Legalism is Refuse - PH68-01

Advanced Bible Doctrine - Philippians 3:7-10

These celebrities of Judaism were actually disoriented to the grace of God, and thus they were very dangerous people, because the only way a person gets into heaven is through the grace of God. The only way a person makes progress in the spiritual life (he advances spiritually and he grows in spiritual maturity) is by the grace of God. So anytime you meet a person who is a legalizer, who undermines grace, you have met a person who is very dangerous. He can cost an individual his salvation by disorienting him to the plan of God. Or you can cost a person who is a Christian great eternal reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Please never forget that that's exactly where each of us is headed. We are actually, literally going to stand before the Bema, the Judgment Seat of Christ, and you're going to hear declared to you the evaluation of what you did with your life as a Christian, relative to service. Then you will be rewarded accordingly for all eternity. For that reason, there will be some very rich Christians in heaven. There will also be some fantastically pathetic paupers in heaven. Your spiritual service will determine an element of eternal life which you are now preparing – that element of rewards. It is critical. It is important. The apostle Paul never tires of telling us, "Be careful to perform divine good works" – not human good, but divine good. So the celebrities were undermining the very means of securing such rewards for a Christian. They were undermining the very means of grace for securing eternal life. They were dangerous people.

Paul has risen to a feeling of intense indignation. He was angry. He was fed up. He'd had enough of these people following him wherever he went in the New Testament church, and coming into the churches, and undermining his Christians. He had had enough. As we get into this passage, you will see just how far his indignation has risen.

Famous People in our Day

So this is a very juvenile, superficial attitude. It may be summed up in one word: "dumb" – widely practiced, but "dumb." This is the impression that because famous people are part of an organization or a movement, that that somehow tells you something about that movement. I hope that you have developed spiritually where you are over that kind of juvenile thinking. I know it is hard for you to accept that concept because all of the famous evangelists in our day run their meetings like this. You can't watch them on television without them pushing some big celebrity up to the fore in order to prove that this movement of Christianity is worth their consideration. You don't find anything like that in the New Testament. That's pure 20th century Madison Avenue hucksterism. It is not God the Holy Spirit's method of bringing people to a conviction of the Word of God. You don't need celebrities to prove the fact that the Word of God is alive and powerful, and that the message of Christianity is the message of the living God.

Once a person has matured spiritually, you will discover that he is not moved to approve a cause of any kind just because celebrities participate in it. Nor is he impressed by what celebrities say or think, some of the most inane things that you will hear today are from the people who are celebrities in our day. There are celebrities who are promoting things that are downright contrary to the Word of God. Just think of the charismatic movement. This movement itself is being used of Satan in a most fantastic way to accomplish his ends. Yet, people everywhere are impressed with it. They are trapped in it and caught up in it. How? Because they turn on a television program, and there's Pat Boone pitching the charismatic movement. And people think, "Oh, a celebrity. He sings. He's going to heaven. He's a Christian. This must be of God."

Johnny Cash gets on there. His throat is old and raspy, so he can only sing four notes. But he's a celebrity. And so he gets out there and he croons around on his four notes, and he pitches the charismatic movement. Everybody says, isn't this wonderful?

Mark Hatfield, a senator from Oregon, stands up before the Full Gospel Business Men's committee convention. He is willing to go and speak before those people, and to approve what they are doing and the delusion that they are projecting upon the American people in the matter of the charismatic false view of gifts.

Celebrities are really about the dumbest source of influence that a person can have in his life. It is fantastic how we use toothpaste because some shiny mouthful-of-teeth movie star uses that toothpaste. And you know that you have toothpaste on your shelf that you bought just because you saw some gal grinning at you on the television set, and you went by the shelf and you looked at it and said, "Well, I don't believe that. That's a bunch of baloney." But you took it. You bought it because you don't take any chances. That was the result of celebrity testimonials.

Paul's Celebrityship in Judaism

1. He was an eighth-day circumcision in keeping with the full exact Mosaic order. He had pride in his religious heritage. Are you proud of your religious heritage that you feel makes you kind of like a superstar?
   
   
2. He was of the race of Israel, that is through Jacob's line. He was proud of his racial line. Are you proud of the color of your skin?
   
   
3. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. He was loyal to Judah, the tribe of the king. Are you proud of your family line? Are you proud of the fact they came over on the Mayflower? Are you proud of the fact that they ran to the dock and just missed the Mayflower?
   
   
4. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, which meant that in language and culture, he did not speak Greek (as his primary language). He was not a Hellenist.
   
   
5. He was proud of his nationality. Are you proud of your nationality?
   
   
6. He was a Pharisee – one of the religious conservatives. He was very dedicated to the Word of God, though distorting it. Are you proud of your denomination?
   
   
7. He was a persecutor of Christians. He considered them blasphemers. Are you proud of your reputation as a church worker, and how invaluable you are to the Lord's work?
   
   
8. He was blameless in legal righteousness. In law-keeping, he was very exact. None was better. Are you proud of your personal character?

The question is, what did Paul think about his celebrityship in Judaism, having very clearly established that he was a superstar when he was under Judaism? As he looks back on it, what did he think about it? Mind you, he doesn't speak as an outsider. He speaks as an insider who knew it well. His personal knowledge and experience in Judaism have made him an expert on it.

So we begin at verse 7, where Paul says, "But what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ." The word "but" is the Greek word "alla," which we would translate as "how be it." It's a point of contrast here. He is introducing a comparison of what Judaizers are impressed with – what they are as celebrities under Judaism, and what the apostle Paul thought of his celebrityship under Judaism. This little word introduces the comparison. He has just told us what a superstar he was. He says, "But I want to tell you what I think about that superstar status I had.

"What things" is the Greek word "hostis." It means "whatever." Specifically, it stresses quality. "Of such a kind" is the idea. "Whatever things of such a kind" refers to the marks of religious celebrity in the eyes of people. These include the categories that he has mentioned in verse 5 and 6 (these seven things). But even more than that, the whole category of things that the human flesh (the old sin nature) can accomplish – that man, in his own capacities can produce to gain favor; to gain credit; to gain merit; or, to gain status. This is what he is referring to. "Such things as this" means "Any of these whatever to me were." The Greek word is "eimi," which simply means "to be." It is in the imperfect tense this time, which means that, in the past, these things kept on being to him. It is active. These are qualities that produced something for Paul. It is indicative – a statement of fact. "Whatever these kinds of claims to celebrityship meant to me in the past in the form of gain."

The Greek word is "kerdos." "Kerdos" is plural, so it really should be, "In the form of gains," for there were many gains to him from this Judaistic celebrityship. It refers to something that's profitable or advantageous. It's the same word which is used in Philippians 1:21. These were gains that had made him a superstar. They are the kinds of things that Paul once very much gloried in. The reason his celebrityship, at one time, was very significant and important to him was because he saw these things as gains. He gloried in them. He said, "They were gains to me (that is, advantageously to me)."

Then he goes on and says, "Those I counted loss for Christ." The Greek word for "those" is "houtos." It means "those things." What things? Well, these gains under legalism that made him a star – all of these things that the Judaizers who are following him are making so much over. "These things," Paul said, "he counted." The Greek word is "hegeomai." "Hegeomai" literally means "to lead before the mind," so that we come to the meaning "to consider" or "to regard." Here's a decision that Paul made concerning his celebrityship. Now, this decision was made after he became a Christian. It is in the perfect tense. The Greek perfect tense tells us that Paul made this decision in the past, namely when he met Christ on the road to Damascus. Then the perfect tense says it has continued right on to the present. There never was a time since then when he had occasion to change his thinking about the value of his celebrityship. Paul says, "I regarded it in the past, and I continue to regard it, as a loss. It's in the middle voice, but this is active in meaning. This is what we call a deponent verb. So Paul is actually saying, "This was my personal choice and my personal decision in the past."

And what did he evaluate it as? He says, "Loss" ("zemia"). The Word "zemia" actually means "damage." So Paul is saying, "What I once had under Judaism that is so highly prized by the legalists who are subverting my Christians, I consider that damaging to my soul. I consider this a spiritual life liability. I consider this something that was injuring my relationship with God. That's pretty tough language right there. The Judaizers cringe when he says that, because he's pointing his finger at them, and telling them point-blank that everything that they esteemed as a great value in the sight of God, he found to be injurious to his spiritual well-being.

But what things were gained for me, those I counted loss. The word "loss" is in the singular, because he's summing up all these gains and they're one huge ball of wax in the form of loss. What was the loss? Well, he lost the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ that he needed to go to heaven. Paul, for all his gains under Judaism, made no real spiritual progress at all. When Paul met the Lord on the Damascus road, he saw how deluded he was; how self-righteous he was; and, how absolutely hopelessly lost he was. So what Paul, the Pharisee celebrity, held dear, was in one moment on that road, forever swept aside by Paul, the sinner saved by grace. I want to note that the things of Judaism were not a loss to Paul because they were bad in themselves. These things that Paul mentions were not bad in themselves, but because they were used to gain merit with God, they became bad. That's legalism. We as Christians have rules and regulations to keep. Laws are not Judaism. But when these are kept to gain favor with God, then it becomes legalistic.

This loss was for Christ, which is the Greek word "dia." "Dia" means "for the sake of Christ." "Because of" or "for the sake of Christ," he found these things a loss. What Paul means is that he realizes that his legal righteousness (his keeping the details of the law) was a hindrance to his acquisition of absolute imputed righteousness in Christ. He threw overboard his celebrityship under Judaism for the sake of gaining Christ in salvation. This is his settled conclusion. He's made this decision in the past. He has abandoned legalism, and he has cast himself upon the grace of God.

The Doctrine of Celebrityship

1. Paul realized that his position of celebrityship under Judaism was a huge spiritual loss – not a gain.
   
   
2. Paul gained divine viewpoint concerning legal righteousness. So he realized the grace provision of Jesus Christ is the only true gain.
   
   
3. Paul, as a religious celebrity, did not prove a thing concerning the mind of God. The fact that he was a celebrity of legal righteousness did not at all tell us anything about what God thought. Celebrities don't prove a thing.
   
   
4. Christians should not conclude that God's approval rests on some organization promoted by some celebrities. Even if a celebrity got saved, it is no more proof that Christianity is the truth than if some non-entity got saved. I get tired of this expression that is sometimes used of somebody who happened to be a beautiful, wonderful, stinking drunk. He heard the gospel, and he came to Christ, and he was saved. And forever after, he is described as having been gloriously saved. Now, what is more glorious about a drunk, who is headed for hell and has his destiny changed to heaven, than the fine moral politician in our day, who is also going to hell, who happens to hear the gospel, and in his fine home, and in his respectability, is saved? He, too, is gloriously saved. Anybody who is saved at all has had a glorious experience. So the fact that a celebrity is saved doesn't prove anything more about Christianity than if a non-entity is saved.
   
   
5. Christians who are impressed by religious celebrities are revealing spiritual disorientation due to callouses on the soul, emotional domination of the soul, and reversionism.
   
   
6. Bible Doctrine alone can give Christians the divine viewpoint to put celebrityship in proper perspective.
   
   
7. There are no celebrities in the Christian life – only sinners saved by grace.

This is going to take some explaining, because you have something in the Greek Bible here that we just cannot convey, even in a translation, and that we can't express really in English. What Paul has done is that he has taken five little words, which in the Greek language are called particles. We have parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and so on. Then in the Greek we have a thing called a particle. It's just not particularly identified in any specific category. They're just little tidbit words that are used to create impressions in Greek of an emotional nature when they're put together in a certain way. The apostle Paul is rising in the intensity of his emotion.

You won't fully get this from the English. But if you were reading this in the Greek Bible, all of a sudden you would see that it says (the opening words of the verse in the Greek Bible): "alla menounge kai." And the moment you saw that, you would say, "Wow, he's really getting mad, isn't he?" That is because it's a series of five particles all strung together, and that is extremely unusual. If we try to translate it literally, it doesn't make much sense. The word "Yea" in our English translation is the Greek word "alla" which here means "yes." Then the word "doubtless" in our English is this word "menounge." Actually, "menounge" is three particles put together as one word. He's even smashed the three of them (telescoped the three of them together.)

Let's break them up. The word "men" means "indeed;" "oun" means "therefore;" and, "ge" means "at least." "Ge" is even very hard to translate at all. Then the third particle "kai" which is the word "and" means "even." So if we put it literally together, it says "yes, indeed therefore at least even" Do you understand that? You say, "What does that mean?" Right away your attention was caught. Somebody could say verse 7 while talking. He might be carrying on a conversation with you and he would say, "But those things were counted to me, those I counted loss for Christ, yes, indeed, even, therefore, at least, even." That's the closest we could get. You would get the idea that I'm stumbling over words because I'm filled with emotion of a very strong kind that runs very deep, and I'm stumbling over words to convey something to you.

Now, if we try to amplify this, it may convey a little more of a sense of what "Yea doubtless and" means. We might think of it like this. Having said what he did in verse 7, everything of his superstar status under Judaism was completely lost because he met Jesus Christ. He recognized it for what it was. "Yes, indeed. That is not all. Therefore, I declare, at least even this, that I count." Then he's going to go on to indicate that what he decided back there on the Damascus road, he still believes at the time of the writing of the Philippians letter. He is saying, "I have never had cause to change my mind about legalism and celebrityship.

Some normal terms that perhaps we could translate this would be "More than that I count;" "What is more, I count;" or, "Yes, also, I still count." Then he goes on to say what he counts. That's about as much as we can get past that. The idea is that Paul has concluded that his past superiority of legal righteousness was a loss, and he still thinks it's a loss. His decision to abandon the advantages of the flesh, when he met Christ, was in fact, no passing impulse. This was not just something that was an emotional binge. Many people make religious decisions on the basis of a binge at the moment – something that kicks their enthusiasm into excitement at the moment, so they make a decision. Paul is saying, "I want to make it clear to you, while I'm speaking with deep feeling, that what I decided back there was not done under the emotion of my spectacular conversion on the Damascus Road." His break with legal righteousness became a permanent attitude of mind.

Therefore, he says, "I count." The Greek word for "count" is "hegeomai." Here it is present middle indicative. It means "to consider." It is present. It is Paul's continual valuation. Middle indicates that he benefits personally by this evaluation of his former legal righteousness. It is indicative – a statement of fact. The present tense here is significant. Before, we had "hegeomai," and we had it in the perfect tense. Perfect meant I have decided this in the past, and it continues to the present. Now Paul picks it up and he uses the same word, and this time, he puts it in present in the Greek language. All of this is significant. You can't see this in English. This is his way of saying, "And I want to tell you, I still (at this moment) view legalism the way I did back there." I haven't changed my mind. The idea is "I still continue to consider that legalism is worthless."

What is? All things? The Greek word is "pas." It refers to all things of the flesh: fame; triumph; zeal; background; and, popularity – all that constitutes celebrityship.

In verse 7, Paul says, "such things." We had the word "pas" before with "such things;" that is, the things of 5-6. In verse 8 he expands it to everything. Back in verse 7, he says, "Such kinds of things." Now He says, "I throw the whole thing in – everything. I don't care what it is in life that I have or that I am, I consider it all." And He's going to tell us what he considers it in a moment. That includes your material wealth; the important people you know; your career ambitions; your IQ; your religious progress; your honors; your reputation; and, your achievements.

"I consider all things but." "But" is not found here in the Greek. However, the word "eimi" which is left out of the translation here, actually is here. It is the word "to be." It's present active infinitive. So it should be, "I consider to be." "Yea, indeed, doubtless, I count all things indeed to be loss." This is present tense. It's his constant own view. Infinitive indicates purpose. Active is Paul's own choice, but infinitive indicates it is Paul's purpose to view all the things of his celebrityship as loss. This is "zemia" again, which means "damage." The legal righteousness of Paul under Judaism damaged his relationship with God.

"For" is "dia." We may translate it here as "in view of." "I count all these things (damage) in view of the excellency. The word "excellency" is actually a Greek participle that has the little definite article "the" added to it. It's "huperecho." It is present active participle. The word means "something of surpassing value", or "something far superior." We would call it "the surpassingness." This is the definite article with the participle. It means something that is infinitely superior. What is that? The "gnosis." The word "gnosis" here means "a seeking to know." It's an investigation of "Christ Jesus My Lord."

"Christ Jesus," you remember, stresses the grace of the Son of God in coming in the incarnation to give believers His righteousness. The word "Lord" speaks of his temporal relationship to Christ. When is Christ your Lord? He is your Lord when you have confessed all known sins. Do not fall into the foolishness of telling people that they must accept Christ as Savior and Lord. You accept Christ as your Savior by believing in him as Savior, and then he becomes your Lord when you have confessed all known sins, because to be your Lord means that He controls your life. He does that through God the Holy Spirit. You do not one day wake up and say, "From now on I'm going to make Christ the Lord of my life." That is spiritual disorientation. He is your Lord when you are in temporal fellowship.

The Mind

In the passage that we're studying, Paul is talking about the perceptive mind. He says that the thing that is of infinite value is taking into my mind a knowledge. What is this knowledge? "It is a knowledge," he says, "of Christ Jesus – a knowledge which begins with salvation, and then goes on all the way to the full council of God. This is knowledge which you get by sitting in church and having a pastor-teacher exercise the authority of teaching (the gift of teaching) so that you learn the Word of God. And you learn the Word of God, not on the basis of the preacher's opinion and his authority, but that he takes you back to the language of Scripture, and here's where it all comes from. So your confidence is in what God the Holy Spirit has written, and not in some man's opinion. You bypass the human channel, and you get right back to the living and powerful Word of God. He is speaking of this part of the mentality – this function of the mentality.

So if we translate the first part of the verse, it goes like this: "Yes, indeed. That is not all. Therefore, I declare, at least, even this, that I still continue to consider all things to be damage in view of the surpassing value of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord."

The latter part of verse 8 says, "For whom I have suffered the loss." The word "for" is the Greek word "dia" which means "because of." "Whom" refers here to the Lord Jesus Christ? The idea is that He is the one because of whom I was made to suffer loss of all these things." The word "suffered loss" is the Greek word "zemioo." "Zemioo" is aorist. That is the point in time when Paul met Jesus, and he suffered loss, and all of his claims to celebrityship then fell away from him. Aorist indicates the point of Paul's conversion. That is the point 30 years before that you read of in Acts 9:4-6. That was 30 years before the time when he is writing this. It is passive. It is a thing that fell away from him. He didn't have to do anything about getting rid of these things that he counted as loss for the excellency and knowledge of Jesus Christ for whom he suffered. This was a suffering of loss that he did not have to impose on himself. Again, it's of all things.

Furthermore, he says, "At this moment, I do count." This is again the same word we had before, "hegeomai." This means "to consider." It is present – his continual consideration. It is middle, and that means to his benefit. It is indicative. That means here that he keeps on considering these things.

Then we get to the shocker. If you're squeamish, leave now: He says, "I've considered all these things "skubalon." "Skubalon" is translated as "refuse." That's' probably as close as we can come to the true meaning of the word. The Greek word means refuse of two kinds. One is of "human excrement" or "animal manure." The second meaning is what is left over from a meal and thrown away – garbage. If you were a Greek, you would know what the word "skubalon" means. It is not a word that you would run around using publicly in a society. It has a conversion into English that we won't go into. But it is a word that I can tell you was only reluctantly brought into literary Greek. It was the language of the streets. Only reluctantly was this word brought into literary Greek. Yet, when God the Holy Spirit led Paul to pick a word that was going to beautifully describe legalism and the Judaizers, "skubalon" is what He came up with.

Now, if you think that the Judaizers were squirming and uncomfortable up to this point, they were all falling in a faint when he applied this word to them – when he told them that all that they were doing amounted to nothing but human excrement and animal manure. It was "dung," as the old King James translation puts it. With one word, a word which is almost a vulgarity, he declares his utter contempt and his utter loathing for the legalizers. Here is the estimate of what Paul thinks of his celebrityship. Now you know what doctrine says about celebrities. So the next time you hear some great high-powered evangelist get up, and his celebrities get out there so that he can prove to the crowd that it's wonderful to be a Christian, you just look at your television tube and yell, "skubalon." That's what they're doing. That's what God the Holy Spirit called it.

I want you to notice that this word is not applied to the spiritual and the holy character of the law. The law was holy. The law was just. This word was applied to the misuse of the law as legalism. That is what he is calling "skubalon." That is what he is using the word "dung" for. The acts of legalism are worthless; filthy; and, abhorrent to God. They're just body waste and garbage, and fit only to be buried. When you have the illusion that you're a celebrity somehow with God, this is the word that God uses to describe it.

Well, so much for the Judaizers. Paul knew how to make them squeal like stuck pigs, and he did. This kind of uncompromising, realistic preaching of doctrine exposes the superficiality of human standards; human programs; and, human schemes. It strips away the fronts of sweetness and love. I guarantee you that after Paul used this word on the Judaizers, they didn't go around smiling at him and expressing their love.

Why did he do this? He says, "I count this stuff as refuse that." And "that" is the Greek word "hina" which means "in order that." It says, "In order that I may win." The Greek word for "win" is "kerdaino." It means "to gain something of value." It is aorist. At the point of turning from legalism to grace he gained this. It is active. It was his choice and goal. And it is subjunctive, which means potential. Paul could have kept on in his celebrityship, or he could have turned his back on it, as he did, and said, "I go for the grace of God, and everything that that, through doctrine, is capable of doing for me."

Many Christians today are still so hung up on legalism that they never experience the joy and the freedom of the grace of God. They never can enter into the grace system of learning spiritual things. They never can develop a spiritual maturity structure in the soul with all those facets of maturity. They never can enter into rewards being stored at the Judgment Seat of Christ. They cannot enter the privilege of being in Christ. They cannot enter what it means to be baptized by the Holy Spirit; to be indwelt by Him; and, to have that constant power. Unless you are under grace, and you have labeled all of your legalism and your human celebrityship as "skubalon" and turned from it, you cannot enter what God has really prepared for you. All of this is "in Christ." And you notice that he uses the word Christ ("christos"), which is the word for Messiah – the very thing the legalizers were honoring.

So the last part of verse 8 says, "He, the one because of whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do keep on considering them human excrement and animal manure (garbage) in order that I may gain Christ."

The Doctrine of Refuse

1. About nine Hebrew words and one Greek word are used for the noun "refuse" in the Bible, meaning human excrement, animal manure, and garbage.
   
   
2. The word "refuse" is used to designate one of the gates of Jerusalem – the "dung gate," outside of which was the city garbage dump (Nehemiah 2:13, Nehemiah 3:13-14, Nehemiah 12:31).
   
   
3. The word "Refuse" is used of the literal manure in the carcass of animals offered in sacrifice, and which were to be burned outside the camp (Exodus 29:14, Leviticus 4:11, Leviticus 8:17, Leviticus 16:27, Numbers 19:4). The animal manure represented the sin which was dealt with by God outside the camp. Thus the carcass was taken out of the camp. The camp here represented Judaism with all of its forms and ceremonies. The Lord Jesus Christ, as the one who bore the sins of the world, consequently, was taken outside of the city of Jerusalem with its religion and its sin.
   
   
4. The word "refuse" is used to describe divine judgment on religion (Malachi 2:3).
   
   
5. The word "refuse" is used to convey the temporariness of the triumph of the wicked on the earth (Job 20:7). The wicked often appear to be riding very high, but God says that their destiny is nothing more than that of refuse.
   
   
6. The word "refuse" is used of fuel. We have this in Ezekiel 4:12-15. This has reference to the fact that the manure of cattle was gathered from the field. It was mixed with water and with straw, and then dried into cakes. These fuel cakes were then used for cooking. They had no odor, and they had no smoke. Here in Ezekiel 4:12, there is a reference to cooking with human excrement to connote that the bread which was to be baked would be defiled, and thus portraying to the Jews that which was upon them in the impending Babylonian captivity.
   
   
7. The word "refuse" is used to indicate the concept of utter worthlessness (Zephaniah 1:17).
   
   
8. The word "refuse" is used to portray being cast away under divine condemnation (1 Kings 14:10).
   
   
9. The word "refuse" is used to express utter contempt for one in death (2 Kings 9:37).
   
   
10. The word "refuse" is used in the sense of fertilizer, as we might normally expect it would be (Psalm 83:10, Jeremiah 8:2).
    
    
11. The word "refuse" is used to describe the ignominious state of those left unburied where they have fallen in death. In Jeremiah 9:22, this is used of soldiers of a wicked nation who have fallen in battle. Their bodies are simply left lying unburied and decaying like so much animal droppings – the ultimate humiliation of being treated like dirt. It is also used of citizens of a nation which is under God's national divine discipline (Jeremiah 16:4, Jeremiah 25:32-33). Where the bodies drop, they are left.
    
    
12. The word "refuse" is used as food eaten in desperate circumstances (2 Kings 6:25, 2 Kings 18:27, Isaiah 36:12).
    
    
13. Paul used the word "refuse" to describe the value of celebrityship under Judaism (Philippians 3:8).
    
    
14. The word "dunghill" or "rubbish heap" is also used to translate three Hebrew words and one Greek word. This is used of a mixture in a manure pit from which the fuel cakes are to be made (Isaiah 25:10). It is used of a pile of fertilizer representing the ultimate in contempt in Luke 14:35. It is used to express the place of utter wretchedness (1 Samuel 2:8, Psalm 113:7, Lamentations 4:5). It is used also to convey the grossest insult by turning one's house into a public latrine (Ezra 6:11, Daniel 2:5, Daniel 3:29). All of these are variations of the use of the word "dunghill" or "rubbish pile."
    
    
15. The verb form of the word "refuse" is used in Luke 13:8 in the sense of fertilizing a tree.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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