Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Philippians · About this commentary
That I May Know Him
Philippians 3:10-11
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death, · WEB
The knowing Paul wants includes the suffering — and the goal he names is the resurrection, not an escape from dying.
That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death.
Four objects of one verb, and the order is not what a reader expects. Knowing him comes first; then resurrection power; then the fellowship of his sufferings, which is not a concession but part of what is being asked for.
The word for fellowship is koinōnia, the same used of the Philippians' partnership in Philippians 1:5. Paul asks to share in the sufferings the way they had shared in the work.
And becoming conformed to his death uses the root of morphē from the hymn Philippians 2:6 — the outward expression of what a thing actually is. The shaping is toward a death, which for the man writing may have been literal within months.
Verse 11 states the goal, and its modesty is startling from an apostle: if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
That is his stated hope in this letter — not a departure at death but a rising afterward, the same expectation he taught the Thessalonians 1 Thessalonians 4:16. And the tentative phrasing is not doubt about the promise but refusal to presume on the path.
settled What this mark means