verse in which our text
occurs appeals to the Corinthians' familiar knowledge of the arena
and the competitors, 'Know ye not that they which run in a race run
all, but one receiveth the prize?' He would have them picture the
eager racers, with every muscle strained, and the one victor starting
to the front; and then he says, 'Look at that panting conqueror. That
is how you should run. _So_ run--'meaning thereby not, 'Run so that
you may obtain the prize,' but 'Run so' as the victor does, 'in order
that you may obtain.' So, then, this victor is to be a lesson to us,
and we are to take a leaf out of his book. Let us see what he teaches
us.

I. The first thing is, the utmost tension and energy and strenuous
effort.

It is very remarkable that Paul should pick out these Grecian games
as containing for Christian people any lesson, for they were
honeycombed, through and through, with idolatry and all sorts of
immorality, so that no Jew ventured to go near them, and it was part
of the discipline of the early Christian Church that professing
Christians should have nothing to do with them in any shape.

And yet here, as in many other parts of his letters, Paul takes these
foul things as patterns for Christians. 'There is a soul of goodness
in things evil, if we would observantly distil it out.' It is very
much as if English preachers were to refer their people to a
racecourse, and say, 'Even there you may pick out lessons, and learn
something of the way in which Christian people ought to live.'

On the same principle the New Testament deals with that diabolical
business of fighting. It is taken as an emblem for the Christian
soldier, because, with all its devilishness, there is in it this, at
least, that men give themselves up absolutely to the will of their
commander, and are ready to fling away their lives if he lifts his
finger. That at least is grand and noble, and to be imitated on a
higher plane.

In like manner Paul takes these poor racers as teaching us a lesson.
Though the thing be all full of sin, we can get one valuable thought
out of it, and it is this--If people would work half as hard to gain
the highest object that a man can set before him, as hundreds of
people are ready to do in order to gain trivial and paltry objects,
there would be fewer stunted and half-dead Christians amongst us.
'That is the way to run,' says Paul, 'if you want to obtain.'

Look at the contrast that he hints at, between the prize