Prize

The prize is the reward at the end of a race. The umbrella holds two Pauline uses — one drawn directly from the foot-race image, the other carrying the same image into the Christian life as a figure for the calling of God.

A Reward of Merit

The starting point is athletic. "Don't you⁺ know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Even so run; that you⁺ may attain" (1Co 9:24). The plural-you addresses the whole congregation; the picture is of a stadium foot-race in which everyone runs but only one carries off the reward. The exhortation that follows — "Even so run; that you⁺ may attain" — turns the image into a charge to run with the same intentness.

The Prize Above

The same image returns in a more interior register. "I press on toward the goal to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Php 3:14). What the runner pursues here is not a wreath but "the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The race is forward, the prize is upward, and the language of pressing toward a goal sustains the athletic figure into the figurative use.