Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 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; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (Philippians 3:2-12 ESV)
We can not brag about ourselves because we really have nothing to brag about…
Paul does, though, according to the text above. He has met all the criteria for being on the inside by his lineage. But this does not matter. You see everything that is not Christ crucified is rubbish.
Rubbish is an interesting word. Merriam Webster Online defines rubbish as:
The Merriam Webster Student Dictionary defines it as “useless waste or stuff that has been thrown away : TRASH”
So rubbish is trash or unimportant stuff. It is something that in the grand scheme of things does not matter. And Paul here is saying anything that is not Christ Crucified is rubbish, trash, adiaphora, stuff that does not matter at all.
All of your possessions and everything you have, your house, your car, your clothes, your cell phone, your laptop, your tablet… All of these things do not matter. How much time do we spend worrying about what other people are going to say about the things that don’t matter? How much money (which doesn’t matter either) and time and life do we spend on getting out look right, our home right, our car right… And we miss the boat.
Everything except Christ crucified is rubbish and Paul even goes farther than that and uses a word that is not any where else in the New Testament. The word is skubala in the Greek and is only found here in Philippians chapter 3 and Paul uses it for the power it would bring out in his statement. It is translated as rubbish or dung, or loss, or refuse but none of these get close to what it means to us in English. We would hear it in “the _____ hit the fan.” It is a slang word of Paul’s day for animal or human excrement Paul uses this word here for the effect of what it would have been heard as, because that is exactly what everything is in contrast to Christ crucified. Christ crucified is the only thing that can save us. We can’t, our car can’t, our clothes can’t, our spouses can’t, our churches can’t, our pastor’s can’t, our money can’t, our jobs can’t…. Nothing except Christ!
And that is the point. Everything else is rubbish or dung as the KJV says… Everything is worthless crap compared to Christ crucified and what that has done for you!
aSacredRebel 