Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Philippians · About this commentary
Walk by the Same Rule
Philippians 3:15-16
15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you. · WEB
Paul leaves room for disagreement, hands the correcting to God, and asks only that nobody go backward.
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. The word is the same one he has just denied of himself in verse 12, used here of maturity rather than completion — mature people are precisely those who know they have not arrived.
And the verb is phronein again, the letter's key term, applied now to a self-assessment.
Then a sentence unusual in Paul: if in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you. He does not press, argue, or require agreement. On this point he is content to let God do the correcting, which is a considerable thing from a man who elsewhere writes very firmly indeed.
What that concession does not extend to is retreat. Verse 16 sets the one requirement: nevertheless, to the extent that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule.
The word is a measuring rod — a standard, a line already drawn. Whatever ground has been reached is held in common, and the disagreements Paul is willing to leave open are the ones ahead of that line rather than behind it. Liberty about what is not yet settled; no liberty to abandon what is.
settled What this mark means