Paul rejects all confidence in the flesh.
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.
a. These I have counted loss for Christ: Any of the corrupting teachers Paul warned against would be proud to claim Paul’s pedigree. Yet Paul made it plain: these things I have counted loss for Christ.
i. “The word ‘gain’ is plural in the Greek, namely, ‘gains.’ . . . ‘Loss’ is singular. The various gains are all counted as one loss.” (Wuest)
ii. “He was skilled in spiritual arithmetic and very careful in his reckoning. He cast up his accounts with caution, and observed with a diligent eye his losses and his gains.” (Spurgeon)
b. I have counted loss: Paul counted these things loss. It wasn’t so much that they were a loss by their very character, as much as he chose to regard them as loss.
i. They have counted loss not so much because they were harmful to Paul, but because these things were ways in which Paul sought to please God in the energies of the flesh. Before Paul became a Christian, he thought all these things made him a success in the effort to please God by works.
ii. We can say that Paul’s attitude was the same that Jesus described in the parable of the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45-46).
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