PHILIPPIANS 3:1-2

1 Finally, my brothers, 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.
2 Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.


Verse 1 With two chapters to go, Paul says, “Finally…” It’s this strange feature that makes some scholars suppose that Philippians is actually two letters, which have been somehow jammed together. After all, Paul comes back to the subject of rejoicing again in 4:4, so maybe all these harsh verses in between are an intrusion from somewhere else. Maybe they weren’t even written by Paul, but interpolated by some other writer who wanted to pass off his own thoughts as the Apostle’s…

Unfortunately for the theory, there isn’t the slightest evidence for it. All the manuscripts we have include the whole letter as it stands. Certainly the tone changes abruptly and becomes much more judgmental. But there could be several reasons; perhaps, as some have theorized, Paul really had decided to end the letter here, but then suddenly received news of what his opponents were up to, and decided to add some warnings.

He had issued these warnings before, but it’s “no trouble” to do the same again. Effective Christian teaching is often not a matter of teaching new principles which our audience has never heard before, but of repeating things they already know. It can sometimes take a lot of repetition before the simplest gospel ideas penetrate. There are at least two reasons for this.

First, the truth can become our intellectual property without affecting our volitional decisions. In other words, it reaches head, but not heart. We may know something in theory for a long time before we suddenly have the flash of recognition that “this means me”, and start to apply it.

One of the Bible teachers in our church – and a member of the programming team who sort out the church’s teaching programme – told us on Sunday morning how, at the end of this year’s Spring Harvest, he had unexpectedly realized for the first time that God loved him. He had known it theoretically since Sunday School, had even taught it to others. But now, as an adult with two growing children, he had suddenly taken it on board as never before.

Second, we forget truths that we once knew. Because Christianity isn’t just a matter of learning principles academically, but of applying them consistently to life – and because we have an enemy who wants to distort our appreciation of what we possess in Christ – and because we’re living in a world where the blatant propaganda of the reigning system tries to “squeeze us into its mould” (Rom 12:1) – some of the vital principles we need can disappear temporarily from our view, or can become blurred and misshapen in our recollection. The result is that we need to encounter them freshly, all over again.

Verse 2 Who is Paul warning against? There are two very different groups whom he criticises, at the start and the end of this chapter. As we’ll see, the second group were libertines, who believed that Christians needn't be restricted by any rules and commands. The first group, though, were legalists, who taught strict obedience to all the regulations of the Old Testament law. Including circumcision.

Paul provides three unflattering descriptions of these people. But he’s not just heaping up random terms of abuse, in spluttering indignation; although the NIV translation does make it sound that way. No; instead, again, he’s being slightly playful.

We don’t notice it in English, but Paul's three terms alliterate; in Greek they each begin with the letter k. And the word blepete (“beware”) is repeated three times, giving the whole sentence a jingly, repetitive, jokey feel. (A bit like this: “Watch out for canines, watch out for crime-workers, watch out for cutting merchants”.)

“Dogs” – a fairly common name of criticism in the Bible, but here used for the only time by Paul – is employed because the ancient world thought of dogs as unclean animals (and indeed Jews often called Gentiles “dogs”). Paul is being ironic; through the “new” circumcision in Jesus, Gentiles become clean, so they aren’t the “dogs” `any longer – rather it’s those who cling stubbornly to the old ways who are unclean.

“Workers of evil” reflects ironically on the fact that these people make a big issue of God’s demand for righteousness (which they interpret as strict adherence to Jewish practices). Paul says: righteousness isn’t measured by rituals and ceremonies; it’s conferred by God through faith in Jesus; and any other way of trying to produce righteousness actually has the opposite effect; it produces evil.

Finally there's the term “mutilators of the flesh” – actually one crisp word in Greek, katatome. The proper word for circumcision is peritome, “cutting around”; but the one he actually uses means “cutting into pieces”. What it suggests is that these people will damage your body pointlessly, slashing away for no good purpose.

So there’s a progression: “These people aren’t clean themselves. More than that, they don’t bring cleanliness to anybody else, but the opposite. And more than that, they do physical vandalism in the process.” The tone is amused, relaxed, dismissive. But just because Paul is poking fun, we shouldn’t assume that he doesn’t take these people seriously; for years he had been trapped in the miserable prison of legalism, and he would have hated the Philippians to end up there too.

However, it’s often more effective to treat opposition coolly and levelly, rather than blasting away in incandescent rage. The more we bluster and shout, the more neutral observers will wonder if we’re just a trifle insecure. I’ve often found that when I’m debating with (for example) witches, mediums or extreme gay activists, who routinely expect to be able to enrage evangelicals and begin a name-calling argument, it’s often much more effective to remain calm – whatever inflammatory provocations they hurl – and keep a sense of humour. That way, even if you have to dismiss their conclusions and deprecate their practices, you stand a chance of making some ground and winning some arguments.