Excerpts from The Message Version:

     Philippians 3

 Know Jesus Christ Personally

²Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they’re interested in is appearances...  ³The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads individually to work in His ministries, filling the air with His praise as we do it. We couldn’t carry this off by our own efforts, and we know it— ⁴even though we can list what many might think are impressive credentials: strict and devout adherents to God’s law, ⁶ fiery defenders of the purity of our religion, meticulous observers of everything set down in God’s law Book.

⁷However, the very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ!

 ⁸Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ ⁹and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.

¹⁰I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with Him to death itself. ¹¹If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.

Focused on the Goal

¹²I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. ¹³Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. ¹⁴I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

¹⁵So let’s keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you’ll see it yet! ¹⁶Now that we’re on the right track, let’s stay on it.

From The Messaage:

²⁵Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You’ve concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people. ²⁶Yes, Father, that’s the way you like to work.”

²⁷Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.

²⁸“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. ²⁹Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. ³⁰Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

My dilemma: There seems a conflict, or at least a contrast, between the teaching of Jesus and that of Paul, regarding the judging of others. And sometimes it appears that Paul disagrees with himself. Is it possible that Paul fell into the trap of Phariseeism? And do we as ministers of Christ need to explore the possibility that we have also fallen into that trap?

In Matthew 7, Jesus says

¹“Judge not, that you be not judged. ²For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. ³And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? ⁵Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Paul teaches, 1 Corinthians 2,“13These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the ^£Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. ¹⁴But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. ¹⁶For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?”^£ But we have the mind of Christ....

1 Corinthians 4...  5Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God.

1 Corinthians 5  ³For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. ⁴In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ... ⁵deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord ^£Jesus.... ⁹I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. ¹⁰Yet I  did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world... ¹¹But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. ¹²For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? ¹³But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”^£

^{My dilemma: There seems a conflict, or at least a contrast, between the teaching of Jesus and that of Paul, regarding the judging of others. And sometimes it appears that Paul disagrees with himself. Is it possible that Paul fell into the trap of falling back upon his Phariseeism? And do we as ministers of Christ need to explore the possibility that we have been led into that same trap?}

^{Soon, one possible answer:  Who is Spiritual, having removed the beam from his eye? And who is still carnal?}