Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do:
Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14
Now I know that some of you thought we would never leave Proverbs, but today’s Monday Musing shows us otherwise. If I may provide a word of self-defense, I would point out that I have tended to gravitate to the Old Testament in my Monday Musings as a sort of personal discipline. Personal discipline, I say, because in my ministry at our church, I am currently spending the majority of my time in the New Testament as I am teaching and preaching the book of 1 Corinthians. Monday Musings provided a balance of sorts to help me keep a foot in the study of both Testaments.
Now then, with that little disclaimer out of the way, for the time being at least, I’d like to direct our attention to sundry Scriptures. I hope you enjoy the surprise on Monday of discovering the verse about which we’ll be musing.
This Monday my eye fell upon Philippians 3, and specifically one word in verse 13. I’m curious about the tiny neuter pronoun “it.” Let’s do a little textual discovery and see if we can uncover the significance of this short, two letter word around which we can build our lives.
Immediately as we begin to investigate our word of inquiry we find out that it doesn’t exist! That makes things tricky. The English version I’m using puts “it” in italics to identify it as a word that isn’t in the original text. The translators understood that the original readers would have mentally added it to the text of the verse, however, and so it appears in our texts today.
Whatever “it” is, the great apostle says the he didn’t yet have “it” yet. If we’re going to discover to what “it” refers, we need to explore the context. Verse 12 is a good place to begin our search. We reach another dead end there, however, discovering that there is another “it” in italics in this verse. There, Paul says, “Not that I have already obtained it.” To find out the antecedent, we need to go back to verses 7-11. There, if anywhere, we will locate what “it” is.
To provide a little background, in Philippians 3:2-6 Paul posts his pre-conversion resume. He writes of the honors he claimed as a Pharisee with an unsurpassed zeal for the Law of Moses. Then came that trip to Damascus. Confronted with the risen, glorified Christ, the entire course of Paul’s life was redirected. Verses 7-11 tell us about this new path the apostle’s feet walked. He begins by telling his Philippian readers that he ran his resume through the paper shredder after he met the Master. Everything he had and all the religious achievements and attainments he had gained he counted as “rubbish,” a crude yet colorful word in Greek which refers to human excrement, manure, garbage, or kitchen scraps. His life was new and transformed. His new life was concerned and consumed with Christ.
Living his life with Christ at the center altered Paul’s life goals dramatically. He articulates these new goals in verses 10-11. There he said he sought, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Herein we discover the “it” of which verse 13 speaks. Everything in verses 10-11 follows from the introductory clause of verse 10, “that I may know Him.” Paul knew that he didn’t know Christ fully. He looked forward to the day that he would.
We all live in the same space between meeting Christ initially and knowing Him fully. One day we will. What we get to do in the meantime in and through the vicissitudes of life is to get to know Him. Our relationship with Christ will always be impaired by our flesh with its impulses and desires that pull us from our Lord. Yet we are still wonderfully privileged to seek Him and to be transformed by a deepening experience with Him in this life. Intentional and earnest study of Scripture and much time in prayer are indispensable in this ongoing process. Indispensable.
Maybe we could spend a few moments at this point in the busyness of our day to thank Him for the privilege of growing closer to Him, of knowing Him better.
As the song “Knowing You” expresses, “There is no greater thing.”
Let me just begin by saying, “Ministry is made up of the tough stuff.” Now don’t read into this, I am not throwing in my hat or the proverbial towel. I really can’t think of anything else in life I would want to be doing, other than ministry. It is my desire to be a pastor for the rest of my life, but some times it is just tough.
I just mean in general, there is tough stuff to have to deal with (also, I am not talking about my fellow elders, so stop trying to stir up controversy…seriously!)
