Talk:Philip 1:1-4:23

Verses 3:11-15

This is an interesting passage, and I'll have to study it a bit when I have time. I'm not sure Paul is saying that he is perfect; he may be saying that to the extent he is (or we are) perfect, this is what should be done. This passage is really awkward in the KJV! Here's how the World English Bible (I'm using it because it's in the public domain) translates verses 12-16:

Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if it is so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I don't regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do. Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you. Nevertheless, to the extent that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind.

I've looked this up in some other translations, and they're similar. Perfection is the goal, and we're on the way to attaining it. --Eric 16:41, 15 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Eric for posting this alternate translation--these verses didn't strike me as significant until I read them in Russian (on my mission), perhaps because the KJV translation is awkard.

Even with the World English Bible translation, I think I read these verses slightly differently than you--not just that we're "on the way to attaining [perfection]", but that we are perfect when we are truly striving to follow God's will (when we "press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God"). This interpretation emphasizes the phrase in v. 15 "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded" ("Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way" in the World English Bible, emphasis my own).

In Russian, the verb form of the word perfect used in v. 12 ("made perfect" in the World English Bible) is the perfective aspect of perfect (which I guess corresponds to the Greek aorist aspect? see explanations here and here), meaning that the emphasis is on the completion of the event. My Russian isn't good enough to know if the adjective used in v. 15 is derived from the perfective or imperfective aspect (I think it can also be read as the past tense of the perfective aspect). Anyway, I'd love any insights on Greek verb aspects, esp. regarding the word perfect (as used here and elsewhere in the New Testament).

One reason I find this interesting is because of the apparent paradox of Christ commanding us to be perfect (see our discussion of 3 Ne 12:48), and Nephi's claim that God will not give us a commandment we cannot fulfull (1 Ne 3:7). It seems the two ways to resolve this apparent contradiction is to either (1) assume 1 Ne 3:7 only means we can eventually achieve the commandment, that is, achieve perfection eventually, even though it's impossible right now, or (2) assume we are perfect in the sense Christ intended in 3 Ne 12:48 and Matt 5:48 when we are sincerely striving to do God's will, as I would argue Paul is doing and advocating.

--RobertC 14:38, 17 Nov 2005 (UTC)

I guess a third way to resolve the apparent paradox is to say it's possible to be perfect, even though no one except Christ actually is perfect (or maybe some other people do become perfect in this life and at least in some point in their life reach a point where they no longer sin in any way, ever). --RobertC 14:54, 17 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Excellent comments and some good food for thought. --Eric 16:00, 17 Nov 2005 (UTC)

I agree. thanks for the comments. One open question in my mind is whether we can "sincerely strive to do God's will" and sin. If we think of sin as involving culpability, they don't seem very compatible. If sin and sincerely striving to do God's will are not compatible then it reduce 2 & 3 to the same thing. Against the idea that sincerely striving and sinning are imcompatible are 2 points. 1) My own experience 2) It seems like Paul wrote something somewhere about sinning and grace or sinning and the flesh or something like that which is relevant here. I didn't understand it at the time so I'm going to refrain from attempting to explaining what it means now--when I don't even remember where it was. --Matthew Faulconer 07:16, 25 Nov 2005 (UTC)