“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;”
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ — Paul's loss is not theoretical but lived: he has suffered material loss (apobolia) for Christ. 'Count them as rubbish' (skybala) is deliberately crude: what was prized becomes dung. The goal (hina) is gaining Christ—not achievement but possession, relationship. The irony: losing everything to gain Christ is the ultimate gain. This inverts the usual economy.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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