Five-minute study · Day 258 · Philippians 3
Philippians 3:14
A word worth stopping on: mark σκοπός skopos
'I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.' The word 'mark' is skopos. It is an athletic term. The skopos was the point at the end of the racecourse that the runner fixed his eyes on, the visible marker that told you where the finish line was. English gets the word 'scope' from it: telescope, microscope, periscope. Every one of those instruments is a device for focusing vision on a specific point. Paul was sixty years old, imprisoned, writing from a Roman jail. He was still running. He could still see the skopos.
Word study: mark
- Greek
- σκοπός
- Pronounced
- skopos
- Strong's
- G4649
- Definition
- A mark, a goal, a target, the point fixed upon which one directs one's gaze. From skopeo, to look at, to observe, to fix one's attention upon. In athletic contexts, the marker at the end of the racecourse that the runner aims for.
Skopos appears only once in the New Testament: Philippians 3:14. BDAG defines it as 'the goal toward which a runner moves in a race.' The related verb skopeo ('to look at, to consider, to keep one's eyes on') appears 6 times in the New Testament (Romans 16:17; 2 Corinthians 4:18; Galatians 6:1; Philippians 2:4, 3:17). The noun and verb share a common concept: directed, focused attention on a fixed point.
Fee's commentary on Philippians identifies 3:12-14 as one of the most intensely personal passages in the Pauline corpus. Paul uses first person singular throughout: 'I follow after' (dioko, to pursue, to chase), 'I count not myself to have apprehended,' 'this one thing I do,' 'I press toward the mark.' The athletic metaphor is sustained across three verses. The runner has not yet crossed the finish line. He is still in the race. He forgets what is behind (ta men opiso epilanthonomenos) and strains toward what is ahead (tois de emprosthen epekteinomenos). The verb epekteinomai is vivid: it means to stretch out toward, to extend the body forward, the posture of a runner leaning into the final stretch.
The Isthmian Games, held biennially near Corinth, were the athletic events Paul's readers knew best. Philippians was written to a Macedonian church familiar with Greek athletic culture. The games included footraces of various distances: the stadion (approximately 200 meters), the diaulos (approximately 400 meters), and the dolichos (a long-distance race of approximately 4,800 meters). Each race had a visible turning post or finish marker. The runner's task was simple and total: reach the skopos.
Paul's use of athletic language is consistent across his letters. First Corinthians 9:24-27 develops the metaphor extensively: 'Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize?' Second Timothy 4:7, written near the end of Paul's life: 'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.' The skopos in Philippians 3:14 is specified: 'the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.' The finish line is defined by God's call. The prize is the consummation of what God began when he called Paul on the Damascus road.
The English language preserves skopos in every word built on the -scope suffix. A telescope focuses vision on distant objects. A microscope focuses vision on small objects. A periscope lets you see around obstacles. Each device is a tool for directed seeing. Paul's skopos functions the same way: it focuses the runner's vision on one point and eliminates peripheral distraction.
Historical context · Philippians written approximately AD 60-62 from Roman imprisonment; the Isthmian Games held biennially near Corinth; the Olympic Games held quadrennially at Olympia since 776 BC
Paul in Prison and the Athletic Games of the Roman World
Paul wrote Philippians from prison. The letter mentions his 'bonds' (desma, 1:7, 13, 14, 16) and identifies his situation as imprisonment. The traditional view places the letter during Paul's Roman imprisonment (Acts 28:16-31, approximately AD 60-62), though some scholars propose Ephesus or Caesarea as alternative locations. Whichever prison held him, Paul was writing about running a race from inside a cell.
The Greek athletic games were the most prominent public spectacles in the eastern Mediterranean. The Olympic Games at Olympia (established 776 BC by traditional dating), the Pythian Games at Delphi, the Nemean Games, and the Isthmian Games near Corinth formed the major athletic circuit. The Isthmian Games were especially relevant to Paul's Aegean churches. Held every two years at the sanctuary of Poseidon on the narrow isthmus connecting mainland Greece to the Peloponnese, the games drew athletes and spectators from across the Greek world. Paul had spent eighteen months in Corinth (Acts 18:11), and the Isthmian Games were held during or near his stay (the games of AD 51 overlap with commonly proposed dates for Paul's Corinthian residency).
Fee observes that the athletic metaphor would have been immediately accessible to Paul's Philippian readers. Philippi was a Roman colony in Macedonia, and its citizens participated in the Greek cultural world that included athletic festivals. The vocabulary Paul uses is technical: dioko (to pursue, used for a runner chasing the finish line), brabeion (the prize awarded to the winner, used in both Philippians 3:14 and 1 Corinthians 9:24), skopos (the goal marker). These terms belonged to the common vocabulary of anyone who had watched or participated in the games.
The prize (brabeion) at the major Greek games was a wreath: olive at Olympia, laurel at Delphi, wild celery at Nemea, pine at the Isthmus. The wreaths were perishable. Paul made this point in 1 Corinthians 9:25: 'they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.' The athletic metaphor works precisely because the analogy is imperfect: the earthly athlete strains for a wreath that will wilt within days. The Christian runner strains toward a prize that does not decay. Paul, writing from prison, his body aging, his freedom restricted, still described himself as a runner who could see the skopos. The goal had not moved. His legs were still under him.
For reflection
Skopos. The marker at the end of the course. The point the runner fixes his eyes on. Paul used this word from a prison cell. He was chained, aging, uncertain whether he would live or die (Philippians 1:21-23). And he described himself as a runner leaning forward, straining for the finish line, eyes locked on the skopos. The word gave us 'scope.' Every instrument with that suffix does one thing: it focuses vision on a specific point. What is your skopos? If you had to name the single point your life is aimed at, the marker you are running toward, could you name it? Paul could. 'The prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.' His skopos had a name. Does yours?
Skopos: the goal marker at the end of a racecourse. Source of English 'scope.' Paul used the word once, from prison, to describe the fixed point of his life's direction. The related verb skopeo means to focus attention on a single point.
Sources: BDAG; Fee, 'Philippians'