1st Corinthians Chapter 9, beginning with verse 19.

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all that I might win the more. And to the Jews I became as a Jew that I might

win Jews. To those who are under the law as under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those

who are under the law. To those who are without law as without law, though not being without

the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law.

To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak.

I have become all things to all men that may by all means save some. And I do all things

for the sake of the Gospel that I may become a fellow partaker of it. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.

They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we and imperishable.

Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim.

I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I buff at my body and make it my slave,

lest possibly after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.

When Paul wrote those words, he assumed that the Christians in Karnath knew all about the games.

The Olympic Games took place in Greece from 776 BC until

393 a.D. every four years without a break.

1,169 years until Theodosius put an end to them

because of their pagan associations in 393.

They knew all about the games.

And so he didn't have to explain the games.

He simply did what he and Jesus always do.

He saw the games in relationship to eternity.

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