Paul's "Flesh"

If you saw a movie advertisement which highlighted the word FLESH, you would know what it meant.  Pornography, no doubt.  Graphic sexual scenes, quite likely.  Or at least that's what they would want you to think, to try to lure you through the door.

If a Christian preacher warned you against 'sins of the flesh' you'd probably think he was talking about the same area.  He or she might expand the subject a bit.  After all, gluttony and drunkenness are also 'sins of the flesh' in that sense--things you do with your physical body which dishonour that body and disobey the loving will of your wise creator.

But when Paul wards the Philippians against the 'flesh', he means something much more subtle.  Indeed, it's not always easy to know whether our word 'flesh' is the best English word to five the sense he has in mind.  The trouble is that some of what he means is indeed directly connected with the straight-forward 'sins of the flesh', and part of his point is that he more subtle thing he's talking about is in fact closely linked to them, despite what people might think.

--NT Wright, Paul for Everyone:  The Prison Letters. p 114