The Prize

Winners in ancient Greek athletic contests were given wreaths that were usually made of the leaves of trees and were adorned with flowers. In the Pythian Games, winners received a crown made of laurel. In the Olympian Games they got crowns of wild olive leaves, while in the Isthmian Games they were given crowns of pine.  "To excite the ardor of the combatants," notes one Bible scholar, "the crowns, the rewards of the victory, and palm branches, lay during the contest, full in their view, on a tripod, or table, place in the stadium." For the winner, wearing the crown was a mark of great honor.  On his return home, he rode triumphantly in a chariot into the city.

Having this in mind, Paul asked the Corinthian readers: "Do you not know that the runners in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way that you may attain it. . . .Now they, of course, do it that they may get a corruptible crown, but we  an incorruptible one." (1 Corinthians 9:24, 25; 1 Peter 1:3, 4) What a contrast!  Unlike the fading crowns of the ancient games, the prize awaiting those who run the race for life to the finish will never perish. 

Regarding this finer crown, the apostle Peter wrote:  "When the chief shepherd has been made manifest, you will receive the unfadable crown of glory." (1 Peter 5:4) Could any prize this world offers compare with the immorality, the prize of incorruptible life in heavenly glory with Christ.?

Today, the greater majority of Christian runners are not anointed by God to be his spiritual sons and do not have a heavenly hope. They are not running for the prize of immorality. However, God also places a matchless prize before them. It is everlasting life n perfection on a paradise earth under the Kingdom of heaven. Whichever prize a Christian runner has his eye on, he should run with greater determination and vigor than any runner in an athletic contest.  Why?  Because the  prize will never fade:  "This is the promised thing that he himself promised us, the life everlasting." -1 John 2:25. 

With such an incomparable prize before the Christian runner, what should be his view of the enticements of this world?  It should be that of Paul who said:  "I do indeed also consider all things to be loss on account of the excelling value of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. On account of him I have taken the loss of all things and I consider them the as a lot of refuse."  In line with this, how hard Paul ran!  "Brothers, I do not yet consider myself as having laid hold on it, but there is one thing about it; Forgetting the things behind and stretching forward to the things ahead, I am pursuing down toward the goal for the prize." (Philippians 3:8, 13, 14) Paul ran with his eyes fixed firmly on the prize. So should we. 

Next time: Our Finest Example

From the Watchtower magazine, 2001