Competition is both aggravating and animating. Like so many factors in our lives, it is used for good and ill, for dignifying and degrading mankind. It is so great that it leads to warfare between nations. It is so animating that it became the driving force of an American President to get to the moon before the Russians might accomplish the feat. It is so degrading that it leads to fisticuffs at sporting events or to breakup in marriage because one mate is outdistancing the other. The first marriage of President Ronald Reagan was ended when his wife was counseled that her career meant more to her future than her marriage. The stories are legion. Illustrations of the distortions and benefits of competition seem endless. It is another paradox/contradiction of good and ill.
The Apostle Paul, a biblical author, was an advocate of competition. We do well to study his special concept meaning, knowing that he had been acquainted with the lure of misdirected competition. He advocated special competition, in a humble context. The Apostle asked a question about receiving a prize, a prize related to competition. Everyone is running, but one will win. He urged his readers to win. He did not doubt the urge to win. He strongly affirmed winning, playing always by the rules, and doing well in one’s context with God.
Paul did not use the common Greek word for winning in the above text. That word has a root in the thought of pecuniary benefit, financial enrichment for success or honor. It was not the reward he sought. Money and/or fame are rewards most persons think about when centered on high level competition. One ball player negotiates more than another player. He beats the greed competition. One award by a jury to a plaintiff may be in the billions of dollars, so to be the highest award given by a court. The divorced couple determines who won by who had to pay the most money to the breakup – or who got the children, the house, and the stock certificates. Paul made it clear that his competition reward was to win Christ. (Philippians 3:8) What then is the concept of competition in the writings of Paul, even the whole of Scripture by all the writers?
It is clear, from the remaining verses of the above Pauline text, that the competition for sporting events, like boxing and racing, becomes analogy for the Apostle. Elsewhere he uses the competition of the soldier against an enemy, and, of course, the competition of good and evil, represented especially in the holiness of Christ, and the evil of Satan. In short, we live in a universe of competition. In Christian meaning, the concept is found in self-competition. The Apostle certainly did not believe that only one Christian from among millions would be the winner. Each one can win, and that is what he advocated. Every day of my life I am in competition with myself. My mind plays with images that are magnificent, and others I deplore. Even my dreams are competitive. It remains for me to choose that which both honors God and gives to me the conviction that I am making the affirmative (winning) choices personally, applying them to winning actions. I do my best, and win, by beating the second, or third, or fourth best person I might be, and may have been during my life race. The point is to be the best I can be over any lesser me. It takes serious self-examination to orient the principle, but it takes a lifetime to win it. The Apostle is not likely concerned with his readers being persuaded. He was concerned with his race. He was in competition with himself. It is something of a miracle that a student, who became a tentmaker in business, is counted as one of the ten most influential persons to have ever lived. The model for the race was Jesus Christ who had won earlier.
*Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020