian. This is not only false, but more importantly, a distraction from what matters most. And what does matter most? Paul uses his own story to clarify.
In vv 4b-6, Paul lays out his Jewish credentials and then describes the aims that once drove his life. Purely Jewish by birth, he was “a Pharisee among Pharisees,” scrupulous about interpreting, adhering to, and enforcing Jewish law. Pharisees believed that the integrity of Jewish national identity depended on this. Paul had gained a stellar reputation among his peers in these pursuits (v 6). But for Paul, everything changed when the risen Messiah and Lord had confronted, called, and commissioned him, much like the Jewish prophets of old, to re-center Jewish self-understanding in a new vision—that preached and lived by Jesus of Nazareth. Paul’s own life is radically re-centered.
His message is twofold. First, Paul preaches that, by raising Jesus of Nazareth from death after his crucifixion, God had vindicated Jesus’ recentering of the nation in a new understanding of themselves as humble servants of God who would practice inclusive love, justice, and compassion, especially toward the traditionally “unclean:” sinners, outcasts, and society’s most vulnerable. Second, Paul declares that God’s new humanity will include the Gentiles, also, forging one new humanity—a notion that was anathema to those who carefully guarded the purity of the nation.
In other words, it is not Judaism per se that Paul sets aside; it is his former interpretation of it as a zealous Pharisee that he casts away. Paul pursues a new path, leaning toward the horizon of that new reality he has seen revealed in Jesus Christ and expressed among believers. Paul counts everything as “loss” except his headlong pursuit of the One who has claimed and transformed him. Now imprisoned for his disruptive message, Paul is honored to suffer as did his Master before him.
It will not do, of course, simply to treat our congregations to a history lesson. It is our turn, now, to take stock of our own embodiment of Christian identity—tame, often, compared to Paul’s! What if we—as individuals and congregations—earned a reputation not for endless church-splitting doctrinal disputes, but rather for showing up wherever strife, threats, hurt and hate diminish human lives? Messy, dangerous work, perhaps. But in Jesus’ name, can we really settle for anything less?
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 