Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, so that you may win. Every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.
The apostle Paul wrote to people who knew sport well. Corinth hosted the Isthmian Games, and running, boxing and wrestling appear throughout his letters as images of the Christian life. These passages are for athletes, coaches and teams — and they keep sport in perspective.
Training and endurance
Paul compares discipleship to training for a race (1 Corinthians 9:24–25). The writer of Hebrews pictures believers running before a crowd of witnesses who finished before them (Hebrews 12:1–2). Both stress endurance and focus rather than talent.
Finishing well
Near the end of his life, Paul summarized it in athletic terms (2 Timothy 4:7). The goal is not a single victory but a faithful finish.
Keeping sport in its place
Paul affirms physical training while ranking it below godliness (1 Timothy 4:8). And the most famous athlete’s verse, Philippians 4:13, is about contentment: Paul had learned the secret of contentment “in any and all circumstances,” whether filled or hungry. Read that way, it speaks to losing as much as to winning.
For teams
Colossians 3:23 works well for a team motto: “whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord.” Every passage here can be downloaded as a square or portrait card for locker rooms and team chats.
The passages
Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
A great cloud of witnesses, like a stadium crowd; run with endurance, eyes fixed on Jesus.
I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.
Fought the good fight, finished the course, kept the faith — written near the end of Paul’s life.
Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Forgetting what is behind, straining toward what is ahead.
For bodily exercise has some value, but godliness has value in all things, having the promise of the life which is now and of that which is to come.
“Bodily exercise has some value, but godliness has value in all things.”
but those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength.
They will mount up with wings like eagles.
They will run, and not be weary.
They will walk, and not faint.
Run and not be weary: originally a promise to exiles waiting on God.
And whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,
Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly — effort as an offering.
Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Be strong and courageous: for the moment before the game, and beyond it.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Often painted on equipment. In context (4:11-13) Paul means contentment in plenty and in need — strength to handle losing as well as winning.
