Christ is more important than anything
1 My Christian friends, there are a few more things that I want to say. You belong to the Lord, so be happy! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again. And it will help to keep you safe.
2 Be very careful! Some people are teaching wicked ideas. They say that you must cut your bodies. They are like dangerous dogs. Do not believe them! 3 But we are those who are truly God's people. And it is not because someone has circumcised us. It is God's own Spirit that leads us to worship God. We thank God because of what Christ Jesus has done for us. We know that it is not human ideas that can save us.
3:3Some Jewish teachers were saying that Christians had to be circumcised to belong to God's people. Paul is telling the Christians that they must not believe these ideas.
4 I myself could have trusted those human ideas. Other people may think that they could trust in those things to save them. Then I would have an even better reason to trust in them. 5 I belong to Israel's people, to Benjamin's tribe. I am a true Jew. They circumcised me when I was eight days old. I was a Pharisee, and I obeyed the Jewish rules very carefully. 6 I tried very much to please God. So I caused the Christians to suffer. I obeyed the rules of God's Law, and nobody could say that I did anything wrong.
3:5A Jew was someone who belonged to the Israelite kingdom of Judah. The name was first used at the time of their exile in Babylon. The people of Israel who still remain after that time are called Jews.
7 All those ideas seemed very important to me then. But now they are worth nothing to me, because I trust in Christ. 8 Yes, now that I know Christ Jesus as my Lord, that is the most valuable thing. Nothing else is important at all. I have thrown everything else away, so that I can know Christ. All those other things are like dirt to me. I think about them like that, so that I can know Christ better. 9 I want to be united with him. Because I believe in Christ, God accepts me as right with him. I know that I cannot become right in any other way, even if I obey all of God's Law. When I trust in Christ, God accepts me as right because of my faith.
10 Yes, I want to know Christ better and better. I want to know the power which God showed when Christ rose from death. I want to suffer in the way that Christ did. I want to obey God like he did in his death. 11 Then I hope that I also will become alive again after death.
