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Stand In Your Love
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
God Is Good All The Time
Philippians 3:2-11
Introduction
Army, plans changed, not going to give Sermon
instead talk about research for Thesis
Not going to be traditional or what you expect, I hope it’s still illuminating for you.
What I want to do, for the next 20 minutes or so, is lay out the research that I have done
Because this is something that has been a passion of mine for the last almost year and a half
And then I want to open it up for questions.
If something I say doesn’t make sense, or you want to know more about something,
Jot it down, and ask it.
I’m going to have to defend this research in front of a panel, and they’re going to be asking me all sorts of questions. So if you can hit me with one that stumps me, it will help prepare me for that.

The Problem

As you read the letter to the Philippians, for the most part there’s a logical flow. In fact most books in the Bible if you’re reading them from start to finish, you can follow the train of thought
One thought leads to another. That’s how normal conversation happens, that’s how normal stories are told, that’s how normal books are written.

But in between Philippians 2 and Philippians 3, we find a break down in the logical flow of the letter.

I want to read you the last couple verses of Chapter 2, and the first couple verses of chapter 3 just to show you what I mean.

Remember, the chapter markers in our bibles were something added after the fact. It’s not like the church in Philippi got this letter and it had chapters or verses in it. It was just a normal letter to them..

So in chapter 2, Paul is talking to the church about how he really wants to send timothy to them. But he can’t.
So instead, what he does is he says he’s going to send epaphroditus to them. And he’s telling them to receive epaphroditus.

Philippians 2:28–30 NET 2nd ed.
Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you can rejoice and I can be free from anxiety. So welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, since it was because of the work of Christ that he almost died. He risked his life so that he could make up for your inability to serve me.
We get into chapter 3, Paul says

Philippians 3:1–3 NET 2nd ed.
Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! To write this again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh! For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials
And if you read it with the Chapter markers, you’re like, oh, ok. New chapter, new subject.
But if you’re just reading through it without the chapters, it’s kind of a weird jump.
He’s talking about epaphroditus, and how great he is.
And then he’s like finally, rejoice in the Lord.
Beware of the dogs. The evil workers. Those who mutilate the flesh.

And you’re like woah, that was kind of way out of left field for what he was talking about. What’s going on here.

And this abrupt shift in the conversation is so stark that in fact a bunch of German scholars back in the late 1800s and early 1900s started to say that they think that Philippians is actually two letters stitched together.
Letter(s) to the Philippians?
The logic was, their theory was, Paul wrote multiple letters to the Philippians.
And they kept these letters, but over time, things get lost, paper breaks down. And eventually all you have is fragments of letters, and someone in Philippi was like we have 2 or three “half letters” we should just join them together and make one full letter.

And so the argument goes, this shift is the evidence they provide for it.

Also, they look at how Paul is talking about sending timothy, and epaphroditus, and his travel plans. This is something Paul usually does at the very end of his letters.
and then in chapter 3 verse 1 he says the word “finally”

as if, he’s getting ready to wrap up the letter. But then, he goes on for like a lot. There’s still two whole chapters after he says “finally”

And this idea gained a lot of Traction, until people started testing it.
That’s really the heart of biblical research. You notice something in the text. You come up with an explanation or a theory. And then you test it.
You say, OK, if there were multiple letters stitched together, we might expect to find manuscripts, copies of the letter that only include one part. Or maybe you’d expect to find manuscripts where their out of order.
And you don’t find that. We always find old manuscripts with the whole book, in the exact order it was found.

So it fails that test.

OK, test number two, if there are two different letters, you might expect to find that letter A—for this case let’s say chapters 1 and 2, and letter B—chapters 3 and 4—you would expect that the content in those two sections would have different language. Chapters 3 and 4 wouldn’t reference back to chapters 1 and 2, because th theory is, they’re two different letters.

And you find that, yes in fact, they do reference each other. He brings up the same themes, the same idea.

So it fails that test.

Test number 3, is, if some scribe took two different letters and stitched them together, then wouldn’t he have done it in a way that is NOT abrupt?

If the whole argument is, there’s a huge left turn here, we don’t believe Paul would have been so abrupt…then you have to ask, what scribe in his right mind would think that’s a good place to join the two letters together?

So the multiple letter theory, which was really popular for a while, kind of ran out of steam. And most scholars today don’t accept it anymore. It didn’t pass any of the tests.

But the problem still remains, how do we explain why it’s such a sudden shift.
And so there have been all sorts of theories.

Some people have said “maybe what happened was, Paul was going to end his letter, and then all of a sudden he got new information.
Someone visited him right as he was putting the finishing touches on the letter, and told him some news, and he was like, ok, I guess I’ve got a few more pages to write.

OK. Maybe. Problem there, is, how do you test that?

Unless we find evidence for that, it’s going to be really hard to prove.

Some people have said, well maybe paul wrote the first half on a tuesday. And then wrote the second half on a thursday. And he was in a better mood on tuesday, but thursday, for whatever reason he was cranky.

And again, we have the same problem. A theory is only so good as you can test. How do you test for that? Is there any evidence of people writing letters over the course of several days.

And we just don’t have the evidence for it.

And then you have people who have kind of just thrown up their hands and said, “I don’t know.” It doesn’t make sense. It seems disorganized because paul was just disorganized.
He was easily distracted, he went on a tangent, he got caught chasing a rabbit trail.

And so it just is what it is.

Which is not a bad explanation. Most of us, when we get to passages of scripture that we don’t understand, we go “i dont’ know”
And the problem there, is, from a scientific point of view, from a scholarly point of view “i don’t know” isn’t really anwering the question.
Which is fine if you’re just reading the bible to become a better christian.
But these are people with PHDs who dedicate their lives to answering these mysteries. And for them to just say “I don’t know” Then you’re kind of just giving up on answering the question.

That long introduction leads to what hopefully my contribution to biblical scholarship will be. I have aspirations to hopefully get my research published, I think it would be cool.

Here’s what I noticed. I’m gonna go greek on you for a little bit. But I trust you guys are smart enough to be able to follow along.

Chapter 3:2, it’s a little obscured in the english, but in greek it reads.

Blepete tous kynas,
blepete tous kakous ergatas,
blepete tēn katatomēn

So the word “look out for” is blepete. and then the word for Dogs, Evil workers, and “mutilators” all start with the letter Kappa..the letter k.

It’s what’s called alliteration. Where you repeat the same beginning letter.
Sally Sells Sea Shells by the Sea shore is alliteration.

hēmeis gar esmen hē peritomē

For We are the circumscision.

And you don’t notice it in english, but the word “mutilators” and the word “circumsicion” makes a play on words. They rhyme.

The word “peritome” circumsion, literally means “cut around”

And without getting too graphic, the jewish practice of circumsiscion was a careful cutting around. And the idea was spiritualized.
So when paul talks about our hearts have been circumscized, the imagry was a surgeon with a knife carefully cutting away the bad parts, and leaving the good parts.

The word katatome” on the other hand, the rhyming word, meant to cut off. to mutilate. To chop to pieces.

And so I think you can kind of see where the insult is going here, Paul’s saying we are the true “circumscision” but his oponents, the ones who were the conscision, as the king james says, and keeps the pun…they’re just lopping off particular body parts.

So we have this rhyming scheme here.

Verse 3: in english
Philippians 3:3 NET 2nd ed.
For we are the circumcision, the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials
The word “spirit” pnevmati. and the word “rely “ or probably better translated “boas” kauxhomenoi. They both rhyme.

You see all throughout chapter 3, paul is using these poetic devices. Rhyming, alliteration, repetition, all throughout.

I won’t subject you to any more greek, but hopefully I’ve given you enough to see it.

On top of that, Paul’s sentence structure dramatically changes.

In chapter 2 the sentences are long and complex.
In chapter 3, they’re brief, short, choppy, to the point.

Beware of the dogs. Beware of the evil workers. Beware of the mutilators. For we are the circumcision.

And here’s whats’ fascinating, because my first thought was, well maybe that’s just how paul wrote.

Maybe that was just his style.
If you search, and there’s software tools to be able to do this, but if you search the entire new testament for places that have all of these different poetic devices, these literary devices…alliteration, and rhyming and repetition,

There are only 3 others chapters in the entire new testament that have as many word plays as this one.
So it’s not common.
And so then the question is, wow, this has got to be something. Maybe this is a poem, or a song or a hymn, or a creed, or something.

Just just too much there not to explore.
So portion number 1 of my research was combing through this chapter in Philippians and identifying all of the different stylistic flairs paul used. And the more I dug, the more I found. It’s chocked full of them.
Part 2 of the research was simply reading a LOT of greek from the time of the early church, looking to see if there are any other writings that have these same features.
We have mountains and mountains of writings in Greek from early Christians after the time of the new testament.
They’re often called the “early church fathers”
And they did a lot of what the Bible does…They wrote letters to each other. They wrote histories. They communicated with each other.

And I went through as much of that as I could get my hands on, trying to find anywhere else where this style was used.

and what I found, time and time again, is that this style was used most frequently in one place..
Sermons.
Early Christian Sermons almost always had these poetic tools. And almost always they were in the very opening lines of the sermon.

We’ve been preaching through Hebrews, I’ve told you, scholars believe that Hebrews was an early Christian Sermon.
The opening line of hebrews in Greek.
Polymerōs kai
polytropōs
palai ho theos
lalēsas tois patrasin
en tois prophētais

Hebrews 1:1 NET 2nd ed.
After God spoke long ago in various portions and in various ways to our ancestors through the prophets,
You have this alliteration, with the letter p, you have this rhyming scheme.

There’s a very early sermon, written by a guy named clement, it’s thought to be the oldest Christian sermon we have outside of the New Testament
Brothers, it is necessary for us to think in this way concerning Jesus Christ: to think as concerning God, as concerning the judge of the living and the dead.
And it is not proper for us to think little concerning our salvation. For when we think little concerning him, we also hope to receive little.

And in the Greek a lot of those words are alliteration. A lot of words are repeated, you can see, like the word “little” there.

The sentence structure is a lot like Paul’s in Philippians 3, with the short choppy brief sentences.

Even in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, this one you don’t even need to know greek to see the poetic structure

Matthew 5:3–6 NET 2nd ed.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
You have this same repetiton, this same poetic style

and, all four of those “blesseds” the pour in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger....all four of those words start with the letter P. It’s that same alliteration. that same style.
And there’s a lot more where that came from.

And so as I read through these early Christian texts, and texts of the new testament, what I found again and again and again, was that Nearly every time I read a Sermon written between the year 30 AD to the year 300 AD, it had these traits.

Once you got past about 300 AD, it became less frequent.

And there were only 2 sermons in all that i could find that didn’t have these traits.

And here’s where it gets really exciting for me. As I discovered this, almost by accident, I thought, surely I’m not the only person to have noticed this.

These writings have been around for 2000 years. I’m sure there’s a paper or a study somewhere, that talks about this phenomneon.
Except they’re not. Nobody has noticed this, nobody has written about this.

And so the thesis, the theory that I’m putting forward is basically, Philippians 3 verses 2-11 was a sermon that Paul had preached, maybe even when he visited them in the book of acts, taht the church in philippi was requesting a copy of.
They wanted a copy of his sermon that he had preached because these “mutilators” these “dogs” that paul had warned them about, they were there, and they needed some teaching materials to be able to present at the church back home.

Which illuminates chapter 3:1

Philippians 3:1 NET 2nd ed.
Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! To write this again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you.
And that word “finally” some bible’s might say “in addition” which fits the context a lot better i think.

As if the church in Philippi had said “paul, we’re having a really tough time here in philippi. Can you please send timothy. And if you can’t send timothy, would it be too much trouble for you to send a copy of that sermon you preached to us…the one about the dogs and the mutilators…if it’s not too much trouble, we could use taht

And paul says in chapter 2, I can’t send timothy, sorry. I can send epaphroditus, please receive him.

And moreover, as for the sermon thing, to write this again is not trouble to me at all. Doesn’t bother me a bit. in fact I think it’s a safeguard for you. Great idea, here you go:

And he writes the sermon. Beware of the dogs. Beware of the evil workers..

And so moving forward, I’ll be refining my research, but for the most part, the bult of the theory is done. The paper has been written.

And now I have to go through the process of scrutinizing my own theory. Testing my own theory to see if it holds water.

Thank you so much for taking the time to enduldge. me. I know it’s not what you’re used to, I hope it was informative.

I would like to open it up for questions.
- - Philippians 2:28–30GS-NETBIBLE
- - Philippians 3:1–3GS-NETBIBLE
- - Philippians 3:3GS-NETBIBLE
- - Hebrews 1:1GS-NETBIBLE
- - Matthew 5:3–6GS-NETBIBLE
- - Philippians 3:1GS-NETBIBLE
I'm Forever Greatful
How Great Is Our God
Count Your Blessings

Philippians 3:2-11

Philippians 2:28–30GS-NETBIBLE

Philippians 3:1–3GS-NETBIBLE

Philippians 3:3GS-NETBIBLE

Hebrews 1:1GS-NETBIBLE

Matthew 5:3–6GS-NETBIBLE

Philippians 3:1GS-NETBIBLE