1 Corinthians 9:25 - "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable."

2 Timothy 2:5 - "An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules."

Beginning long before written history, athletics of one kind or another have been found among primitive peoples in all parts of the world. Carvings made in ancient Egypt and other lands show men in a variety of athletic sports and games. But athletics had their real beginnings in ancient Greece.

Among the Greeks, the fullest possible development of both body and mind was a cherished ideal. The Greeks’ admiration for beautifully developed bodies set them apart from all other peoples. A large part of every boy’s education was conducted in the gymnasium, where he learned to wrestle, run, jump, and throw the discus and the javelin.

The most outstanding athletes competed in the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games. Winners won great honor not only for themselves but for their cities. Crowns of the wild olive were the only prizes awarded at the national games, but the cities rewarded their athletes generously.

Athletic games were introduced into Rome from Greece, and in the sixth century A.D. they supplanted the contests of the gladiators, professional performers who fought to the death. But most of the champions were Greeks.

However, professional athletes do not seem to have been known in early times, although 2 Samuel 2:14, "Let the young men arise and play before us" implies the existence of tournaments on the amateur level. We do know that a large tournament of various events was held every five years at Tyre.

But it is in the intertestamental and New Testament times that we find the most explicit references to them. Herod the Great awarded valuable prizes to the winners of chariot races and wrestling matches. The gymnasium which Herod built at Caesarea was a constant source of resentment to the Jews, as well as the earlier attempt at Hellenization by Antiochus IV. In the Greek games, the athletes competed naked, and the Jews found that many of their young men were refusing to have their sons circumcised because of this habit. Also, to the Jew, this glorification of the body was a sin.

Paul, however, having been brought up in an atmosphere in which athletics were so important, makes many references to athletic contests. He might have viewed such contests at Corinth and Antioch, and he uses them to compare the athlete to the good Christian.

Of course, the obvious comparison is with today’s athlete. If you are aware of the strenuous and rigorous training schedules required of athletes, such as those training for the Olympic teams, and such, you know that athletics is hard work, not just play. And that’s what St. Paul says the Christian life is, too!