1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Exhortation to Self-restraint

24. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? Not that this is the case in the Christian course, but that each should manifest the same eagerness and sustained effort as if the prize could be given to one only. The Corinthians are now exhorted to follow the example of their teacher in all self-mistrust and self-restraint. There can be little doubt that there is an allusion here to the Isthmian games, which took place every three years at a spot on the seacoast about nine miles from Corinth. This was one of those festivals "which exercised so great an influence over the Grecian mind, which were, in fact, to their imaginations what the temple was to the Jews and the triumph to the Romans." Stanley. At this period, he remarks, the Olympic games, the chief national institution of the Greeks (see Art. "Olympia" in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities), had possibly lost some of their interest, while the Isthmus had been the centre of the last expiring struggle of Greek independence, and was destined to be the place where, a few years after the date of this Epistle, Nero stood to announce that the province of Achaia had received the honour of Roman citizenship.

in a race Literally, in the stadium, or race-course. See Art. "Stadium" in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities. This was a fixed course, oblong in shape, with one end semicircular, fitted round with seats, that the spectators might see all that went on. It was "not a mere resort for public amusement, but an almost sacred edifice, under the tutelage of the patron deity of the Ionian tribes, and surrounded by the most solemn recollections of Greece; its white marble seats rising like a temple in the grassy slope, where its outlines may still be traced, under the shadow of the huge Corinthian citadel, which guards the entrance to the Peloponnesus, and overlooking the blue waters of the Saronic Gulf with Athens glittering in the distance." Stanley.

prize Greek, βραβεῖον, from whence, through the late Latin word bravium, comes our English brave. See note on next verse.