Counting his past achievements as dung
I once thought these things were valuable, but now I count them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.
Phil 3:7-9
I am very aware of how ridiculous the title I gave this gem appears. You keep all your valuables in the bank. Your money is stored in the bank vault along with everyone else’s. Your account gives you the current balance of all of the money left in your account at any point in time. Of course your money is kept in the bank with everyone else’s money but at any time the bank will give you the amount of money you need for the moment. Unless of course you currently need more money than the bank records indicate you own. In which case you have to go to the bank deposit boxes and take from your box your other valuables. The shares you own, the precious jewels you have stored there and perhaps the several gold bars or nuggets or the gold Rolex watch you were given when you left the Firm. Oh, you say you don’t have anything like that. Only the money left in your account?
Most of us don’t have huge resources stored up for the future at the end of their lives. What we have to look forward to are the valuables accrued for a life spent working toward retirement or working for that moment we can cash up and go on that holiday of a lifetime we have always promised ourselves. So at the end of life we want to look back on a job well done and what we see is the fruit of our labours for a lifetime. Imagine our shock if what we have left is a fake gold Rolex. There have been a number of times I have been offered a gold Rolex. Each time it looked amazing and the price I was expected to pay for it was in keeping with such a valuable asset. But when I laughed and turned down the seemingly irresistible offer, the bargain of a lifetime, the person with the watch began lowering the price. Suddenly I was able to buy a solid gold Rolex watch for next to nothing. The bargain of a lifetime or a fake Rolex worth nothing? You know the answer and you know without me telling you whether I purchased my “solid gold Rolex” or not.
Just put yourself in Paul’s position for a moment and take his words literally.
I once thought these things were valuable, but now I count them worthless, counting it all as garbage because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else.
Phil 3:8
The actual word Paul uses is Σκύβαλον (sing) or Σκύβαλα (pl) or (skubalon / skubala). This word has been translated variously as dirt, dog dung, dung, garbage, refuse, rubbish, trash, things worth nothing.
We could think of other words:- crap, excrement, excreta, left overs of life, scraps, sh*t.
We have seen people in some of the places we have lived or travelled to who search the garbage bins in front of the houses for the things they can find there that could be reused. In the city dumps people scavenge all day long for anything that might remotely be of worth. This word skubala depicts that which is of no worth at all. It is summarised by the term excreta – that which the human body has excreted out as being of no worth at all. Vomit and excrement. Eugene Peterson in the Message version chose to use “dog dung”. I would guess because it is offensive and dogs are looked on in many of these countries as being wild and worthless. Certainly they are not regarded as pets. Hence the dung of dogs is particular repulsive. Yet this term skubala is specifically referring to human excrement. There is something repulsive in the extreme that human crap can be of any value at all. Yet there have been times when people have been forced to eat their own ecrement either by oppressors or by the extreme circumstances they found themselves in. During a siege or when the city of Jerusalem fell to the Romans in AD 70.
Josephus tells of the time when “when strength failed them to carry out the poor, they piled the bodies in the largest mansions and shut them up; also that a measure of corn had been sold for a talent, and that later when it was no longer possible to gather herbs, the city being all walled in, some were reduced to such straits that they searched the sewers and for old cow dung and ate the offal therefrom, and what once would have disgusted them to look at had now become food.” Josephus
Josephus, Jewish War 5.571
Gemallus tells of a donkey driver who had bought a little bundle of hay, the whole of which was decayed and rotten and was like skubala.
The key point in this word study of skubala is the worthless, offensive and revolting nature of what Paul is talking about. The concept he was thinking of was not just shocking; it was revolting as well. We really do need to preserve the human component in this analysis and its use. In other words not term it dog dung as Eugene Peterson did. Why? Because what Paul is referring to are his own efforts, the fruits of his own labour. It is not the left-overs from dogs. It is the left-overs from humans in focus here. More to the point what is left after a lifetime of work after all of Paul’s own endeavours. Now that would be shocking.
There is one more point for me to make. Paul’s use of skubala may well refer to the connection with dogs earlier in this passage. Paul referred to his opponents, the Judaisers as dogs. I have already introduced you to the terms [περιτομή] and [κατατομή] in Gem 1962. Paul’s use of those words hints at the left-over mutilated flesh which results from an act of circumcision. Did he use the word skubala in that sense here? The difference between cutting around [περιτομή] and cutting off [κατατομή]. Maybe, just maybe, Paul is thinking of a botched job of circumcision and the mutilated remains left-over. Whichever of these options was in Paul’s mind as he wrote or dictated these words, it is indisputable that Paul’s intention in saying these things was to shock.
Whatever we may say about this section, Paul’s point is after having looked at his bank statement and compared his gains and losses, he concludes that all activity which came from the endeavours of his own flesh was worthless in the extreme. But of course he is comparing his past efforts as a former Judaiser and trainee Pharisee to his current efforts doing the work of God in Christ.
We will turn to look at that aspect of Paul’s thoughts in the next Gem.
I am not where I want to be but thank God I am not where I used to be.
Joyce Meyer
I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.
Neil Armstrong
Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.
Walt Whitman
Keep your face always toward the Son – and shadows will fall behind you.
Ian Vail