When the term "pharisee" is mentioned, most (if not everyone) of us will picture a person who has a string of negative traits: self-righteous, obnoxious, conceited... the adjectives can probably go on and on.
Jesus and John the Baptist even singled this group of people out and described them as "hypocrites", "a brood of vipers" and "whitewash tombs".
But let us go back to the time before the New Testament was written. The word Pharisee actually comes from the Hebrew word פרוש ("parush"), which means "separated" or "set apart". Jewish men who took the Torah (the Law and the Prophets) very seriously would want to be "separated" or "set apart" for God.
Unlike the distastefulness and stigma associated with it today, it was considered to be noble and highly-esteemed to be in such a religious sect, and that is why the Apostle Paul actually chose to take that path in his zeal for the Lord.
Becoming a Pharisee during that era in history would be the present-day equivalent of becoming an elder in the context of a church, or a partner in an accounting firm, or even a Cabinet Minister in the context of secular Singapore. It was something considered prestigious and exclusive.
This comes across very clearly when Paul writes in Phil 3:5-6 that he was "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless."
In fact, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, who studied under Rabbi Gamaliel, who was considered the best teacher then, and in the synagogue in Jerusalem, which was the headquarters synagogue where only the very cream of the crop would have the privelege to study in (a modern equivalent would be Harvard/Princeton/Yale for USA and Oxford/Cambridge for UK).
Yet, if we go on to read this same passage in Phiippians, in verse 8, Paul goes on to say that after knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, all the titles that he had accumulated, he considered as rubbish.
The Greek word used here is skybalon (Strong's G4657) and is also translated into refuse, dung, dregs in the various translations of the Bible. If we look the original Greek word, it actually refers to the excrement of animals.
As I look back upon my own life, I also realise that going to a renown school (ACS) or attending a local university (NTU), or joining a prestigious accounting firm (PricewaterhouseCoopers), or obtaining a postgraduate degree (MBA), etc are all but skybalon.
I have shared in a testimony that in 2003 and 2004, I sent out more than 300 job applications, but did not get a single job interview. So much for all the above titles. Unless the Lord builds the house, the workers labour in vain (Psalm 127:1).
So those of us who hold titles such as PhD, or MBA, or CPA, or Rev, or Dr, or Er, or MD, or VP, or MP, or PM. Let us emulate Paul and consider them to be skybalon. These are all irrelevant. What is of relevance is the title COG, or "child of God".
If anyone should boast, let him boast in the Lord! Amen?
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