Philippians 3: Counting the Résumé as Garbage
· #paul #philippians
✝ Passage: Philippians 3
Paul lists his credentials — pedigree, tribe, training, zeal, a spotless record by the law’s own standard — and then calls the whole résumé garbage. Not “less important.” Garbage.
Read it in the terminal:
bible philippians 3
The résumé he burns
Circumcised on the correct day, from the right tribe, trained under the right teachers, “concerning the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless” (3:6) — Paul isn’t describing someone who failed at religion. He’s describing someone who succeeded completely and still calls it worthless next to what he found instead.
Refuse, not loss
“I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ.” — Philippians 3:8
The word choice matters. A loss is something subtracted from a total. Refuse is something you throw out because it was never the point.
Not there yet
Paul immediately undercuts any idea that he’s arrived: “I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold” (3:13). What follows is the posture of the whole chapter — forgetting what’s behind, straining toward what’s ahead, pressing on. Maturity, in Paul’s own account, includes admitting he isn’t finished.
Questions for study
- What’s on your own résumé that this chapter would call refuse rather than loss?
- Where do you confuse religious success with actually knowing Christ?
- What would “forgetting what is behind” look like for you this week — not erasing it, but no longer steering by it?