Biblion Bible Commentary
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I Count All Things Loss
Philippians 3:7-8
7 However, I consider those things that were gain to me as a loss for Christ. · WEB
The ledger is redone twice — once at conversion and once continuously — and the second entry uses a coarse word.
However, what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.
The accounting metaphor runs the paragraph. Gain is plural — the seven items just listed, each an asset — and loss is singular. Seven credits are moved to one debit column, and the transfer is dated to a decision.
Verse 8 widens it in every direction. Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be loss — not just the seven but everything — for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. And the tense changes from past to present: the first reckoning happened once, this one is ongoing.
For whom I suffered the loss of all things. The verb is passive, which is honest. He did not merely revalue them; they were taken.
And then the word: and count them mere rubbish, that I may gain Christ. The Greek term covers refuse, table scraps thrown to dogs, and excrement, and translations soften it in different directions. Paul had just called his opponents dogs Philippians 3:2; what he is discarding is what dogs are given.
The purpose clause keeps it from being renunciation for its own sake — that I may gain. The ledger is not being emptied but rebalanced toward something worth more.
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