It Is a Safeguard for You

Paul writes a reminder to the Philippian church, saying, “It is a safeguard for you.” What is this safeguard all about?

Philippians: Shine Like Stars – DAY 68
Family Discussions for the New Year

^{*For a menu of all days, click here.}

[This discussion can be read aloud in 11 1/2 min.]

DAY 68/TUESDAY
Philippians 3:2-3
It Is a Safeguard for You

“Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. ²Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. ³For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by His Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh…”
Philippians 3:1-3 (NIV)

^{*Click here to read in the NIrV, ESV, NLT, & CSB.}

Building Biblical Literacy

Comprehension asks, “What does it say?”
Interpretation asks, “What does it mean?”
Application asks, “How should it change me?”

^{*Jen Wilkin, Women of the Word, p.87 (2014)}

In our DAY 63 discussion, we said we would go through these three stages of good literacy-building here at the beginning of Philippians 3.

DAY 63 was about Comprehension.
In our DAY 64 discussion, we began Interpretation.
Today, we continue Interpretation, as we did on DAY 65 & DAY 66, always aiming to correctly handle the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).

WARNING: Parental Discretion is advised. In the following, we continue to discuss circumcision. Some parents may feel the topic is too sensitive for younger children. Please read ahead before you decide whether or not to discuss this topic as a family.

Review

On DAY 66, we saw that being reminded could prepare & protect the Philippian church, but we were left with these questions:

Reminded… of what?
Prepared… for what?
Protected… from what?

In our DAY 67 discussion, we learned Paul was warning the Philippian believers to watch out for the Jews who wanted the Gentile Christians to be circumcised.

We read in Genesis 17 about God’s covenant with Abraham, in which He says,

“This is My covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. ¹¹You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between Me and you.”
Genesis 17:10-11 (NIV)

Then we read in the New Testament letter, Hebrews, about a new covenant in Christ and differences between the Old & New Covenants.

“But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which He is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises…

¹³By calling this covenant new, He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.”
Hebrews 8:6,13 (NIV)

Picking Up Where We Left Off

As promised, today we’ll use our Bible interpretation skill of cross-referencing again to learn more about this problem-causing group and what else Paul has to say about them, continuing to look for answers to our DAY 66 questions:

Reminded… of what?
Prepared… for what?
Protected… from what?

Interpretation Skill: Word Search

To find out what else Paul had to say about circumcision, we can do a word search. I used biblegateway.com and typed “circumcis” into the search bar. You may wonder why I didn’t type a full word. I only typed “circumcis” so even different forms of the word circumcision (like circumcise and circumcised) would appear in my search results.

72 results appeared; 29 in the Old Testament, & 43 in the New. Since Paul only wrote in the New Testament, I can focus in on those 43.

New Testament Books	Word Search Results
Luke	2
John	2
Acts	7
Romans	11
I Corinthians	2
Galatians	13
Ephesians	1
Philippians	2
Colossians	2
Titus	1

Since Luke and John are Gospel accounts that do not include Paul, we can also set them aside in light of our purpose today. Acts was written by Luke, not Paul; however, Paul is certainly a main character, if you will, in the Book of Acts.

Even though our study of Philippians is what prompted this search, circumcision is only mentioned in two verses — Philippians 3:3 and 3:5. Why would that be, when Paul is so adamant that his fellow believers watch out for those who want them to be circumcised?

Read Philippians 3:1-3 again.

“Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. ²Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. ³For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by His Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh…”
Philippians 3:1-3 (NIV)

Paul says, as we noted on DAY 66, “It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again…” (v.1). He only mentions circumcision here as a reminder. In a previous letter to the Philippian church, of which we do not have any copies, Paul apparently wrote to them about this concern. We have an answer to one of our DAY 66 questions!

Q & A

Q: The Philippians were reminded… of what?
A: Paul reminded them to watch out for the Jews who wanted the Gentile Christians in Philippi to be circumcised.

Back to Our Search Results

These two letters of Paul had the most uses of some form of the word circumcise:

Letter of Paul	Some Form of Circumcise
Romans	11
Galatians	13

Let’s look in Galatians.

Paul talks about circumcision in three main sections of his letter to the believers in Galatia. The first section is Galatians 2.

“Then after fourteen years, I [Paul] went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. ²I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. ³Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. ⁴This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. ⁵We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you [Gentile believers in Galatia].

⁶As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. ⁷On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. ⁸For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. ⁹James, Cephas [Peter] and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

¹¹When Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹²For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

¹⁴When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas [Peter] in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

¹⁵We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles ¹⁶know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

¹⁷But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

¹⁹For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Galatians 2 (NIV)

There is A LOT in this chapter! It would be easy for us to get distracted from our purpose — interpreting Philippians 3:1-3 — and instead dig in to the wealth of wisdom & knowledge here in Galatians.

Avoid getting lost in the weeds. Let’s pick out the verse or verses of Galatians 2 that best help us interpret our Philippians passage.

The Circumcision Group

“When Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹²For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.”
Galatians 2:11-13 (NIV)

In these verses, Paul mentions “the circumcision group.” This is another name for the same type of people he tells the Philippians to watch out for, the people he calls “those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh” (Philippians 3:2).

Even the apostle Peter, one of the three disciples closest to Jesus when He walked the earth, “was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group” (Galatians 2:12). No wonder Paul told the Philippians to watch out! If Peter was susceptible to this temptation, anyone could be.

Titus’ Response

“Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. ⁴This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. ⁵We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.”
Galatians 2:3-5 (NIV)

Although some Jewish apostles & church leaders were led astray by “the circumcision group,” Gentile believer & church leader Titus, a Greek, was not compelled to keep the Jewish law of circumcision. Titus, like Paul, seemed to know that keeping the Old Covenant ceremonial law is not part of the New Covenant gospel.

Verse 4 answers another DAY 66 question:

Q: Paul wanted the Philippian believers to be prepared… for what?
A: For false believers who might infiltrate their ranks to spy on their freedom in Christ and attempt to make them slaves to the Old Covenant ceremonial law

The Truth of the Gospel Preserved

“We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.”
Galatians 2:5 (NIV)

Paul writes to the Galatians that he and Titus did not give in to the circumcision group even “for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved.”

This leads us to the answer for our final DAY 66 question:

Q: Paul wanted the Philippian church to be protected… from what?
A: From accepting a false gospel

The circumcision group, “those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh” (Philippians 3:2), wanted to add works of the law to faith as a requirement for salvation. This is not the true gospel!

Read Paul’s words in Galatians 2:15-16 again.

“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles ¹⁶know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”
Galatians 2:15-16 (NIV)

The true gospel says: “a person is not justified (made right in God’s sight) by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.”