Paul’s Opponents
Paul’s Opponents
Paul writes of opponents who "preach Christ out of envy and rivalry” (Phil. 1:15) and who try to stir up trouble for him (1:17). This makes it seem as though they are church members, but a little later he refers to them as opposing the church and goes on to speak of his readers as suffering for Christ (1:28-29). In 3:2 they are "dogs,” and the subsequent references to circumcision and to Paul’s fleshly qualifications in Judaism indicate that they are Judaizers of some sort. Paul goes on to say that he has not attained perfection (3:12), which makes it seem as though the false teachers claimed that they did. Later he writes of "enemies of the cross of Christ” and insists that "their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame” (3:18-19).
It is possible that all this refers to one group of people. Klijn refuses to see a variety of opponents: "The most acceptable solution for the problem is to assume that the persons referred to are Jews.” 26 This view has not won wide acceptance, and it certainly seems more likely that Paul is confronted by people who are in some sense Christians. 27 How else would they be preaching the gospel, however maliciously (Phil. 1:15; Klijn does not bring this verse into his argument)? The references to libertarianism ("their god is their stomach”) and to perfectionism point some critics to a form of Gnosticism or to some kind of pre-Gnostic teaching. The latter is a possibility, but evidence that full-blown Gnosticism was in existence in Paul’s day is lacking. Another view is that the opponents were Judaizers and that "their god is their stomach” refers to Jewish food laws. We can say only that in the present confused discussion, several possibilities are regularly canvassed in the literature.
It is likely that Paul envisages opponents of more than one kind. He seems to be fighting on two fronts, being opposed within the church by some who did not agree with his preaching and outside it by some who made the whole church suffer. The references to Jewish practices make it clear that either Jewish opponents or Judaizers were involved, who may well have held to some opinions that were later taken up into the great Gnostic systems. 28