A Journey Through Philippi: Philippians 3 and Olympic Training

Dive into the ancient world of the Olympic Games with us! 🏅 In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul draws inspiration from the Panhellenic Games of Greece, urging the church to train spiritually, run their race with endurance, and strive for the ultimate prize. 🏃‍♂️ Paul would have been familiar with this culture, spending considerable time in Corinth, home of the Isthmian Games. Join us as we uncover the rich symbolism behind Paul's athletic imagery as we continue our journey through the Biblical letter of Philippians. 📜✨

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Stadium at Delphi
• 5:51 The Ancient Panhellenic Games
• 13:54 Philippians 3:12-14
• 34:22 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
• 46:25 Philippians 4:1
• 54:53 Training to Reach the Goal

Transcript

Philippians 3

J.R.: [00:00:00] Well, there's gonna be a fight, but I don't think, it's not a sanctioned fight. I should say, true. There'll be fights, but Yeah.

David: Loosely we'll call that boxing. 

J.R.: Disorderly. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. 

David: Hey, welcome everyone. Thanks for listening to the Navigating An Anceint Faith podcast. My name is David, and with me as always, J.R. 

J.R.: What's going on, man? How's it going? 

David: Good. Good. 

J.R.: I was looking through the outline here for our episode today, and I noticed you touched on Delphi. And it just brought back a memory of do you remember working our way all the way to the top? We went past the temple and you specifically wanted to go to the stadium and it was all the way at the top, which, you know, so we climb up there and.

David: Yeah, you're, you're outta breath by the time you get to the Temple of Apollo at the very top. 

J.R.: Yeah. It's, it's a little bit counterintuitive to go to the very top and you're completely out of breath and then run a race. But, you know, you and I weren't planning to run. But remember that they had it closed off. I, [00:01:00] I don't know what they were doing, but they had that little rope there and you and I were both like, look, nobody's standing around. And I didn't climb all the way to the top of this mountain to see this stadium only to be turned away by a mere rope. So yeah, we kind of hopped the rope and we had a private viewing of the stadium. 

David: It was a, yeah, that's what, so a couple things struck me about that is you don't go to Delphi to look at the stadium necessarily. But when I found out there was a pretty well preserved stadium there, <Right.> I wanted to see it, but it would've been easy to miss. And I had imagined a lot of people, tourists kind of get all the way to the top and they would've just turned around and gone back down. But yeah. <Oh sure.> You kind of cut through the woods and it was kind of one of those magical moments in my memory, you know? <Yeah.> You cut through the woods and it's kind of off the beaten path a little bit. And all of a sudden, yeah, there's this pretty well-preserved stadium that opens up before you. <Yeah, yeah.> and you learned that, yeah, this is where they held - and I actually learned this [00:02:00] afterwards, but this is where they held the Pythian Games.

J.R.: Okay. Yeah, that's right. 

David: So, you know we think of everything as the Olympic Games. We'll get into this 'cause it relates to our topic today. <Right.> But the Pythian Games were basically the quote Olympic games that were held in Delphi that were in honor of the Python spirit and Apollo basically. <Right, right.> We hit on that a little bit last time. 

J.R.: And when we say, when, when we say stadium, we're not talking, don't be thinking, you know, Neyland Stadium or anything like that. We're talking something a little bit smaller in scale. But it is, I mean, I'm assuming that the stadia is, is that a quarter mile? It's probably kilometer. I don't know exactly what it, you know. But a stadia is a certain distance, so. <Yeah.> I think the track wasn't near as big as what you're thinking in terms of stadiums, but it was cool. Very similar to just a smaller scale of exactly what you're thinking of. There's kind of <Yeah.> seating up the side of the mountain. There's a circular track. There's some man, what were those little bars called that you had to grab? The end [00:03:00] post. <Yeah.> The goal post. 

David: So there were the goal markers. 

J.R.: Yeah. Little markers. 

David: Which we will talk about that in this episode today.

J.R.: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I figured we would. 

David: But yeah, you could see the goal markers there. In fact, it reminds me, I did a little video while we were standing there on this very passage we're gonna talk about today. <Yeah.> And so I will, right. Yeah. So I will post that. What's that?

J.R.: Illegally. 

David: Illegally, yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. We were trespassing at the moment, but, you know.

David: Looking around, making sure, you know, no one was chasing us or anything. But we did kind of have that area to ourselves, so we grabbed a little video and I'll post it. <Yeah. it was nice.> I'll post the YouTube video in the show notes so people can check that out. It's just a couple minutes long. But , you'll be able to see exactly what we're talking about. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that popped in my head. So I, that was a, it was a fun memory.

David: No, that's a good way to introduce the topic today because we are going to talk about Philippians chapter three. And I did a little teaser last episode where I said, we're gonna talk about. Dun-dun-dun, the [00:04:00] Olympics. And I thought about putting the Olympic theme as our intro, 

J.R.: As our bumper music?

David: Yeah. But I don't know. 

J.R.: Instead of the typical bumper music? <Sure. Yeah.> Yeah. Well, you know, that's post-production. So maybe it was there, maybe it wasn't. We'll see. 

David: Maybe, maybe it'll be there, maybe it won't. If it I don't even know if it's like, what is it, public domain or something like that. But anyway, 

J.R.: I don't think we're big enough to sue, but maybe you never know.

David: To merit anything like that. <Right.> No, that was a cool little experience at Delphi. And then actually, not to get off track, but there was actually a Roman equivalent of the whole stadium down below Delphi that was not well preserved. It was just looked like a big field. <Right.> But the other thing that struck me about that stadium at Delphi is, man, can you think of a more beautiful spot to be competing in games?

J.R.: Oh, I'm telling you, it's just on the side of this mountain. 

David: On the side of this mountain overlooking the ocean. 

J.R.: Yeah, it was a gorgeous view. The entire city was, but the more you climbed, I mean oh, the view just got more and more gorgeous. [00:05:00] <Right.> But, yeah, can you imagine being either an athlete or just a spectator setting in the crowd, looking out over the ocean, seeing these guys wrestle and run and do all the things that they do and, ah, yeah, that would've been quite a sight. 

David: Yeah, that would've been an amazing experience. I can't even picture that, you know, what that would've been like, but.

J.R.: Well, we tried to capture it and as always the photos I, I just kept showing people the photos of the view we had. I'm like, yeah, no, no, just hang on. Lemme find a better picture. Lemme find a better picture. It never captures it very well. 

David: We were gonna race, but I think that's the point where we thought that might have been trespassing a little bit too much is ... 

J.R.: Right, the police might have been involved in that one. Yeah, plus I don't need to run it my age anyway.

David: Yeah, it would've been a short race and we both would've had hamstring injuries, so that would've been it. <Exactly.> Well, we're in our series on Philippians and we're gonna look at chapter three today. Just a little bit of review of where we've been. So we've talked about these, a couple of [00:06:00] words that really jump out in chapter one. We talked about this idea of polituomi, so living as a citizen, which tied into chapter two of Philippians. We talked about this downward descent of Christ and having the right mindset. Right. <Right.> And you can kind of see how those two tie together. That if you're going to live as citizens, you have to have the right mindset, right. Chapter three, then I see it as really the practicality: okay, how do you obtain this mindset then? Right? That, <Right.> It's already been laid out for us in the poem to Christ. The rest of chapter two, and now Paul's gonna get into chapter three. And chapter three is really fun, I think, because man, it's all about sports analogies. 

J.R.: There you go. Yeah. We can't get enough of sports in America. Yep. So sports crazy. Yeah. Paul, Paul hits us where it matters. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. And some of these sports analogies don't exactly jump out of the page of your Bible, but they're all there. There's a lot of them in chapter three. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. <Right.>

Alright, [00:07:00] so I think it helps to actually have this idea of the Olympic games in mind. Now, we think of the modern Olympic games, but in the ancient world, of course, the Olympic Games comes from ancient Greece. But in Greece there was called originally the Panhellenic Games, which just meant all of Greece. And there was actually the Olympic games, and that's held in Olympia, in honor of Zeus. And we talked about maybe we'll go there this fall. 

J.R.: Oh yeah. No, I think that's gonna happen, I think. 

David: Yeah. That's gonna be on our itinerary.

J.R.: Part of our research. 

David: Yeah. That was only one of the games though, that was being held. So there was also, we already mentioned the Pythian games that were held in Delphi to honor Apollo. <Mm-Hmm.> There's also the Isthmian games, and these were actually held in Corinth in honor of Poseidon.

J.R.: We were there also.

David: Yeah. Thinking about being in Corinth, but I don't recall seeing a stadium anywhere. 

J.R.: No, it was, it was on the [00:08:00] map. <Okay.> It was just one of those areas we actually went down there to it, but it was one of those areas that was clearly ...

David: Probably not very well preserved or ...

J.R.: Yeah, you know. Yeah. I don't know if they're gonna get around to clearing that up. But it's just one of those things that they knew that this was the stadium, but it was, there wasn't really anything to see there.

David: Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting. 

J.R.: It's pretty common at some of these archeological sites. 

David: Yeah. Some are well preserved, some aren't, you know and that's what was neat again about the stadium at Delphi. It's pretty well preserved, but you really got a picture of it. <Yeah.> But what's also interesting about these Isthmian games then is, remember that Paul spent quite some time in Corinth and so he would've been exposed to these games to athletes training. <Right.> Who knows, maybe in his spare time after making tents, he went down to the track and saw people training. You know, who knows? 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, modern day athletes or modern day Olympians, they certainly are training year round. Now, I don't know if these Olympic games or the Isthmian games was it every four years? Same format, or do we know? 

David: Yeah, it was [00:09:00] every four years, but they were staggered. So, you know, year one might be the Olympic games. Year two might be the Pythian games. Year three, at least one of these was going on any given year. <Okay.> So that's difference. 

J.R.: So's like, yeah, the Rose Bowl, the, 

David: Yeah, they rotate.

J.R.: The, the Sugar Bowl. The Rose Bowl. You rotate the national championship, right? 

David: Yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay. We're using sports metaphors, so. 

J.R.: It holds. <Yeah.> Okay. So, but regardless, there were people training year-round, obviously in preparation for the next games that are coming up. And so Paul, yes, would've been in that culture. <Yeah.> So would've, would've seen that firsthand. 

David: Right. So he would've been exposed to that. He was familiar with it, which I, again, I think presents an interesting backdrop to what we're gonna look at in chapter three today of Philippians. And then the final games was the Nemean Games, and it was held in Nemea in honor of Zeus and Heracles. Now, Nemea is also not that far from Corinth, and so that might be another place that we check out if [00:10:00] we go to Greece this fall is to ...

J.R.: Yeah. what is that site like? 

David: I don't know , but it's definitely historical site there. Of course Nemea is I think kind of gets its fame Well, yeah. Because it's in honor of Zeus and Heracles, and there's this whole myth around Heracles killing the Nemean lion. Does that ring a bell?

J.R.: Oh, okay. Yes. Yeah. Yes it does. 

David: He wears this lion pelt, you know, that's part of being Heracles. <Yeah. Yeah.> And so that goes down in Nemea, so. 

J.R.: Well, we said in the previous episode Apollo had beat the Python, had destroyed the snake. And that's the Pythian games in Delphi. Right. And so I guess these things are held at traditional places where the gods overcame something, you know? And so we're gonna set up these games to honor that.

David: Yeah, so that's a good point because these ancient games were actually a kind of a mixture of what we think of Olympic games are today, but also very much intertwined [00:11:00] with religion. So you not only would've had the athletes competing, you would have priests and priestesses there. <Oh, sure.> You would've sacrifices, there would've been a lot going on at the local temple. You know, all that was intertwined with these athletic competitions. 

J.R.: Right. Were these games meant to what, entertain the God, so to speak, or? 

David: Well, so they were meant to honor the gods, really. <Okay.> Yeah. And so that's why it was almost part religious ritual and part athletic competition. <Okay.> And so, yeah, there were certain, I actually heard a interesting podcast a little bit ago about some of these games. And, yeah, so you know, you had to be very careful not to certainly disrespect the gods if you were competing in the games and there were certain religious rituals you went through. Some purity rituals. Of course we've talked about that on previous episodes as well. <Right.> But you had to know you were competing in a way that was going to honor one of the gods at these games. 

J.R.: Yeah. So no [00:12:00] doping, right. You had to be, you had to be clean. 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: You know, unless the God wanted that, I don't know.

David: Well, yeah. 

J.R.: But no, yeah, it definitely adds a layer to it that you have to do it in a way that honors the gods. And Paul actually kind of ties this in, you know, run in a certain way. Don't just run to be running, run a particular way. And I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but yeah, yeah. That, that kind of come, well, it ties into that context of, run the race, play the game in honor of Zeus or Poseidon or Apollo and run in a way worthy of <Yeah.> the gods. Right. 

David: That, that's right. There would be that layer in this analogy of the games there of do this in honor of God. Of course, Paul's saying do this in honor of the true God. Right? 

J.R.: Right. Sure. Yeah. 

David: But yeah, so it wouldn't, that's a good point actually. It wouldn't have been foreign to the people in Philippi of train, run this race that we're gonna [00:13:00] talk about today. But also, you know, do it in a way that honors God because, sure, why else would you be doing this? Right? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. That's right. <Yeah. Okay.> Yeah, that makes sense. And you know, we sort of imply that modern sports is a bit of a religion in the United States. But here it really was tied deeply into religion and doing something worthy of the gods. <Yeah. Yeah.> And, so that's not too foreign from us either. <Right. Yeah.> Even though it's obviously ancient and you know, we don't quite understand that, but.

David: Yeah, that idea is still, it's still there somehow in i i something about humans. You know, we want to compete, we want to play on a team, we want to excel. And there's something you could argue, I think, that there's something very spiritual about all that, you know?

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. If nothing more than honor the sport, the history of the sport. <Yeah.> The people who have played the sport before you. 

David: That's true. That's true. 

J.R.: Yeah. We can relate to that. Sure.

David: Yeah. Alright, so let's jump into the text we're gonna talk about today. Again, I throw this out there. This [00:14:00] isn't a Bible study necessarily. We're just gonna talk about some of the big themes. So we're not gonna go through the entirety of chapter three. There's a lot there. But I do want to look at verses 12 through 14 today. And as a bit of a backdrop to this though, all of chapter three can be seen as almost a training regimen of how to train them. Right? <Right.> So we're gonna jump past the first 10 verses or so. But in verses 10 and 11, Paul has just expressed basically what his goal is, what he's aiming at. And to summarize it, it's to know Christ, to participate in his sufferings so that he can be like him in his death and resurrection.

And the goal then Paul says, "I want to experience resurrection of the dead." Which is kind of a cool way of putting it because it's the same way that we would say, oh, well I want to experience eternal life and go to heaven when I die. Right? <Yeah. Yeah.> So it's kind of a neat way to frame that. In Paul's [00:15:00] mind, that was to experience the resurrection as one of his goals. 

J.R.: And, and this ties into the previous chapter of the descent. <Right. Yeah.> Lowering yourself. And so he wants to participate in his suffering and become like him in his death. So there's that descent but <mm-Hmm.> But then of course there's the opposite side. And it's interesting that in verse 11, he says, "And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead." As if to say, I don't know how this is gonna work. 

David: Yeah, yeah. Don't, don't ask me to explain it fully. 

J.R.: Yeah. Don't give the, I'm not gonna give you details. Yeah. But somehow this is gonna work and ...

David: I obviously haven't done it yet.

J.R.: experience resurrection from the dead. Yeah. I haven't been there, done that, but that's my goal, right?

David: Yeah. That's my goal. I believe it's going to happen. I don't know how it's gonna happen. I think is kind of what he's saying there. Somehow this is gonna happen, right. But that's my goal. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. So I don't have the answers, but I do have the path. Yeah. Here we go. 

David: Yeah. So it does tie into this whole idea of the descent and the ascent. You know, following the pattern of Christ, [00:16:00] descending and then like we've said, ultimately being ascended or being raised up by Christ, ultimately in the end. You could also say in the spiritual realm that you brought up last episode, kind of, this is going on parallel. There's a lot of ideas going on, right. But this is just an extension of that. But this is more, okay, how are we gonna get there then? What's the training regimen, right? So, yep. Let's go to chapter three verses 12 through 14. We're gonna read these three verses and then there's a number of different ideas we're gonna talk about in here. So, 

J.R.: Okay. You want me to go or you want it? 

David: Yeah, you read this and I'll get the next one. 

J.R.: Okay. " Not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward [00:17:00] in Christ Jesus." 

David: Yeah, so that's those three verses. On the surface, it would be easy to miss that there are a lot of athletic metaphors going on here,

Right? 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. You might, well, it's, it's fairly obvious, but 

David: Yeah. You might get a little hint of it. You know, I'm pressing to win a prize. Okay. That makes some sense. But let's talk about some of these ideas that are in just these three verses that are in the larger section, also of Philippians chapter three, right? So the first one I wanna talk about is just the idea of not that I've already obtained all this or have arrived at my goal. And this idea of a goal is a word in the original language I've really come to love because it's so rich in meaning. It's this idea of telios or telos. And so the telos is the goal of something. It's the completion of something, right? 

J.R.: Okay. 

David: And we interpret this several ways in the Bible. We can interpret it as being mature. We can [00:18:00] interpret it like Paul does here, that I have arrived at my goal. Basically the telos of something is the fulfilling of what it was made to do. So it could be the completion of a small goal, but it could also be the fulfillment of what you're supposed to do. That's where we get this idea of full maturity. That's where you get this idea of being made perfect. Paul sometimes talks about being made perfect. Right? And we talked in previous episodes. 

J.R.: And they're not talking about without any flaws. It just means the perfection of an idea. The completion of an idea.

David: The completion of an idea. Yeah. Yeah. The completion of idea. So anyway, it's just one of those words that I've come to really appreciate. And again, I don't want to insinuate that you have to study original languages in order to see all this, because we've talked about this before too. You know, there are websites, Bible tools that you can start to see some of these words pop out as well. 

J.R.: Right. But it is that idea of completing an idea, hitting [00:19:00] the mark. And you've heard this, we've said this before, you know, it's opposed to that Hebrew word for sin, which traditionally is understood as missing the mark, right? 

David: Right. Yeah, exactly. 

J.R.: You know, we think of the idea, the concept of sin is, Oh I've messed up. I shouldn't have done that. And there's truth to that, but it's missing the mark. Whereas telos , is the completion and hitting the mark. <Yeah, yeah.> Or the perfection of an idea. Yeah.

David: Exactly. Yeah.

J.R.: Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, that ties together well. 

David: Yeah. So the first is just this idea of I've arrived at my goal. So Paul is clearly aiming at something and that's what <Right.> we see in here. That's what he says even later on. He's definitely aiming at something. And what he's aiming at was just expressed in the couple of verses we just talked about. I want to know Christ to participate in his sufferings to experience life after death. <Right, right.> To experience resurrection of dead. So that's his goal. That's what he's aiming at. <Yeah.> So that's where he comes in then and says, well look, not that I've already reached this telos, my goal, [00:20:00] but - let's continue on then. 

So, right. The second idea is "I press on to take hold of that." So this idea of pressing on, and again, this is also a very athletic metaphor - you are running the race and you're running as hard as you can in order to reach the goal. <Yeah.> So that's captured in that idea of pressing on. <Right.> And, so, in fact, you almost see this idea of a runner approaching a finish line and the runner stretches at the last minute because he doesn't want anyone else to finish ahead of him. Right? <Yeah. Yeah.> And so he's straining and he's pressing forward, right, as much as he can. <Yeah. Yeah.> I watched this, it reminds me, I watched this YouTube video recently of biggest sport blunders or something, and there's this race where this one guy was running and he thinks he's got it. And so he kind of pulls up and some guy [00:21:00] presses forward right at the last minute. And you know, because he pressed forward, he actually won the race.

J.R.: Yeah. I think I've seen something like that. <Have you seen?> Yeah. Where I think that the guy lifts his hands up maybe, as if to declare victory. And he's about five feet from <Yeah. Yeah.> you know, from the finish line. He thinks he's got it. In the meantime, yeah. Yeah. Well it's funny 'cause I believe this same video, if we're talking about the same one, the guy turns around but he turns around at just the right time where the guy that's coming up on him was hit his blind spot. Right. So, so he turned to his left to turn around to see if any anyone's behind him and this guy was on his right. And he lifted his hands up because he's like, nobody's behind me. <Yeah, yeah.> Which, yeah. And the other guy takes the lead. I remember that. Yeah. But it's kind of cool because it even says in this verse, forgetting what's behind. Right. Straining what's towards ahead. <Yeah.> In other words, you're not looking behind you, you're not ... <Right.> not, you're not worrying about where the other runners are like this guy did. 

David: Right. No, that's [00:22:00] the, that, and that flows into that idea of, you know, forgetting what's behind and straining towards head. Right?

J.R.: I've always liked this metaphor of running, because it implies a destination, you know, a purpose as opposed to other sports analogies or, or other sports that simply pit us against each other. You know what? Right. You know what I mean? <Yeah.> It's like, it's about reaching a goal by pushing ourselves, not about simply being better than those around us, you know? And a runner obviously is racing against time, and of course he wants his time to be the best. But if he's, if he's blowing away the competition, let's say he doesn't let up. He's still striving to beat his best time. You know? Did you see the guy where uh, the guy from Kenya broke the world record has been a couple months ago? 

David: No, I don't think I caught that, but in, <broke the world record> with the marathon, marathon. Okay. The marathon. 

J.R.: Yeah, the marathon. And he was seconds, he was seconds. I, I forget that, I should have looked this up. But anyway, he was seconds away from finishing under two [00:23:00] hours. You know, over 26 miles and he does it almost under two hours. It was just over two hours, like seconds, over two hours. But , in any case, I can promise you that guy was way ahead of the second-place runner, right? <Yeah.> But that didn't matter, because that wasn't the goal. His goal was obviously to win the race, but he was racing against his own time. Right. And that's kind of like, what I like about these metaphors is it's not implying competition in the sense that my goal is to be better than you, right? 

 And you apply that to a Christian life, there are plenty of people that that is their goal is to be better than the next guy, right. Or to compare themselves to everybody else around them. But this specific metaphor kind of gives this idea of no, no, no. It's about a destination. It's about a purpose. And we're pushing ourselves not simply to win or not simply to beat somebody else, but to be the best, right? To get that prize, right? And to beat your best time. I've just always liked this analogy a little bit better [00:24:00] than, oh, the football analogy or, <Yeah.> You know? 

David: No, that's interesting because that's an interesting point that part of what you could read into this phrase of forgetting what's behind, straining towards what's ahead is the competition almost is within yourself, like you were saying. It's not about, you know, now we apply this to the spiritual life because that's what Paul's talking about. So it's not about competing against other Christians. <Right. Right.> But some, like you said, some people can fall into that. The other thing I like about that phrase, forgetting what's behind, is it's not about being bogged down by your past, I guess. That's another thing I think is inherent in this. And Paul actually says that earlier, is that, look, I'm not trying to drag my past behind me. That's behind me. <Right.> I've got my eyes ahead, right? That's the goal. That's the telos I'm aiming for. 

J.R.: Right. And this is a long race and we're gonna make mistakes. <Yeah.> And we're gonna stumble. But you can't carry that with you. <Yeah.> You just have to [00:25:00] leave that behind you and keep your eye <Exactly.> on, aim on. Yeah. Keep your eye on the prize. That's right. 

David: So another thing that occurred to me as I was looking at this is there is, do you, there's all kinds of examples of this, but there was a, well-known football player, a big defensive lineman.

In one of the key games, and I think it was the eighties, maybe it's the nineties, but do you remember Leon Lett? <Sure.> Yeah. Okay, so you remember that name. Well, he was infamous for, he's a big defensive lineman. The quarterback fumbled and he picks it up and he's running to the goal line, and about the ten-yard line, he holds his hands up and starts celebrating. <Yes.> And of course, some safety chases him down and knocks the ball out.

J.R.: Yeah. Yep, that's right. 

David: Well, what's amazing about this Leon Lett guy's story is that not only happens once, it happens again like the next season. 

J.R.: He did it twice?

David: It did it twice, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Wow. And so that's just [00:26:00] one of, you know, I thought about that too. Like you talk about... 

J.R.: You don't learn the first time. Wow. It seems like 

David: eyes on the goal. 

J.R.: Yeah. It seems like that would be, yeah. 

David: Forget what's behind and you don't start celebrating until you've actually surpassed the goal, right? You know.

J.R.: Until you're in the end zone. That's exactly right. Wow. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. So I know that he did it once , in a big game, and I wanna say that he did it again. I'll have to look that up maybe, but I wanna say it happened to him twice, which, you know. 

J.R.: Oh gosh, man. Yeah, dude, what an what an embarrassment. 

David: Learn something. Yeah. Anyway. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Forget what's behind. No, that's great.

David: Yeah. So there's a lot in this idea of pressing forward, forgetting what's behind and straining towards what's ahead. So that moves us to the next section, in the next verse of, I press towards the goal, right? It's kind of what we've been talking about. <Mm-Hmm.> Now this is where too, that word for goal is actually a word goal marker. [00:27:00] And again, <Okay. Yeah.> in the Greek, it's skopos, but so that goal marker is literally what we saw in Delphi, right? The post. The post, yeah. Yep. In the stadium. That was the goal-marker. And so when Paul, 

J.R.: Yeah, you kind of explained this to me, but I forget. Did you grab, is that, did you grab a ring? Was that the point of it? To grab the ring? To be the first To get the ring?

David: I don't know if there was a ring, but it was definitely a pole at the end. And it was a rock. <Right.> And that was the goal. The idea is that's the thing you keep your eye on. And again, if you're running a race, you can't be looking to your left and your right, right? You are singularly focused on the goal. Right. The goal marker. <Yeah.> And so that was the way for the athletes to train their eyes on what they were aim- that was the finish line. We might say that was the end zone, you know? <Right.> And that's what you aimed at.

J.R.: Yeah. And I remember thinking that would hurt to run into that thing. <Yeah.> It was not, [00:28:00] it seemed a little, you know, we've come a long way with our sports. That seems like a silly thing to make everybody run toward, you know? Right. Let's run toward the stone concrete pillar that, you know, <That's true.> kill you if you're running into it full blast. 

David: But hey, every year you still see some football player run into the goal post at the end of the end zone. Right? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. True. 

David: It's not much different from that. 

J.R.: Have a big pad around that thing though now. Yeah, we've learned our lesson. I don't think there was a pad around the, the goal marker. 

David: Maybe they put like bales of hay around it or something. I don't know.

J.R.: Yeah, sure. Okay.

David: Yeah. But a again, it's interesting 'cause that word where he says, I press towards the goal is that specific idea of a goal marker at the end of a track.

J.R.: Right. He uses that specific term. <Yes. Yeah.> You know, goal, obviously in our modern context could mean any goal, but he's specifically using the word would you say, skopos? 

David: Yeah. 

J.R.: That meant that actual concrete pillar. And so again, that ties in a little bit clearer the sports analogy that you were saying at the beginning that we can kind of overlook.

David: Yeah. [00:29:00] It'd be easy to say, you know, okay, Paul has a goal and he is trying to reach it. But no, this, the language is much more specific about running a race and everything involved in preparing and running the race in order to win the prize. And of course, that's the last part of this section that we just read, is in order to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has called me heavenward.

So again the idea of what a prize was, you know? <Right.> And in the ancient games you remember this, and we saw this too, in Delphi, in the ancient games, that prize was a wreath. It doesn't sound very exciting to us. You know? 

J.R.: Yeah. How lame is that? Yeah. You know, gimme a shoe deal or something. <Yeah. Yeah.> Something more than a wreath. 

David: Yeah. And you know, they could have, they could have done a gold medal, but they, but they didn't. In the ancient games, what you won was a wreath. And <Right.> the games differed depending on what kind of wreath it was. But what's interesting about this, and we'll pick up on this later, [00:30:00] that wreath could also be called a crown. So they might take an olive branch and weave it into a wreath. Or a Laurel branch, I think was one too. So there's, yeah, several different ones. But that's what you won. That was literally the prize for winning a competition in a game, <Right> in the ancient games, is this, yeah, wreath or crown. Now remember that idea of crown, because we're gonna come back to that, but that's what they won. 

J.R.: Right. And that seems a little lame, you know, in our modern context. But, it really meant something because when they embodied these athletes in statues they would carve in the crown, the wreath around their head and that would signify this was an athlete, this was somebody who <Right, right.> won an Olympic a competition. Right, right. And so yeah, a little bit more solid embodiment on the statue than on the actual wreath. 

David: Right. Sometimes on the, sometimes on the statues, you would actually see the type of [00:31:00] wreath that that athlete won. And the other thing is, you know, okay, let's not sell it all short. 'cause they were competing for more than just a wreath because like any athlete today, you know, fame followed that. <Sure.> Maybe some wealth followed that if you had a good sponsor, you know. If you are some wealthy donor in your town was especially proud of you, <Right.> Then they, 

J.R.: Well, there, there, there were stories in the museum that we were reading that they were saying it was an opportunity for lower class individuals to basically jump up to higher classes.

David: Ah, that's right. 

J.R.: You know, because you were so celebrated that, that's like, man, who cares this guy came from poverty? Who cares this guy's, the father's a farmer? This guy is a fast runner and next thing you know, he's running for the Senate or something like that. <Yeah, yeah.> He's, he's into upper classes.

David: In fact, the museum in Delphi one of the very last rooms, remember that big bronze statue of that chariot driver? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. 

David: It's actually [00:32:00] amazing. It, it was an amazing statue and it originally would've, would've had like horses and all that. But they actually uncovered this statue, I don't know, in the last 50 or a hundred years, I think. <Yeah.> But they've restored a lot of it, and it is an amazing statue. But that guy won the chariot races, multiple games. And so, you know <That's right.> He's immortalized, right? <Right.> And that ties back. 

J.R.: So he did get a shoe deal. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. He got a shoe deal. But that goes back to that idea of making your name great. Right? <Right.> That we talk about. <Yeah, yeah, sure.> You know, so yeah. So we can say that, yeah, they won a wreath, which sounds kind lame, but they didn't win gold medals like we do today. But like you said, it was a way of moving up. It was a way of increasing your honor. <Mm-Hmm.> Your, your glory. And it was a way to make a name for yourself. To make your name great. 

J.R.: Right. So, right. And I think Paul was probably tying that into the [00:33:00] idea - you remember the last chapter where he's saying there's a path to make your name great. And that wasn't the path of Christ. It was to lower yourself. <Right. Right.> And then he kind of brings this analogy of that everybody understood and we understand today, and if you're great at anything, man, there's a lot of glory that follows that. And then of course he says that there's a higher purpose for that glory. Not merely getting the culture to praise you here on earth. You know, there's obviously a bigger goal that he's gonna talk about. But it does tie into that idea of we wanna make a name for ourselves. And Paul is just kind of overlaying that idea of saying, well, I wanna make a name for myself too, but it's just not here on earth. 

David: Right. Yeah, exactly. 

J.R.: It's, it's in eternity. So 

David: here's how you make your name. And he gets into that. Yeah. And the whole point of that poem to Christ is, here's how you make your name great in the kingdom of God. You actually <Exactly.> decline that earthly path of greatness. 

J.R.: Right, yeah. There's a different path. Yeah. Aiming towards something different. 

David: Yeah. [00:34:00] So hopefully you can see just in those couple of verses, man, there's a lot of very specific athletic words and metaphors going on. And that's just a small sampling of chapter three, but it's not the only place. I wanna hit another reference 'cause it's not the only place that Paul uses this kind of language. So actually I'll read this next one. 

Alright, so this is an interesting one because again, it's not the only time Paul uses these athletic imagery and metaphors. In his letter to Corinth, 1 Corinthians chapter nine. I'm gonna read verses twenty-four through twenty-seven. And again, listen to the similar type of language that Paul's using here. Okay, so verse twenty-four says, "Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one gets the prize. Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last [00:35:00] forever.

Therefore, I do not run like someone running aimlessly. I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." So a very similar metaphor going on here, athletic competition. But I almost think here it's much easier to see here than in that section. 

J.R.: Yeah. He's extending the idea. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

David: So, yeah, so there's a couple things to point out in this is he is explicitly talking about a race that that is being run. Right? <Right.> And he says, run in such a way as to get the prize. There again that, idea of winning the prize.

So this is a little bit clearer language that we see in our English language about the imagery of running a race. But one of the words in verse twenty-four, I wanna point out is it's a word where we translate it as to [00:36:00] run the race, to compete in the race, right? <Okay.> And it's the Greek word, agonizomai and I'm probably butchering the pronunciation, but it's agonizomai. Right? 

J.R.: That's right. But it means to, okay, so it sounds like agony. 

David: Right, exactly. All right, so you picked up on that. Yeah. So it means to contend in a struggle. And Yeah. It, it's, the root of that is kind of where we get this idea of something to agonize over something. <Okay. Yeah.> And I think it's interesting because Paul is really talking about, again, he's talking about spiritual life here, right? <Right.> And he's talking about how hard he is working to reach his goal if you start to pull all these ideas together. Right? <Right.> And he doesn't use soft language here. He talks about, you know, look, I'm putting myself through strict training. I'm agonizing, right? <Mm-Hmm. Yeah.> And he goes on in this same section to say, you know, look, I'm not running aimlessly. I'm not just fighting a boxer, [00:37:00] beating the air. Right. I'm, I'm striking blows to my body so that I'm prepared to compete in this race the best I can. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. Well, this isn't what Babe Ruth era baseball where everybody's smoking in the dugout and pulling double shifts, right? He's saying, I'm taking this seriously, right? <Yeah.> I'm agonizing over this and training for it. 

David: And you can see that in any athlete who takes their sport seriously. <Right.> I heard an interview with a swimmer and she was basically talking about the routine that she's goes through since she was a kid. Yeah. You know? <Yeah.> And, and you think this is a person who's trained their whole life for this, you know? 

J.R.: Yeah. Right. Well, I've seen documentaries on Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps and yeah. <Yeah.> The, the everything about the way they eat, the way they, you know, that the story was that Tiger Woods never had birthday cake because he wasn't allowed to eat that. And, you know, yeah, you [00:38:00] see that and it's like, no, it's a whole lifestyle. It's not just we got the game coming up, so I better lay off the sweets. <Right, right.> It's, it's an entire lifestyle in preparation. And I like the idea, I don't know where I heard this but the line goes something like, stop trying to do great things and start training to do great things.

<Mm-Hmm.> You don't just walk into the gym and say, I'm gonna try my hardest to lift 300 pounds. You train and you work your way up to that, you work your way towards that goal. I don't try, I'm not gonna try as hard as I can to run a marathon this weekend. I'll literally fall over dead. But if I dedicate and it's important enough to me I don't know, six months, a year, I might be able to actually make it.

Now I'm not, knocking on that two hour time that we talked about. <Yeah. Yeah.> But yeah, if I train and I think we do that in life. I think we have this idea, I'm gonna try to do better. I'm gonna try harder. And it's like, stop thinking about that word "try." Start thinking about that word [00:39:00] "train."

David: Yeah. I like that. 

J.R.: And that's, that's, that's the image that he's giving is stop trying to do quote unquote good and start training to do good, because that's what it's gonna require. 

David: Yeah. I like that. You should have used your Yoda voice. There is no try. 

J.R.: There is no try. Yeah. 

David: There's only train. Yeah. 

J.R.: I'm not touching that. I'll let you do that one. 

David: No, I'm not gonna do that either. 

J.R.: There's no try. There's only train. That's great. Yeah. That's a T-shirt right there. 

David: Yeah. We will make a T-shirt or something. Yeah. But I thought when you said that I, that's what I was thinking, but No, that's a great point. Like, it's about training and look, when the last couple years I've gone up to Tallahassee for Thanksgiving with the family. And we have another brother who his family likes to run in the Turkey Trot, right? Have you done that? 

J.R.: Yeah. I have you I did go. Okay. I didn't run in the turkeys. 

David: Oh, you didn't run?

J.R.: Yeah. Well, that's a, that's a loose phrase. I'm sure I ran at the beginning for about a hundred yards. <Okay. Yeah.> You know, trotted? No, I, I, I embraced the word trot. 

David: [00:40:00] Trot, okay. You're all about to trot. 

J.R.: It's called the trot, right? Yeah. And most of it's walk, so I'll be honest. 

David: So the last couple of years I've gone up there and, you know, we've run the Turkey Trot with my brother and his family. And again, it's not something that I train for. In fact, I was at the starting line this past Thanksgiving and you know how everyone's kind of talking and this old guy behind me, he was talking to someone else. And he said, man, I've done this every year for 20 years. And someone said, how old are you? And I think he was like, seventy-nine. And I, I thought, okay, my goal, right? My telos is I just wanna keep up with this guy. 

J.R.: Yeah. I wanna be that guy. Yeah. 

David: Yeah. So it was like, I was kind of running, walking. I was trying to beat the previous year's time, you know, my personal time the previous year where I didn't even train or try or anything like that. But about two thirds of the way through, I was kind of jogging and sure enough, I spotted that guy and I was like, yep, I'm keeping up with the [00:41:00] 79-year-old guy who, you know, does this every year. So yeah, I was proud of myself. 

J.R.: But you, yeah. You stayed with him the whole time. 

David: Yeah, pretty much. I, I think I pretty much, pretty much came in right around him because when we were making that last turn, I saw him, you know. I recognized like there's the guy, you know. But like Paul says, forgetting what's behind, so forget him. You know? I gotta, yeah. I might have even shoved him.

J.R.: Focus on what's ahead. That's right. 

David: Yeah. Shoved him a little bit. 

J.R.: Took him out. Yeah. That's the way, That's the way it works. That's true competition. Sure. The spirit of the Turkey Trot. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. So the point is, this isn't a Turkey Trot we're talking about, you know, not just something like, eh, I'll kind of run, walk it. What Paul's talking about here is training and competing. And again, that goes back to this idea of these pan-Hellenic games that we talked about at the beginning. The athletes trained for it. They abstain from certain things, you know, and, and again, because they were doing it for the gods, they were certainly to abstain from, you [00:42:00] know sexual relationships. They were abstaining from certain foods. So there was this idea of, if you're going to train for something, man, you've gotta orient your life around that. <Right.> And I, so I think Paul's kind of drawing on that idea too, you know? 

J.R.: Yeah. The single-minded fixation that it requires to be an Olympic athlete. Paul recognizes that. I, I don't think that's a new concept. <Right.> and he's recognizing, that's why I think he's pointing that out. He's not talking about casual, you know, the hobby of running. 

David: Yeah, the hobby of running. Yeah. 

J.R.: Right. Or the hobby of boxing, you know, beating the air. It's funny, I, I do this virtual reality workout. Did I have, I showed you my virtual reality headset? 

David: Yeah, you have, but we haven't left it. Yeah. Okay. You said you do some kind of boxing or thing Yeah. With it. 

J.R.: Yeah. Three or four times a week. 

David: I haven't seen that, but ...

J.R.: It's a, yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a app called Supernatural. And, I work up a sweat and it's good exercise. But the point is that I [00:43:00] don't think I'm prepared to step in the ring with anybody. <Right.> I don't, you know, I've been doing this for quite a while and it's a pretty good exercise for me. That's fine. But yeah, it looks like I'm boxing, but I'm not really boxing, you know, I'm not prepared for a fight. I'm just going through the motions. Right. 

David: That's true. 

J.R.: And that's kind of what he's talking about, about beating the air. <Sure. Exactly.> Paul, what Paul says not to do is exactly what I do. Yeah. It's no that, at least, at least on the headset, that's what I do. 

David: That's exactly what he's talking about. You know, it's one thing to kind of get your punches down and get stronger. Man, it's a different thing to step into a ring. And you know, that first time some bigger dude, gut punches you, you know? 

J.R.: Oh, sure. It's the Mike Tyson quote. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. 

David: Right. Exactly. 

J.R.: That's a great line. 

David: Yeah. That's exactly what Paul's talking about here, right?

J.R.: Yeah. You know? Yeah, that's right. And the idea of punching at the air is kind of this, it implies cheap virtue. We've talked about this before. <Yeah.> The idea that, hey, I'm training for something and look at me and I'm getting better at this. But the [00:44:00] reality is, man, you're just punching at the air. You're not doing anything. You're working up a little bit of a sweat and good for you. But that's not the single-minded fixation that I'm talking about. You're not preparing for a real battle. <Yeah.> You know, if I jumped in the ring with really anybody, I would just be folded up y you know? <Yeah.> But I'm, I'm fool myself to think that I'm prepared for that. 

David: Right, yeah. Until the first time you get hit.

J.R.: Until I get punched in the face. 

David: Yeah. It's, and that's, that's very much what Paul's talking about here. It's the exact analogy here, you know? <Yeah.> The last thing I wanna point out in this section is, he says in verse twenty-five, he says, "Everyone competes in a game. They do it to get a crown that will not last." Okay. There's that idea again of a crown or a wreath. <Right.> And the reason, and people who have heard messages on this have probably heard this, but the reason why he says a crown that will not last, it's because of that will wither because it's made out of this foliage, right? <Right. Sure.> It's, it's a wreath. [00:45:00] It's literally a wreath and it's so, it's a crown that will not last. <Right.> But he says "We do it to get a crown that will last." Which I think that's a pretty powerful image there as well. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. No doubt that it's not something that's gonna be temporary. But something that's gonna be permanent. But it doesn't have anything. It still, it doesn't have, you know, 'cause we were talking earlier about, well, you have glory, you have fame that lasts. That image of that statue of the guy in the horse-drawn carriage that we were talking about, you know? That memorializing. He's talking about something other than that as well. He's not talking about the earthly praise and glory that we can gain for ourselves. He's talking about something in the spiritual realm, right?

David: Right. Exactly. 

J.R.: You know, that he's going on something, because look, just that idea that of course the crown is gonna disintegrate. But the answer to that might be, well, you know, my fame doesn't <Yeah.> You know my glory doesn't. <Well, yeah.> But he's talking about something beyond that as well.

David: And what about that guy? You know, the, yeah. The wreath fades, but what about that guy with that [00:46:00] statue up at Delphi? You know, well, look, that's gonna crumble one day too. <Yeah, sure.> They had to pull that thing out of the ground and salvage it. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. They had to, yeah, dig it out of the dirt. So for quite a while people forgot. 

David: Yeah. And who knows what's still buried there, but, you know, I think that's, Paul's saying, no, we're competing for something that's will not perish, that will not disintegrate, that will last forever. Yeah. <Right. Yeah.> 

All right, so we've talked a lot about sports metaphors, so that's what Paul's doing here. There's one more thing I want to mention here about this idea of the wreath or the crown. Because as Paul finishes up chapter three of Philippians, you have to go ahead to Philippians chapter four verse one. Because I think this is kind of neat. And remember in our Bible, chapter divisions are a little bit arbitrary. Paul wouldn't have made a chapter division right before chapter four verse one. Right? <Right.> So I actually think that chapter four verse one is [00:47:00] the final thought on chapter three. And you kind of see that in this word, therefore says "Therefore, brothers and sisters." So therefore is this idea of, okay, everything I just said, here's what I'm saying.

J.R.: Right.

David: "You whom I love and long for my joy and my crown." Okay, so there's that word again. "Stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends." So Paul summarizes everything in chapter three by saying, this is how you do this then. Right? <Right.> Now there's a couple of things I wanna point out just in this one verse, because this is how you do this. He says, stand firm. And that word for stand can mean stand firm. It's kind of a military term, but it can also just mean to stand. And I wonder if Paul doesn't have in mind a runner standing at the awards ceremony receiving the prize, right?

J.R.: Oh, okay. Yeah.

David: So in other words, it could be read, and this might just be me reading into it 'cause I haven't heard other commentators talk about this, but it could be read as this [00:48:00] is how you stand at the end of the race and get the prize. 

J.R.: Okay. Yeah, I like that. No, I can, see that. I also like the fact that he says my brothers and sisters, you know, to who I love and long for and my crown. Yeah. In other words, the people, his brothers are and sisters are his crown. <Exactly.> So the imperishable part is the fact that he's got this community of other Christians that he's poured his life in, and that is imperishable, right? 

And I've, I've heard that concept before that who is it? CS Lewis says you've never met a mere mortal. And that idea that everybody you meet is going somewhere is gonna be in eternity somewhere. <Oh yeah.> And so all the stuff that we gain on, you know, the cars and the houses and all the material things we can gain, that's all gonna be gone. We all know that. But, our relationships, those echo into eternity. And so I think that's what he's kind of saying that his crown is actually tied to his Christian community that he's been building there in Philippi. 

David: Yeah. No, I think you're right. [00:49:00] They, yeah, I like that, the award that he wins is them, is them running this race well, like that's his reward. <Yeah. Yeah.> And that's not gonna go away. That's imperishable is what he's saying.

J.R.: Right. I just like that. I, I like the, I like the idea of the winner's podium. That ties that whole idea together. <Yeah. Yeah.> I agree. So who do we talk to to get chapter four, verse one, actually into chapter three.

Is there somebody, is there, is there an email that I could shoot this off to? 

David: Yeah. Do I write my senator? What do I do here? Like, 

J.R.: Yeah, this needs to be chapter three verse twenty-two. I agree with you. 

David: Yeah. I think it's easy to read this verse too. And sometimes we do this talking about taking verses outta context. We say, you know, my joy and crown, we see the word crown and we think some gold diadem sitting on my head, you know? And we even think that, oh, when I get to heaven one day I'm gonna wear a crown. Right? <Yeah.> Which is a little like, eh, okay, that's cool, you know? [00:50:00] But actually in its context, this crown - my joy and crown - is referring to the wreath that he talked about in chapter three. And so, yeah, I, I think you're right. His prize is them running the race well. And Paul would say, that's what I need. That's what I'm striving for. If you guys run the race well, that'll be my crown. That'll be my wreath. 

J.R.: Sure. Yeah. The crown represents glory and Paul's glory is <Yeah.> the people at Philippi. <Yeah, exactly.> Yeah. That, that's how you do it. That's how you win the game. I like that. 

David: Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's a great chapter. There's a lot going on in there. Of course, we only talked about three or four verses and you know, there's an entire chapter there of these kind of things, but hopefully we've demonstrated that there is a lot of athletic sports metaphors going on <Yeah, yeah.> in chapter three that I think actually people today can really relate to when it's drawn out. Let's put it that way. 

J.R.: Sure. Sure. 

David: [00:51:00] So one other thing, we can start to wrap this up, but one other thing I'll mention here is just this idea of games and how familiar Paul would have been to it. I think I mentioned last episode, I'm reading The Odyssey, which is really fascinating. Really great for ... 

J.R.: Yeah. Good for you. I actually downloaded it. And read the first few paragraphs and thought, yeah, I'm not doing this. 

David: Oh, come on man. There's all kind. Yeah, it's great. What amazes me, it was what written in 800 BC.

J.R.: Oh yeah. Yeah. If I read it, I need a commentary. It's too poetic. 

David: Okay. Yeah, I could see that. 

J.R.: I mean, that's just, you know, I, I, I struggled with it. Okay. Yeah, you talked me into it, but go ahead. 

David: Well, so yeah, I'm really enjoying reading through it. There's a lot of Greek culture that when you know what you're looking for, you start to see it everywhere. It's the pattern again. Right, right. Once you see the pattern, you go, oh yeah, it's everywhere through here. So I think there's a lot of examples of that in The Odyssey, but one of the things I just read [00:52:00] that is apropos to what we just talked about is so Odysseus escapes the island where Calypso has been holding him hostage. And he washes ashore on this other island. And I'm gonna forget the island's name and the king, but I'll skip all the story about how he actually gets to the city, presents himself to the king's wife, and then the king says, okay, you're a stranger, but the, you know, law of hospitality that you're welcome here, right? <Right.>

And so one of the things that happens is the king throws a big banquet. He doesn't know it's Odysseus by the way. He just thinks it's a stranger. He throws a big banquet, the food's flowing, the wine is flowing, the bard is singing. And then after dinner it's funny because the king says, alright, let's have games. And so the next part describes, you know, all the best runners of the city show up and they start competing running races. The [00:53:00] boxers box, the wrestlers wrestle. 

J.R.: Yeah. Not your typical modern party. 

David: No. So it's just, it, but it's funny because it really impresses upon you that, man, if there was a large gathering, you could probably figure a track meet was gonna break out, you know? <Yeah.> This is just how they threw a party, right? 

J.R.: Yeah. Not like the parties that I see in Tennessee where guys are gonna be out on the lawn. 

David: There's not a lot of racing down the street. 

J.R.: There's gonna be some, well, there's gonna be a fight, but I don't think, it's not a sanctioned fight. I should say true. There'll be fights, but Yeah.

David: Loosely we'll call that boxing. 

J.R.: Disorderly. Yeah. Yeah. Sure, sure. Yeah. But yeah, you get a big group of people together and, suddenly it's like, okay, let's get the games going. 

David: Yeah. And so that was just part of the culture, you know? <Right.> And again, we talked about Paul being in Corinth.

Nemea was close by. So all this, my point is that all this was very familiar to Paul. It was part of the culture. And so Paul's not just kind of talking about something he doesn't know [00:54:00] about here. We don't know if Paul was an athlete, but clearly maybe he was a boxer. I don't know. I don't picture as Paul being a fast runner, but I feel like he could be a stocky guy. Tough to take down. 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, he was just immersed in the culture. I mean, he's clear. We talked about this earlier, you know to make a point to a group of people that are nuts about soccer, right? I might try to throw in a soccer analogy to communicate with them. But I don't know anything about soccer. You know, I'm just gonna mess it up. Paul clearly understands because he's immersed in it. He's not just throwing ideas out to say, Hey you know, I know a thing or two about what you guys do in your spare time as well. You know, or else he would've messed that up. <Right.> I think he's speaking from experience as opposed to just trying to connect with an audience.

David: Yeah. Yeah. He's talking about ...

J.R.: in a disingenuous way. Right.

David: Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think you're right. Yeah. Well, to wrap things up, I don't know if you have any final thoughts. One of the things that I took away from this [00:55:00] is one of the things that really impressed me is that when you really look at what Paul's talking about, he's talking about training for the spiritual life, and he's talking about fighting and training hard and preparing your body, right? <Right.> I think that stands in stark contrast to maybe in modern-day Christendom, evangelicalism maybe, of how we talk about living the Christian life. <Yeah.> I, I, you know, we talk a lot about grace. We talk a lot about, you know, some spiritual disciplines. Maybe read your Bible, go to a Bible study. I just feel like that's a far cry from what Paul's talking about. Maybe I'm off. 

J.R.: Yeah, he's, I don't know. He's about something. No, I think you're right. I think he's talking about something bigger, you know? <Yeah.> And, we talked about this idea of a race, a finish line, a goal, a destination, a purpose. I don't think he's talking about simply, Hey, train to do this on the [00:56:00]side. He's talking about immerse yourself. You know I want this to be completely part of everything you do, this training. <Yeah.> And so the Christian life is again, something that, it's something deeper and, and all these things are good. They're, you know, the Bible study, the ...

David: Oh yeah, yeah. That's part of it. 

J.R.: prayer time. They're, they're all, those are all valid ways to move forward. But he's saying something, the analogy he's using is much more immersive. It's much more, it - Okay to go back last week about the idea of the worldview. A worldview is not something, it's, it's not just an opinion on something. It's a lens that you view everything through. And I think he's taking that next step of saying, the training that I'm talking about, the goal that I'm talking about is something that you live your entire life through. 

It's it's entire life goal. It's not just a mere, Hey, you know, I've got a goal to own my own house, or I've got a goal to do this or that. You know, to be, <Yeah.> to have this position in the company. He's saying, no, no, no. I'm, talking [00:57:00] about an entire life goal where on your deathbed, this is what you say, I've won the race. I've done what I wanted to, I've accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. And it's never something about a promotion or what you end up with. It's, it ties in again to your relationships. That's what you always go back to. And it's those things that don't disintegrate that you're gonna see on the other side of death, that you're gonna look back and say, that's what I'm proud of. And so he's talking about something so much bigger. <Yeah.> And yeah, you're right. I, I think we kind of make that a little bit too small. 

David: Yeah. And sometimes I think we are afraid to make it seem like Paul's trying to earn his salvation, which he's not. <Right. Sure, sure.> He's made that explicit. But at the same time, there is no hint of Paul saying, okay, I'm saved, and now I can just kick back and wait for heaven. 

J.R.: Right? I mean, there is, right. He wants to make that absolutely clear. You're right. No hint of that in [00:58:00] Paul, right? Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. Well, okay, so it's, so from time to time I talk to college guys. I, I work in college ministry at my church. And I talk to college guys and one of the questions I always hear is, Man, I just don't know what I wanna do when I graduate. You know, I, I don't know. I, I, you know, they feel like they should have this whole thing, this whole career mapped out in front of them. <Yeah.> And they don't know what they wanna do. You know, and Paul really in a roundabout way, he's addressing this very issue. When you don't know what you wanna do, it's because you don't have an aim.

You know, we're not going anywhere because we don't have an aim. And we don't have an aim because we don't know what's important. And we learn what's important by forcing ourselves into things that are uncomfortable and then overcoming those things. 

So small, start small if you need to. <Right.> Kind of a, as a practical <Yeah.> outcropping of the, of what we're talking about. Start small if you need to, but that's all part of training. But put yourself in uncomfortable positions. Push yourself further than you're comfortable being. And [00:59:00] all that helps you understand what's important, and that's where you develop that aim of what you're supposed to be looking at and the prize that you're supposed to be reaching for.

David: Yeah. I think that's a good analogy. Because the goal may not be apparent right at the beginning. But if you at least start doing something <right> it will start to kind of manifest itself before you, so to speak. That goal marker, right? <Yeah. Yeah.> As long as you start doing something, the worst thing to do is to do nothing.

<Right.> 'cause I don't know what to do. Right?

J.R.: Well, doing nothing is, make no mistake, is doing something. 

David: Yeah. It's a conscious choice. <You know what I mean?> Yeah. 

J.R.: Right. We tell ourselves, I don't wanna do anything 'cause I don't wanna make the wrong decision. <Yeah.> Well that's a decision right there in and of itself. <Yeah.> A lot of this is kind of Stoic Philosophy. It really ties into Stoicism, which was also, a big discipline or worldview of the time. You know, Stoicism and it ties into that, you know, being disciplined for the sake of being disciplined to prepare yourself. Yeah. 

David: Yeah, [01:00:00] exactly. There's a quote that I really like from Chesterton, Chesterton writes that "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried." 

J.R.: Yeah, I love that. 

David: And I love that quote because it speaks to this idea that I think today we almost make it all too easy and Chesterton's like, no, no, no. If you really are aiming for the ideal, there's that idea of the goal-marker again. <Right.> It's difficult. <Yeah.> Because it in involves your entire worldview to go back to what Paul's saying. <Right.> And when your world view is aligned with what God's doing, it's going to affect everything you do. 

J.R.: Right. Exactly. Yeah. When you try to simplify it, when you try to make it accessible to everyone, all you really do is destroy the entire world view; it crumbles. Does that make sense? <Yeah.> When I try to make the goal accessible to everyone where everybody can win the prize, so to speak, [01:01:00] where anybody can get up and do this, it's that idea of everybody gets a trophy.

David: A participation trophy. Right. 

J.R.: Right. Yeah. Participation, you know, Paul's saying something completely different than that. <Yeah. Yeah.> This isn't just, Hey, get up and do your best and we'll pat you on your back and give you a trophy anyway. <Yeah.> Saying No, no, no. It takes, yeah, it takes a complete immersive world view. 

David: Yeah. Yeah. So that's chapter three.

J.R.: Okay. I like it. Alright, where are we going next? 

David: Yeah, so chapter four, I would throw a little bit of a teaser out there. There's two or three big ideas in chapter four too. But one that we're gonna talk about is maybe a little bit of an uncomfortable conversation that Paul needed to put out there with the Philippian Church. And if it's uncomfortable, you know, has to do with money. Right? 

J.R.: Yeah. Don't be getting in my wallet now, Paul. 

David: Yeah, so, it's an interesting theme in all through Philippians, but he really brings it out in chapter four. And there's some ancient ideas you have to understand, [01:02:00] I think, to really get an understanding of what Paul broaches in chapter four. We'll talk about that next episode. 

J.R.: Okay. Alright, that sounds good. 

David: Well, as always, we encourage you to read along. You know, don't just listen to the podcast, but pull out Philippians, read along with it. See if some of these ideas don't start to change the way you read it. One of the reasons we're doing this, I've gotta plug my book. I have a book out called A Journey Through Philippi.

J.R.: Ah, <we draw,> I got the e-book this week. 

David: Did you? Okay. You got the -

J.R.: Yeah, it loaded to my, loaded to my Kindle. I was all excited. 

David: You got the pre-order, showed up in the Kindle app. <Yep. Wonderful.> Oh, cool. Yeah. Great. Awesome. 

J.R.: Yeah, about halfway through it. 

David: Yeah. I'm starting to see some sales trickle in, so that's good too.

But in that book, talk about some of our experiences in Philippi. We talked about that. I try to incorporate that into the book. But again, the book goes into a lot more depth than what we talk about on the podcast too. So I talk about all the different sections in the Book of Philippians. So pick that up. That's available - Amazon, [01:03:00] Apple ibooks, Barnes & Noble. Wherever you get your books, you can find it there. What else we got?

J.R.: Yeah. We mentioned the last episode. Go to our Fanlist page. You can leave us questions there and you have a conversation. That'll be fun. 

David: Yeah. We'll put that link in the show notes too. I think that's it. Give us likes, reviews, anything like that. Pass it on to a friend. Trying to get the word out there. So thanks for listening. 

J.R.: Yeah, feedback. That'd be great. 

David: Yeah, any feedback, comments, questions, we would love to start addressing those. And we will talk to you next episode.

J.R.: Alright, we'll see you next time.