Verse 23 lays down Paul’s ruling principle, which both impelled him to become all things to all men, with a view to their salvation, as he has been saying, and urged him to effort and self-discipline, with a view to his own, as he goes on to say.  ‘For the Gospel’s sake’ seems to point backward; ’that I may be a joint partaker thereof points forward.  We have not only to preach the Gospel to others, but to live on it and be saved by it ourselves.

HOW THE VICTOR RUNS

   ’So run, that ye may obtain.’—­1 COR. ix. 24.

‘So run.’  Does that mean ‘Run so that ye obtain?’ Most people, I suppose, superficially reading the words, attach that significance to them, but the ‘so’ here carries a much greater weight of meaning than that.  It is a word of comparison.  The Apostle would have the Corinthians recall the picture which he has been putting before them—­a picture of a scene that was very familiar to them; for, as most of us know, one of the most important of the Grecian games was celebrated at intervals in the immediate neighbourhood of Corinth.  Many of the Corinthian converts had, no doubt, seen, or even taken part in them.  The previous portion of the 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.