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In the third chapter,

Paul shows how his own life history was an imitation of that of Christ in its downward and upward path.

He lists his credentials as a member of the people of Israel.

He was a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to righteousness under the law, blameless (3:5-6).

Saint Paul had come to regard all this as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord (3:8). ( his born again experience)

He went as far as describing it all as rubbish.

It was as if he had been in a race in pursuit of Christians whom he believed were betraying their heritage as members of Israel, but he had been pursued and captured by Christ.

His only ambition now was to know Christ and the power of his resurrection (3:10). (functioning in the anointing) and authority and power of the Holy Spirit

If his Philippian converts had the mind of Paul as well as that of Christ, they could not think of doing anything from selfish ambition (2:3).

But the letter is more than a treatise dealing with a single issue.

We may pick out at least two other matters to which Paul directs his attention, perhaps less smoothly than he might have, so much so that some scholarly opinion sees the letter in its present form as a combination of three original ones.

The first forces Paul to issue a warning against ‘evil workers, those who mutilate the flesh’ (3:2).
This seems to refer to critics of Paul who were telling the Philippians that in order to become true Christians, (or today catholics)

they had to become (Catholics) Jews first, through accepting circumcision and other observances of the Jewish Law.

This was the agenda that had dominated the Letter of Paul to the Galatians.

It is as if the ‘false brethren who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 2:4) were now on their way to, or indeed had already arrived in, Philippi.

The first argument that Paul had used against them in Galatians had been his own grace story (Galatians 1:13-24); he tells this story again in Philippians.

‘Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ’ (3:7).

He went on to sum up the teaching that dominates Galatians in a single verse: ‘that I may gain Christ. . . , not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ’ (3:9).

To seek salvation through any other way is to deny the value of the cross of Christ and to remove its offence (Galatians 5:11). It is to be earth bound and to refuse to live up to the heavenly call to be citizens of heaven (3:20).

Proud though the Philippians might be to be citizens of Rome; their destiny was heavenly citizenship.