3:13a

Brothers: The term Brothers here refers to other Christians, fellow believers, not to literal Brothers. You might translate this as “brothers and sisters,” “older and younger siblings” or “relatives.” The term Brothers also occurs in 1:12, 3:1, 3:17, 4:1, 4:8. See the note on 1:12a.

I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it: Paul was saying in other words what he had already said in 3:12a. He had not yet become all that God wanted him to be.

consider: This means “to regard, believe, say.” But here Paul referred to more than just his opinion of himself. He knew that he had not yet achieved what God wanted him to be.

taken hold of it: See the note on 3:12c.

3:13b

one thing I do: Paul was introducing the main thing that he wanted to do. He was about to explain what he wanted more than anything else. He did this by comparing himself to a man running a race to win a prize.

3:13c

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead: The phrase what is behind refers to Paul’s past, particularly to the things he used to boast about (3:5–6). This would include what happened before he became a Christian, and perhaps even some of what happened after he became a Christian.

Forgetting: Paul did not want to concentrate on his past. This does not mean he would completely forget but that it would not be the main thing he thought about. He compared this to a man running a race and not looking back to see who was close behind him or how far he had run. Make sure that your translation clearly means that Paul intended to forget these things. You might need to use a word meaning “ignoring,” or you might need to use a negative like “not concentrating on” or “not paying any attention to.”

straining toward what is ahead: This also is using the metaphor of a race. The runner pushes himself forward as fast as he can. He tries to be the first to reach the finish line. The meaning here is that Paul was disciplining himself to become more like Christ, trying hard and doing his best to be what Christ wanted him to be.

If people run races in your culture, then it may be possible to use this metaphor. But if people in your culture do not know about racing, you may need to explain that in your translation. See the first meaning line of 3:13c in the Display. Or you may need to leave out the metaphor and translate only the meaning. For an example, see the second meaning line of 3:13c in the Display.

behind…ahead: Because Paul was using the metaphor of a race here, these words can be understood in two ways:

(a) position in space : That is, within Paul’s metaphor of the race, the word behind means “in back of” or “at the rear of,” and the word ahead means “in front of.”

(b) position in time : When Paul used the metaphor of a race, he was referring to his life. In this case, the word behind means “in the past, what happened before now,” and the word ahead means “in the future, what will happen later.”

Consider the following when you translate these words:

• In some languages, there may be words meaning “behind” and “ahead” which have the same dual meaning of space and time as the words do in Greek and English. If you have such words in your language, you should use them here.

• If you must decide which words to use, you should use sense (a) above, if you have used the metaphor of a race. Use sense (b) if you have not been able to retain the metaphor.

In some cultures the people think of the past as figuratively in front of them or “ahead,” because they can visualize what has already happened. They then think of the future as “behind,” something unknown that they cannot visualize. If this is true in your language, you need to be careful to use the correct terms so people understand what Paul was saying.

© 2002 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.