Jamin Bradley

Of all the marks someone might make on their body to remember a promise God made to them, circumcision sure seems like a weird one. But then again, when God’s promise is that you will have many descendants, what better place to put a mark than on your descendant-maker?

This tradition was a big deal for the Jewish people. They were created through promise, marked by the promise, and carriers of the promise. So then, why did Paul count his circumcision and other religious credentials as skybalon in comparison to knowing Christ? Scholars like to argue about the severity of the Greek word. The edgy ones will settle for translating it as shit. The moderate ones will aim for crap. The scared ones will land on dung, rubbish, refuse, or waste.

Paul is using charged language here to get people’s attention, which was something he needed to do to stop his fellow Jews from circumcising new non-Jewish Christians. He called such people “mutilators.” Paul recognized that circumcision had never saved anyone, past or present. Just because someone bore the mark didn’t mean they were saved. The true mark of salvation was found in the circumcision of one’s heart being allied with God—not their genitals.

Furthermore, God came to save all the nations—not to make all the nations Jewish. If all the nations became Jewish, then biblical prophecy was not being fulfilled. God needed to save them as they were, each with their own customs and traditions. From there, their new King, Jesus, could help them sort through their culture through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps Paul might have recommended that Jewish people could still go on being circumcised as that was a part of their story. But the tradition didn’t belong with the non-Jewish Christians.