For this series in Philippians, I am going to limit each post to one verse, and hopefully produce a short, succinct read for my friends who follow.

3:2   Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

Now that Paul has grounded his church in the joy of the Lord, reminding them of the strength that is provided to them through Jesus, he addresses the “bad guys”.

Dogs

The Jewish population had a way of describing the unwashed, those who were not of the best blood, that were not in the club. Dogs. Oh they had other loving names for them, but this seemed to be one of the popular ones.

Jesus used the term to communicate to his audience when He spoke in Matthew 7:6 about the privilege of possessing holy truth.

Matthew 7:6 – “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

A little later in His ministry, this term came up again, with the Lord testing the faith of a Syrophoenician woman – you know one of those unwashed!

Matthew 15:26 – 27 And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

For Paul to use this term in relation to Jewish preachers spreading a teaching requiring circumcision is quite shocking. After all, Paul is writing to a congregation of gentiles (read “congregation of dogs”) that in the mind of the legalizers, required circumcision to get right with God. Paul calls them the unwashed, the dogs, the ones outside of the covenant! But he goes further!

Evildoers

I tend to like the translation of evil workers, as in the RSV, NASB, ASB, and KJV, simply for the association workers have of being hired. The motivation for the spreading of evil, which modifies the type of worker we are considering here, is not love, nor grace or mercy, or in response to the grace shown to us, but for sake of filty lucre!

Regarding the modifier “evil”, the Greek word is kakos, and though it means “of a bad nature” or wicked, troublesome and destructive, whenever I come across this word, I think of my little grandbabies, before they were potty trained, and had a “kaka” in their diapers.

That stuff was of a bad nature!

Flesh Mutilators

Here we see a reference to the teachers troubling the Philippians. Paul is referring to those who preached Christ and circumcision.

These preachers saw the growth of the church and had to get involved. Prior to the church exploding on the scene, they did not have the challenge of the gentiles becoming so arduous in following after God, for they had put up enough walls to keep them out of the old boys club. Now it was a different story – It was getting out of hand, and God “needed” them to correct the gentiles in their faith.

By cutting their foreskin off!

Take a moment and consider the sacrifice of the Messiah. The eternal God, humbled to the existence of flesh and bone, hanging on a cross for the sins of the world, dying to release us from our futile life. A message of grace and mercy that beckons us to follow in the same life, a life of sacrifice and otherness, a life of following after Him.

Where does circumcision fit in? Where does the Lord Jesus speak of our needing this to get right with Him?

Kindly remember my friend that He has all authority, His message is the full and final message for mankind, and it is a message of commitment, not of circumcision, of grace, not of law, of the new covenant, not of a covenant that has ceased and that has vanished away.

But take note my friend, though the flesh mutilators are greatly reduced in numbers during our time, the same misinformation is spreading at an alarming rate.

Christ plus nothing is the message. Any mixture of our efforts in getting right with God, nullifies the grace that was abundantly provided for our sakes.

Watch out for those evil workers! They are kaka!

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