Letter to The Phillippians

The first time reading through the Letter to the Philippians I did not find much figurative language. I probably only underlined no more than four or five examples. So then I decided to look up the literal definition of figurative language. Which is: “any language that is used in ways that deviate from standard significance, order, or meaning” (pg 1511).

I then read it through again trying to read it a little slower and purposely look for figurative language. The first one I came across was “I have you in my heart” on page one. Another one being on page three at the bottom “ beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh.”

One’s perception of the letter’s meaning drastically changes with understanding of the figurative use of certain images or phrases. It is important for one to understand this. After reading through the second time I found at least 6 more instances where Paul uses figurative language. To understand the writing it is important to understand that Paul is many times speaking figuratively not literally. The literal interpretation would not make sense.

I think it was hard for me at first to recognize some of the figurative language spoken in here because much of it is figurative language I have become accustomed to. Such as “ I have you in my heart”, “God our Father”, “work out your salvation”, “for our citezenship is in heaven”… I guess at first I was not thinking of some of this as “figurative language… I also realized I actually liked reading this through without the numbers/ verses. I have never read it through like that before…