<p>3:4 <i>Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If any other man thinks to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more</i>- Paul is not boasting here, but rather saying that even the best qualifications of Judaism were irrelevant to salvation. Phil. 3:4-11 reads rather like an encomium see on Gal. 1:10, with Paul writing of how he was &quot;circumcised on the eighth day... of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews&quot; (Phil. 3:5). But then he as it were alters course half way through, as if to say 'Nah, just kiddin''. He speaks of his &quot;confidence in the flesh&quot;, his former &quot;gains&quot;, as being now &quot;loss for Christ&quot;; he's almost sarcastic about his humanly impressive encomium. For he says all this in the context of the preceding chapter, Phil. 2, where he has shown that the only true path of glory lays after the pattern of the Lord Jesus, who had to die the death of the cross in order to be highly exalted. A similar sarcasm about his humanly impressive encomium is to be found at more length in 2 Cor. 11:21-12:10.</p>