Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write this to you; it is a safeguard for you.
Behold the dogs! Behold the evil-doers! Behold the mutilation!
For we are the circumcision, we who serve God by the Spirit and boast in Christ Jesus and who do not put confidence in flesh -- although I have confidence also in flesh. If anyone else has grounds for confidence in flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of Israel's lineage, of Benjamin's tribe -- A Hebrew among Hebrews, I was! -- by law, a Pharisee; by zeal, a persecutor of the church; by righteousness in the Law I was blameless.
But all this which was to my gain, I deemed it loss. Moreover, rather, I deem everything to be loss because of that which is worth more: the knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord, because of whom I lost everything and deem everything to be offal, so that I may gain Christ, so that I may be found in him. Not with my own righteousness from the Law, but the one which comes from Jesus Christ, the righteousness which comes from God in faith. Oh, to know him and the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, to be conformed to his death, that I may somehow attain to the resurrection from the dead!
___Translation Notes
1. "mutilation." This word looks a lot like the word for circumcision, and there is a word play here. It wouldn't surprise me if Gentiles often referring to circumcision ("cutting around") as mutilation ("cutting off") as an antisemitic slur.
2. "in flesh." I'm experimenting with "in flesh" as opposed to "in the flesh" here. It seems Paul is using these nouns as as qualitative instead of definite, so it seems appropriate to translate this way.
3. "by law... by zeal... by righteousness." I tried to capture the triple-repetition of found in Greek, which uses the same preposition. It's a little strange-sounding, I admit.
4. "offal." To be blunt, the word means sh*t. It's not just "dung." It's crap. Offal is what the body gives off. It is your impurities. It's worse than "rubbish." "Rubbish" is a left over aluminum can that you can leave in the trash can indoors until it's time to take out the trash. Offal is something you get rid of immediately.
___ Commentary
It almost feels as if 3:1 is a closing. Indeed, the last section felt like a closing. That's normally where you expect to find an explanation of the courier. The switch from 3:1 to 3:2 is quite striking. Some people believe that Philippians is two letters spliced together. While I can sympathize with that theory, there is a method to this madness. This section is intensely passionate, much like 1:15-30. Most other parts of the letter feel either soft and warm, or else the default voice a preacher has. 3:1-11, however, is a sudden burst of energy that slowly levels off by the beginning of chapter 4.
Continuing our chronicle of thematic development, Pride makes a serious appearance here. Indeed, our very identity is that we boast in Christ Jesus and not in flesh. He is our great treasure and our hope. We seek conformity with his example, his sufferings, and his resurrection. Note also the fiscal language of gain and loss. Christ is our gain, and our loss is everything else.
In the The Atlantic there is another article concerning the disadvantageous status of boys in education today. And it's not just at the level of grade school education: for every 2 boys earning a B.A. this year, it is expected there will be three girls earning the same. There's more there, too.
If there's one marital status demographic that has significantly fallen behind, it is the single male (regardless of educational level). To put it another way:
Honestly, I have to agree that the erosion of marriage (and prevalence of eros) is due to women now setting the terms. Why should a single woman marry? It's a downgrade to personal power unless he's at least as educated. You don't need him for financial stability. You don't need him for legal representation. You don't need him for physical protection. No; men now only represent the luxury of sexual gratification. Since it comes down to sex, the religious choose to abstain (or try) and the secular choose non-committal relationships.
Whereas for single men without a degree, we have no financial stability. Marriage is profitable for us regardless of a woman's educational status (which will likely be higher, except in the case of males with PhDs). There has been an erosion in family values replaced with an emphasis on individual liberation. Yet, we humans are not made for individual self-sufficiency. We are made for a relationship of interdependence. And if women have power over men economically, but men have no equivalent power over women, then there is no true interdependence. And thus marriage and the nuclear family, as the backbone unit of which society is formed, is now eroding.
But if the gender social dynamic indeed no longer contains interdependence and women are given extreme benefits for being single while males are not, then it would make sense why certain young Christian women would aim for celibacy (and non-Christian ones just avoid marriage). Christian young women seem to feel hesitant about the commitment of marriage, which they interpret as (possibly) a call to celibacy, when it is in fact a matter of our American cherished virtue of personal freedom from interdependence.
I do lay this quite strongly (though perhaps not solely) at the feet of radical feminism's emphasis on individual freedom from constraints set by the social level of existence. Note that I am not giving a broad brush of condemnation to egalitarianism, since those two -isms are overlapping but not synonymous.
Boys, Girls, Education, and How Feminists Fight Yesterday's Battles
Posted by Gary Labels: Education, GenderThere seems to be evidence that our educational approach in the West is structured in a way that is more advantageous to girls than to boys. An excellent study may be found here through the Independent Women's Forum.
At present, females are more likely to graduate from both high school and college. Males, on average, seem to make more money. The reason for this is that trade-crafts (I can make up words whenever I want!) such as construction are still male-dominated. They require less education and more brawn. It is little surprise that the gender distribution there is pretty far from the mean.
While this may give men an economic advantage in a booming economy, it sure doesn't help when all those jobs are hurting because of a bad economy. While being a professor or teacher may not earn the same amount as certain male-dominated jobs requiring less education, the fact that information-based jobs require education gives women insulation against being laid off.
My father worked for many years as an engineer who drafted sprinkler system blueprints for buildings. He got laid off pretty darned often, and we had to move. This had very unpleasant effects on my family.
Hat tip to John Hobbins. John provides an article from the NY Times on the issue, also. It's anecdotal based on the experience of three schools for gifted and talented children. Still, it helps to see how things look on the ground.
John strongly puts the blame on feminism for this. I feel bad for him sometimes. Not unlike myself, he is radically moderate in a world where people are either far right or far left. Though he acknowledges that feminism has done some good (as do I, though I don't grant it as freely as he does), he is also quick to point out its failures. He does so because like in any other extreme group, there are some feminists who fail to engage in self-critique.
Wag of the finger to Suzanne McCarthy. Men and women are simply geared differently. Biologically, this is rather obvious. Due to difference in muscle density, men are more suited to certain trade-crafts on average. Yet, this should not exclude women from trying to learn the craft -- I highly doubt there is any job that no woman in the world is capable of. The thing that comes closest, however, is being an announcer for a T.V. show (such as "LIVE from New York, it's Saturday Night!"). You just expect a baritone voice there.
Alright, but in all seriousness. We need to admit that differences exist between men and women that create what could be called tendencies. Males (or so I hear) have a greater tendency to be mathematically-oriented whereas females (or so I hear) tend to be language-oriented. Of course, exceptions exist. I know a female with a math degree, and I'll bet she can do math better than I can. She is quite good with languages, also. And you know what? She's not alone for taking the math-and-science path, or so the NY Times says. In fact, it may be completely incorrect to say that there is a tendency for women to be good at this and men at that. Perhaps, rather than literature itself, it is simply the way literacy is taught that females are more adept at.
As for a specific response to Sue: she feels that women are still disadvantaged because men make more money. In this situation, I would have to say that wisdom is worth far more than gold. I would far rather be an educated educator than a rich carpenter. Oh, and not just because education is a safer profession, but because it changes the world by changing people. And for one's own personal benefit, education is superior to money. After all, feminism didn't develop by women earning significant amounts of money; feminism gained momentum through influential writing, which is itself a product of good education. In other words, no education = no feminism. Yet between having an educated job with less pay and a less educated job with more pay, who really has the disadvantage?
In conclusion: look at the IWF's report and see how far behind boys are in education. This is too serious to ignore.