---
title: "Philippians 3 - Study King James Bible with godbeys commentary on the new testament"
description: "Read Philippians 3 with godbeys commentary on the new testament commentary. 1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. 2 Beware of dogs, bewa"
image: "/_app/immutable/assets/missing.C7wGMEZ6.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/study/godbeys-commentary-on-the-new-testament/philippians/3"
---

[ Read](/kjv/philippians/3)[ Commentary](/study/philippians/3)[ Interlinear](/interlinear/philippians/3) Audio

 1 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed *is* not grievous, but for you *it is* safe.

 2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.

 3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

 4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:

 5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, *of* the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

 6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

 7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

 8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things *but* loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them *but* dung, that I may win Christ,

 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

 11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

 12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but *this* one thing *I do*, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

 15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

 16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.

 17 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.

 18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, *that they are* the enemies of the cross of Christ:

 19 Whose end *is* destruction, whose God *is their* belly, and *whose* glory *is* in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

 20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

 21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
 
[Philippians 2](/study/philippians/2) [Philippians 4](/study/philippians/4)

## Commentary

 To verse 1
 
**ARGUMENT 7** 

MARTYRDOM 

**17**. **** “ *But if truly I am offered for a sacrifice and the ministry of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice along with you all;* 

**18**. **** “ *But you also rejoice, and rejoice along with me in this same thing.* ” O what a contrast this triumph with the howling, shivering, cowardly religion of the present day! I have already notified my wife to wear no crape when I die. Mourning for the sainted dead belongs to a former dispensation, three thousand years behind the age, and is utterly out of harmony with the victories and triumphs of New Testament sanctification. Here while Nero’s sword is hanging over Paul’s neck, and he knows not what minute it will drop and amputate his head (for a part of the punishment of the martyrs was to give them no notification of their impending doom), in this precarious attitude Paul here notifies the Philippian saints to get ready to shout, and to shout along with him; for he is going to have a hallelujah time when they cut his head off, and he wants all of the saints to be ready to help him shout. Good Lord, deliver us from a lugubrious religion, that makes us weep and mourn when there is a chance to go to heaven! 

**19-24**. **** In this paragraph Paul notifies them of his determination to send Timothy to them so soon as he learns more about the decision of the imperial court with reference to himself. He also here speaks of a lamentable apostasy there in Rome. No wonder the disciples were discouraged and intimidated when they saw their great leader completely in the hands of their enemies, and the clouds of persecution accumulating and the darkness intensifying. Amid these prevailing defections he highly commends Timothy, his favorite son in the gospel, assuring them that he will send him to them when he ascertains more satisfactorily the trend of things appertaining to himself. “I trust in the Lord that I myself will quickly come to you.” This I rightly believe he did after his trial and acquittal, as he was charged with nothing criminal in Roman law, but simply disharmony with the apostate theocracy. 

**25-29**. **** Before he got ready to send Timothy, who doubtless carried the good news of his acquittal along with this letter, Paul sent to them Epaphroditus, to comfort them till the convalescence of Timothy. 

**30**. **** “ *Because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, gambling his life, that he may supply your lack of ministry to me.* ” In this Paul indulges a tacit hint to the Philippian saints that should have been helping him push the battle at Rome and elsewhere with all their might. He also in this letter very highly commends them for their faithful attention to his temporal needs, which he can no longer supply, as he faintly wishes his hands were disencumbered of the prisoner’s chain. Hence, this delinquency was doubtless in the ministry of the Word and the salvation work. Here we have a beautiful statement illustrating Epaphroditus’ perfect consecration to God’s work, in the fact that he staked all he had physical, mental, and spiritual for God, using the gambler’s word, *paraboleusamenos*, when he stakes all he possesses in a game of dice. How many of us are like Epaphroditus, just keeping all we possess on the table staked up for God! 

**1**. **** “ *Finally, brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things unto you to me is not irksome, but to you it is safe.* ” Paul felt it his duty to write to them the very same truth which he had repeated over and over in his preaching while with them. This is an important argument for the sanctification of the preachers, which alone can make them utterly dead to popular opinion. Carnality is always foolishly gaping after something new, regardless of truth, sense, or salvation. A Methodist preacher, arriving on his circuit, preached on repentance, came around again and preached on repentance, and so continued preaching on repentance, till the people, awfully bored, asked him for a new subject; to whom he responded, “All right! I will give you a new sermon whenever you repent.” In the olden time they cried out to the prophets, “Why do you not give us something new? we are worn out with your old subjects; ‘line upon line, and precept upon precept.’” When a presiding elder, I always dreaded to see certain popular, high-soaring, metropolitan pastors light on a city station; for I knew they would stay the full quadrennium, and freeze the Church into an iceberg; with etiquettical negative policy, they would antagonize nothing, preach to please the people, and let them slip through their fingers into hell. The unsanctified preacher, incompetent to preach the great truths of experimental salvation over and over, with his eye on the judgment-bar, where God will require the people at his hands, when he goes to his appointment, soon preaches all of his gospel sermons. Then he must go off on wild-goose chases hunting something new, which has no gospel. in it, and lets the people starve to death in a pile on his hands. 

****

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